B.B. is The King of the Blues.

I just came back from seeing B.B. King at the House of Blues in Disneyland. Wow. Wow. The thrill sure isn't gone away from B.B.

The only negative was that the HOB is standing-room only, but that's more then compensated for the fact that it's such a small venue - maybe 500 people in the bottom area. It's perfect for the call/response nature of the blues and the acoustics were great.

Anyone who gets everyone to sing along with You Are My Sunshine is something special. He mixes it all in with stories and segues into pieces like "Nobody Loves Me But My Mother". You can also tell how proud B.B. is of his recent Presidential Medal of Freedom award ("Freedom!") which he had on his lapel.

Fantastic.

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Queen + Paul Rodgers rocked the Bowl.

I must admit that I was skeptical about Paul Rodgers and this whole Queen + Paul Rodgers before going to the show tonight at the Hollywood Bowl. After all, it's been 23 years since Queen last performed in LA and almost 15 years since Freddie died (yikes!).

No longer. Wow. What a phenomenal show. A good mix of ages in the crowd with the majority being people who were in attendance when they were there last; but not an insubstantial number of folks who were born after A Night at the Opera was released.

I just didn't give Rodgers enough credit. As my friend (who was as skeptical if not more so) said, "Gee, Paul did more hits on his own than I thought." Well, duh.

Freddie is the lead vocals of Queen with his wonderful voice and it was scary to think how bad it could be if they picked the wrong person. Brian and Roger knew what they were getting: as good a talent as could be found. I was wrong, they were right.

Paul was good in that he didn't try to be Freddie - he is a similar outgoing/showhound personality (and that's what needed in this group to make it work on-stage). At the same time, he's different and didn't try to imitate Freddie in his mannerisms. Still, he pretty much nailed the vocals.

It didn't hurt that Brian and Roger were in top form with both their playing and vocals. (You tend to forget how much Brian and Roger sang; perhaps they emphasized their songs a bit more too.) A few times they both commented how much they wished Freddie was there with them. As much as we all miss him, they probably do so way more.

Early on, they did Fat Bottomed Girls and Another One Bites The Dust. Yay.

Brian did an acoustic '39 which was great to hear. Brian also did (I believe) Love Of My Life on electric guitar and asked the rest of us to sing along. "Freddie's not here to sing this one, so you'll have to make do with me. Feel free to jump in!" We did.

I kidded my friend when Roger did I'm In Love With My Car. Radio Ga-Ga was fun.

Some nice pics of the band on their early visit to Japan were projected on-screen as Roger sang These Are The Days Of Our Lives. I'm sure it is much more meaningful today than when they first wrote it. And, boy, they sure were younger then. (Fittingly, they are off to Japan now to finish off this tour.)

Slash came out and joined up for Paul's Can't Get Enough of Your Love. Needless to say, Brian and Slash made a kick-butt guitar combo.

Towards the end, they did Bohemian Rhapsody - with Freddie doing the vocals via cuts from his performances as video montages/clips of Freddie were projected on the screens. Brian and Roger played the instruments live. Rodgers didn't sing most of the verses here (a few though), but yielded mostly to Freddie. Very well done.

Then, they closed with We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions. As you can guess, the vocal part was done by the entire stadium. Woot.

FWIW, tonight's set list (not up yet, but should be soon) looks very similar to the one in Return of The Champions. I'll probably end up buying the DVD soon.

Good times. Good times. Off to sleep now.

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