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Buddy Guy came out blazing, but his House of Blues concert was erratic

Look up the word "erratic" in the online dictionary and you might find a link to a video of Buddy Guy in concert.

Focused and brilliant one minute, distracted and sloppy the next, the blues guitar legend has confounded fans for so long they've learned to lower their bar of expectations.

Last March at Verizon Theatre, Guy was subdued to the point of inertia. But Friday night - spurred by chants of "Bud-dee! Bud-dee!" at a packed House of Blues - the guitarist came out blazing.

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Diving into his 1991 comeback song "Damn Right, I've Got the Blues," Guy unleashed the sort of controlled violence that spawned a whole a new vocabulary for the electric guitar in the mid-'60s and inspired Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and thousands more.

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At 78, his fingers still rage with furious anger. He fretted the strings with so much force in "Damn Right" he was able to play the entire solo one-handed.

But 10 minutes later, his soloing was aimless in Willie Dixon's 1954 classic "I Just Want to Make Love To You." It was like that for the whole 100-minute show as the pendulum swung from dazzling to dicey each time he soloed.

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He found better results when he sang as he moved easily from a deep gospel holler in Eddie Boyd's "Five Long Years" to a delicate falsetto in Marvin Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and Cream's "Strange Brew." His four-man band provided the consistency his guitar playing lacked, with just the right dash of New Orleans funk from keyboardist Marty Sammon and stunning solos by guitarist Ric Hall.

Guy seemed ornery at times Friday night. Sometimes it was for comic effect as he peppered his patter with a stream of vulgarities.

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Other times, he was clearly fed up. "Will you shut the (expletive) up for a moment?" he said, quieting one boisterous fan during the second song.

Mostly, he was his usual impish self, playing guitar behind his back, or with a drum stick, or by rubbing the strings against his shiny polka-dot shirt. Halfway through the show, he climbed off the stage and parted the crowd on the main floor, all the while playing and singing the Z.Z. Hill classic "Someone Else Is Steppin' In."

He never made good on his vow to climb to the balcony and perform. But just wait until next year.

"I still got a few good tricks up my sleeve," Guy sang. "I still know how to have my fun/ 'Cause I'm 78 years young."

By Thor Christensen