We bought tickets months ago and anxiously awaited our trip to San Diego to see THE BLUES @ Humphrey’s By the Bay!  

Joe Bonamassa, as musicians often do, has armed himself with a phalanx of new bandmates for his current tour. This time uncharacteristically they all hailed -not from Memphis -home of the blues, but from “oprey” country, Nashville. Five or six misleading songs into the evening, we began sinking into the realization that’s these “legends” of Nashville were in attendance, not to partake in the blues fest we 1,000+ fans had gathered for, but to help us suffer an evening of country music covers instead of the BLUES by Joe Bonamassa we had paid so dearly to expect.

What he utterly failed to do was give his fans a heads up, indeed even including the announcer who heralded him onto the stage announced him as “Blues legend Joe Bonamassa and his mighty fine Blues Band”. Some of the unsuspecting fans, gulp, had spent in excess off $400/ticket, and flown 2,000 miles to attend, were totally blindsided by a playlist for the evening didn’t include a single Bonamassa song for the first 100+ minutes. These die-hard blues fans would be forced to wait through intro, overture and a long three acts for an encore of two relatively unknown new Bonamassa songs… There was much grumbling and outright anger surrounding our 6th row seats and even the bartender confessed that hard alcohol sales were way up and that most orders accompanied complaints.

What completely failed to materialize in the evening were any of the classic songs that JB has built his  entire fan base on… Slow Train, Sloe Gin & Midnight Blues were among those I was most disappointed to not here live!

OK, enough bitchin’ –if you’re a Bonamassa fan and perhaps importantly -if you’re a guitar geek, and haven’t seen this Welcome To Nerdville: Inside Joe Bonamassa’s Museum and Vintage Guitar Collection, you’ll love it!