Robben Ford played at the Infinity Music Hall in Norfolk Friday night. It was the second time we had seen him in three years at the venue and he was on fire, playing a variety of blues and jazz inflected solos over traditional blues material and some of his own tunes.

From Robert Johnson (Travelin’ Riverside Blues) to Paul Butterfield (Lovin’ Cup) to Elmore James and Jimmy Reed (Please Set A Date/You Don’t Have To Go) as well as some of his own compositions, including two  instrumentals, Indianola, a tribute to B.B. King, and a nod to the Texas Cannonball, Freddie King (Cannonball Express), Ford displayed his creative and eclectic approach on each of the songs in his setlist.

We saw him last in August of 2009. You can view a post on that show here.

His three-piece band of drummer Toss Panos and bassist Andy Hess were dynamic and accomplished and the capacity crowd loved everthing about Ford and his compadres.

He mainly played a Telecaster with occasional jaunts on a dirtier sounding Les Paul, through a dual-amp setup consisting of a Dumble Overdrive Special and what looked like either a Fender Twin or Super Reverb.

The Telecaster had a very clean, distinctive tone that could get raunchy when he wanted. His elaborate footboard put together by Vertex included two TC Electronic Hall of Fame Reverb units that provided some beautiful natural sounding hall effects. The footboard has an array of other effects including a modified Arion Chorus, Vox Wah-Wah, Vertex Volume Pedal and a modified Line 6 Delay unit.

He was also in fine voice, his a smooth and proficient set of pipes that can handle all the blues material he chooses with a distinctive style. His encore was the Willie Dixon classic Spoonful, played with a nod to the Butterfield arrangement, but with a slightly more uptempo shuffle feel.

He had one more date on the East Coast Saturday in New Jersey, then off to California for the two concluding dates of this tour. If you haven’t caught him yet, don’t miss him next time around. One of the masters.