Concert Photos: Joe Bonamassa Showed Once Again Why He’s Among the Greatest Guitarists at Playhouse Square Show

We can debate until the end of time the best guitar players to ever pick up their axe. Rolling Stone loves to debate this topic ad infinitum in a poll every several years, letting the darker recesses of the internet argue who should be placed higher than the spot they were given, or complain about who didn’t make the list.

Hendrix would be in there somewhere towards the top, I suppose. As would Steve Vai, Jimmy Page, Stevie Ray, Prince, B.B. King, and Eddie Van Halen.

But a name that may be overlooked, criminally, would be New York native Joe Bonamassa. Starting a career before he even hit puberty, he’s been collecting a fan base since the early ’90s; Saturday night’s sold-out crowd at the State Theater was a testament of his ability to hold a crowd in rapt attention.

Playing for nearly two full hours, Bonamassa offered up 13 tunes. A majority of the set were covers of older Blues songs, most notably “Twenty-Four Hour Blues,” made famous by Bobby “Blue” Bland. Towards the end of the lengthy set, he offered a screaming rendition of “How Many More Times,” a cover of the Led Zeppelin hit from their 1969 self-titled album.