It's taken quite a while for George "Buddy" Guy to become a star in his own right. Now on the cusp of 62, it wasn't until the late 1980s that Guy was fully recognised by the then new-found crossover blues audience. At this point, he came out of the commercial wilderness of low-key blues clubs and festivals to play with the likes of Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan. In no time at all, Buddy Guy was a man with a mission.
At the Olympia we witnessed part of his mission statement. Pretty much a masterclass in the art of the blues, the show was a frustrating mixture of bravura guitar work, inane facial grimaces, gracious homespun philosophies and a theatrical direction which bordered on the ludicrous. It was occasionally funny (he's got to be the only blues guitarist who has played in the venue's Ladies and Gents, although why that's inherently amusing beats me - perhaps you had to be there), but mostly it was wearing. When he put his fingers to work, however, the results were little short of terrific.
The longer the songs, the less profound the blues experience. Intent more often than not on playing for laughs (showmanship governed the scope of this gig more than anything else), Guy connected with his own material rather than his cover versions. It Feels Like Rain and Midnight Train were, despite the requisite longueurs, superb examples of sensuous and propulsive blues songs.
There were other highlights - regular peerless pinpoint guitar playing, Guy shouting down an out-of-tune heckler, the goosebump whisper of the chorus to It Feels Like Rain - but these were ultimately overshadowed by an approach which promised much more than it delivered.
