By Daniel Paiz

Buddy Guy is celebrating his 90th birthday with a national tour from coast to coast, and Tuesday night he teaches Denver some blues despite the fools. The crowd was excited and frankly, slightly tipsy as well. The Blues aren’t exactly a squeaky-clean genre to begin with, and have origins from jute joints and any other places where booze and other unseemly events can take place. However, tonight’s show had a bit of what no show really needs to have: entitled people who think a ticket is a doing whatever they want during the show. It happened several times, and luckily, Guy and his band have experience with this.

Before jumping into a Buddy Guy set resplendent with blues, history lessons, and fools, let’s go over the impressive opening set from D.K. Harrell.

Opener

D.K. Harrell honestly looks like an extra from the set of Ryan Coogler’s Sinners. For the tunes he was playing, it felt the mood perfectly. Herrell featured several of his bandmates over the course of his set and also engaged the crowd in playful musical competition. The horn section, drummer, bassist and keyboardist each had a time to shine, and Herrell appeared to love every minute. His solos were entertaining, and there’s this sense that the blues are in good hands with this young man.

The crowd cheered, applauded, and gave standing ovations over the course of the opening set. When an opener can get the crowd that engaged and involved, something is going right. Guy knows he picked the right guy, and the night was nearly dialed to 11 before Buddy even stepped on stage.

Headliner

Buddy Guy has been performing for a very long time, and he had plenty to share with the Paramount Theater. The blues are not played on the radio for the most part these days, and the headliner brought this up several times. Guy appears to consider himself a flagbearer for the genre, something few would dare to dispute with all of the shows and traveling he’s done. His band rocked out from the opening number to the collab sesh with his son and with the opener. Guy picked around and strummed that guitar to the point that it felt like an extension of himself.

With the brief moments he shared stories and knowledge, he had to remind the crowd who he is and always has been over time.

Shut the fuck up, if you know more than me about this, I’ll ask you to come up here and explain it

-Buddy Guy when discussing British rockers, Muddy Waters, and the blues

More than several fans across the course of Guy’s set shouted out statements trying to share their knowledge? This was frankly weird, primarily because the headliner didn’t ask for it. Buddy is 90 years old. He’s been playing the blues for a long time, has played with a lot of notable artists, and has been supporting newer blues artists as well. What an audience member wants to share is unlikely to be news to Guy; he said variations of the above quote several times. There was a chat about Muddy Waters music being played by the Rolling Stones, and other British rockers who took what Blues artists were doing and became famous for it.

“Damn Right, I’ve Got The Blues” and “”Stay Around A Little Longer” were the only tracks I had heard before, which made the entire night a treasure trove of tunes from all over the place. The audience seemed to recognize more than I did. As a relative green horn to the blues, this was fine to me. The blues are one of those musical forms that feel accessible to anyone who is there to appreciate and sit with the music. All night the vibes were right, as the whole venue felt humid and closer to a smaller venue than a big theater; not quite a jute joint by any means, but that spirit was there.

D.K Harrell and Greg Guy, son of Buddy, joined the headliner on stage towards the end of the set and rocked out. Both guitarists joined Buddy’s guitarist (whose name I cannot find) and all three traded solos and licks for several rounds of rocky blues. This moment felt symbolic in that it seemed like a passing of the torch from one generation to another.