Review by Andrew Markowitz

Gary Clark Jr. has earned quite a few accolades for someone who hadn’t had a full length major label release until two weeks ago. The mayor of Austin, Texas held “Gary Clark Jr. Day” in 2001 for the then seventeen-year-old guitarist, and Rolling Stone named him “Best Young Gun” in their 2011 Best of Rock issue. Spin named him their breakout artist for their November 2011 issue, and in February 2012 Clark Jr. played the White House along legends like BB King and Eric Clapton. The aforementioned major label debut, Blak And Blu, has reached #6 on the Billboard Charts and #1 on their blues charts since its October 22nd release.

So is the hype justified?

Absolutely. Gary Clark Jr. threw down on Friday night at the 9:30 Club and let everyone know that there’s a new guitar god on the scene. Clark Jr. can hold rock in one hand and blues in the other and can combine the two in an incredible way—something more comparable to Jimi Hendrix than to contemporaries Dan Auerbach and Jack White. You need to hear it to believe it.

Opening the night was Kat Edmonson, the pixieish singer with a throwback jazz voice that you’d hear in a 1920’s speakeasy. Accompanied by an acoustic guitarist and cellist, Edmonson had all eyes on her with her sweet, relaxing voice. There’s great beauty in the simplicity with what Edmonson and her band bring to the table, a refreshing change of pace to a modern landscape of synth pop music.

Clark Jr. took the stage and launched into “When My Train Comes In” with an extended solo that left everyone’s jaw, mine included, on the floor. The ensuing buzz in the crowd before starting the next song, the uptempo boogie “Don’t Owe You a Thang” was electric. He slowed down with a cover of the Albert King classic song “Oh Pretty Woman” and his own “Please Come Home” which showed off his falsetto vocal abilities.

There were plenty of highlights throughout the show, but Clark Jr. capped the night with his single “Bright Lights” which contains the swagger-filled and prophetic lyric “You’re gonna know my name by the end of the night” and filled the 9:30 Club with rich, high flying solos. For his encore he covered “When the Sun Goes Down” before bringing the band back out and closing the night with a barn-burning rendition of Clark Jr.’s “Numb,” the hardest hitting track on his new album. If anyone in the sold out crowd didn’t know his name at the start of the show, they absolutely did by the end.