HE IS Macclesfield's most famous blues musician, and indisputably the most renowned and influential of" white blues artists. At 63, John Mayall is living proof that old blues men never die, they just tour forever.

This gig blasted off the Paddy Live series of music concerts at the Galway Arts Festival, a fitting opening to the event's strongest line up in several years. Mayall was on good form, too, playing to the gallery (if indeed there is such a thing in the Festival Big Top), whilst allowing the lead guitar player, Buddy Whittington, to both cajole and caress the audience into varying states of blues bliss.

Occasionally unhappy with the on stage sound and the continuous flurry of flies that threatened to form a halo around his head, Mayall mastered proceedings with a glance here and a look there. It seems his notoriety as a strict bandleader is well founded. Yet despite his apparent sternness, he was relaxed enough to let Whittington carry much of the show, a career trait that has its roots in Mayall's early determination to feature a lead guitarist well versed in the tenets according to the three Kings (B.B., Albert, and Freddie) and the likes of Otis Rush and Buddy Guy.