Memorabilia, with a nice touch of Chicago blues

It happens now and then: I get an itch for the blues and need it scratched. That is, performed live and, in this most recent instance, specifically a concert topped by famed bluesman Buddy Guy, among the last living post-World War II Chicago blues artists.

After a September visit to Buddy Guy's Legends, his Chicago nightclub just a block or two off South Michigan Avenue, I learned he was 86 and wondered, while sitting on a stool in the back of the memorabiliafilled venue, when he was finally going to lay down his guitars for the last time.

Indeed, after an Internet search last week, I discovered he was mounting his “Damn Right Farewell Tour” this coming year. But most of the dates, excluding several in Australia, are in the East or Midwest. Would he be visiting the Bay Area? I didn't see a local or regional date on the tour calendar.

While I may not be able to see and hear him in the coming months — unless I travel — I was lucky to discover he would be part of the Jim Irsay Collection show, a free concert hosted by the Indianapolis Colts football team owner, featuring John Fogerty, Guy, Stephen Stills and Ann Wilson on Dec. 10 at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco.

For me, the best draw is easily Guy, a Louisiana native who has influenced gobs of other famous blues guitarists, including Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Once inside the Grove Street auditorium, hard by the Civic Center Plaza, I discovered the lines to see part of Irsay's $100 million collection of music, sports and other pop culture objects. I wasn't there for the collection, the 75-plus artifacts, including Jerry Garcia's “Tiger” guitar and the original scroll of Jack Kerouac's novel “On The Road.” And I had heard Irsay, who, when not attending Colts games, travels the country showing off his collection and jamming with music legends, also paid big bucks ($4.9 million) for the guitar Kurt Cobain used in the music video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and one of Ringo Starr's vintage drum sets ($4 million). He also reportedly owns one of Muhammad Ali's championship belts, a “Godfather of Soul” jacket that belonged to James Brown, and the founding document of Alcoholics Anonymous, known to A.A. members as “The Big Book.”

When I walked into the auditorium's first floor, there was the Chevrolet Caprice convertible, known as the “Red Shark,” once owned by the iconoclastic writer Hunter S. Thompson. Looking over the seating arrangement inside the hall, I tried to figure out the best place, other than in front of the stage, to sit to see and hear the performers and the music, settling into a loge seat to the right of the stage.

The show began about 8:30 p.m., with Irsay, clad in a dark blue suit, sunglasses and cowboy hat, singing in a smoker's hoarse voice Warren Zevon's “Lawyers, Guns and Money.”

Ann Wilson, of Heart fame along with sister Nancy, sang a tribute to the late Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac, backed by a band that included master guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd, the singer-songwriter and blues musician. After Wilson left the stage, Mike Mills, bassist for R.E.M., sang a jaunty version of “Superman,” accompanied by a video on a massive screen, with two more smaller screens on either side of the stage.

After the backing band performed a creditable version of Linda Ronstadt's “You're No Good,” Guy, dressed in a creamcolored jacket and slacks and a Legends baseball cap, came on and immediately launched his signature tune, “Damn Right I Got The Blues,” with the lyrics “… from my head down to my shoes,” punctuated by his patented, searing guitar sound.

Not your typical NFL team owner, Irsay returned to sing his take on “Hurt,” the Nine Inch Nails song, accompanied by some members of the San Francisco Symphony, and spoke openly about his struggles with addiction and mentioned his starting a charity that raises awareness of mental health problems.

Stills, who first made a name for himself in Buffalo Springfield in the late 1960s, performed one of his best-known songs, the driving rocker “Carry On,” his voice raspy and somewhat diminished by age, and the iconic “For What It's Worth,” accompanied by blackand-white videos of civil rights protests. Nearly 55 years old, the latter song still has currency and relevance in this third decade of the 21st century.

Fogerty, of course, is father to a string of hits with Creedence Clearwater Revival. And he delivered them, thrilling the audience, during his 20 minutes or so onstage: “Up Around the Bend,” “Suzi Q,” “Have You Ever Seen The Rain,” “Down on the Corner,” and “Fortunate Son,” the latter an upbeat, anti-war tune from the late 1960s, with the refrain “It ain't me,” which may have defined the feelings for thousands of young men opposed to the draft and the Vietnam War raging at the time.

To end the show, Irsay returned to sing The Rolling Stones' “Gimme Shelter,” making a statement about not only his singular style of philanthropy and his effort, through music and relationships with famous musicians, to battle the demons that have afflicted him throughout his life.

It happens now and then: I get an itch for the blues, and I need it scratched. That is, performed live.