Dwarfed in front of the Convocation Center stage, father and son combo Mark and Eric Davison basked in the reflected glow of a vintage Lisle organ before the B.B. King Blues Festival Thursday night.

“They just don’t make them like they used to,” said Eric Davison, a junior at Valparaiso University in Indiana.

“Are you referring to the organ or B.B. King,” said Mark Davison of Buffalo Grove.

Vintage is one way to describe King, now 80 years old. Enigmatic is another. Young at heart, is better still.

However, it’s easy to stay young at heart when touring with two of the blues’ most electric personalities: Kenny Wayne Sheperd and Joe Bonamassa.

Awash in rich blue hues, King’s set began at approximately 9:25 p.m.

The set opened with two songs by his backing band while King waited backstage for the excitement to build. To a standing ovation, he took his throne sitting center stage, donned with his signature black mahogany guitar, named Lucille.

“Thanks for waiting around for an old man to get out here,” King jested to the crowd.

Between the pearly, economic blue notes laced in his sporadic solos and songs, King bantered and soliloquized about love, blues and women.

King commanded the crowd during his hour and a half set with an authority only 50 years of public performances can mandate.

After the show, King was given a collage/portrait by Debra Grall, Head of Fine Arts at NIU.

“I was excited to meet B.B. King and be able to do something for him,” Grall said.

Before King, Sheperd took the stage like a blonde biker, toting a guitar sound hard enough for the classic-rock lovers.

Though the songs were more structured and short, it was still a little too hard for the more conservative attendee’s there solely for King.

“B.B. wanted to throw the ‘younger guys’ in there, I’m sure, to appeal to a wider range,” said Kevin Selover, marketing director for the Convocation Center.

“But I think Chicago has a tradition for the blues, and we draw people from the suburbs to the bigger venue for great blues outside the city.”

The Blues Fest was opened by former child-prodigy, Bonamassa, clad in a suit and bow-tie.

“I came here from Cincinnati to see Bonamassa,” said Joe White, junior at the University of Cincinnati. “Bonamassa hails from Cincinnati, so I had to see him, especially with B.B. King.”

With a set of four songs, the 35-minute act set Bonamassa on a pedestal of blues-rock virtuoso.

“That first band was good, but we’re here for B.B.,” said Roger VanVlerah of Cortland.