Gary Clark Jr. rocks the blues at First Avenue

This is legendary right here. I’m trying to be cool but this gets me excited, ya know?

Gary Clark Jr. and his fantastic backing band hit First Avenue in Minneapolis with fury on Saturday night. From an early age, Gary Clark Jr. has showed that he can play with the best of them, and on this night he drove home a solid performance reiterating the fact that blues rock is far from dead.

The Austin, TX native and his distorted guitar tone swung between straight up rock songs like “Bright Lights” and “When My Train Pulls In”, to the Black Keys-esque song “Numb”. The sold out crowd was in it from the beginning, bouncing along to songs like the super upbeat “Shake” from his 2015 release The Story of Sonny Slim. While the songs may have changed in tempo, the show itself never lost it’s groove and kept a steady pace and energy throughout the nearly two-hour long set.

For the encore, Gary Clark Jr. came onto the stage with just his drummer Johnny Radelat who provided hi-hat accents for a beautiful rendition of Elmore James’ “Please Find My Baby”. The show ended with the big single “The Healing”, and it sounded as fantastic as the rest of the set. Gary Clark Jr. can shred with the best of them, and it was an honor seeing him at First Avenue. The guitarist also felt honored to be playing First Avenue. “This is legendary right here. I’m trying to be cool but this gets me excited, ya know?” he said in between songs, before plugging in a new guitar and cranking it to 11.