Blues guitarist Steve Grills is about as low key as they come; a tres cool operator that wields a red-hot guitar. Parked stage left, he puts his band, The Roadmasters, through the paces as he gives the audience a tour of the blues – a sampler platter, if you will, or perhaps passages off yellowy pages ripped from an encyclopedia of the blues. Mixed in with Grills’ referential and reverential treatment lies the man’s own sound, one that weaves in and out with the ghosts he admires and conjures.

Grills is a tremendous guitar player who possesses an equal amount of humility. He could stand to brag a little, if he wanted, but Grills plays the blues more as an unassuming acolyte in awe of the genre rather than the standard six-string grandstanders who often get in the way of the music. It’s as if the blues plays Grills. And it’s been playing him since he was 10 years old.