Hanging out with B.B. King on his bus
My friend Doc and I saw that legendary blues musician B.B. King was going to be in town and that we would make an attempt heading down to the venue. It was late at night since we figured it might be easier to approach him after his performance. Upon arriving at the venue, we scoped it out a bit and actually saw a couple tour buses parked off to one side. After further investigation it was definitely King’s bus as there was a custom tag clearly indicating so. Nobody was around, so we decided to take a seat nearby and see if anything happens later on.
We patiently waited over an hour or so, and a small crowd starts trickling out. The show was now over and we eagerly awaited seeing B.B. King coming back to his bus. We see a line of a dozen people or so begin to form right by his bus door. This wasn’t your regular crowd of groupies waiting to obtain an autograph, this was way more civilized and orderly. Doc and I head over and acted as if we belonged and stood in line with the others.
The moment has come! B.B. King begins approaching his bus in his wheelchair along with a couple people from his entourage helping him. To our surprise, not a single person was asking him for a picture or an autograph, but these people must be in line for some reason. We waited along with the others and fit in just perfectly. King enters his bus and minutes later someone tells everyone in line that they will each get a turn going on the bus to meet with B.B. King. We stumbled upon a V.I.P. Meet and Greet line! The odd thing was nobody at all was checking for tickets or verification of any sort. If you look the part and appear that you know what you’re doing, most of the time you will be left alone. If we had approached King as he left the performance we would’ve more than likely been denied, but because we were calmly waiting in the line of V.I.P’s we were not bothered one bit.
Once it was our turn, we hopped right on the bus and had the privilege to sit down and chat with the legend himself. We talked for awhile as he signed anything and everything we had. He gladly posed for pictures with us and it turned out to be a fantastic night!