Buddy Guy [ tickets ] had one directive for his group on Friday (2/24) at the Fillmore in San Francisco: "I want the band to play so funky you can smell it."

The great guitarist/vocalist took that directive to heart. His sold-out show was mighty funky, but not in the way that one would hope. It was funky as in peculiar. And, as far as the sense of smell goes, Guy came close to stinking up the joint on occasion.

None of that had anything to do with his guitar playing. Guy showed once again at San Francisco's most hallowed venue that he deserves to be ranked among the greatest guitarists to ever pick up the instrument. Also, unlike some other bluesmen in his age bracket, the 69-year-old Chicago-based musician still has a mighty strong voice.

It was all the other "stuff" that seriously detracted from the show.

Serious blues fans have a saying about Buddy Guy concerts and it goes something like this: "Which Buddy showed up?" Translated, that means, "Was it the pro who gets down to business and plays some serious licks, or was it the goofy showman who lacks direction on stage?"

At the Fillmore, unfortunately, we got too little of the former and too much of the latter.

The show started out incredibly strong as Guy led his solid five-piece backing band through a stirring version of Don Nix's "Going Down," which is best known as a Freddie King tune. His guitar playing was so crisp and so overwhelmingly emotional that it seemed Rolling Stone might actually have underrated him by putting him at No. 30 on the magazine's list of 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.

And he would definitely support that claim on the next track, a cover of Willie Dixon's "(I'm Your) Hoochie Coochie Man." He turned that Muddy Waters staple into a drawn-out blues workout that featured some of the most blistering guitar leads I've heard in years.

"This is the kind of s--- you don't hear on the radio no more," Guy said after lighting up yet another smoking solo. "That's why I come here to play it for you. Why they don't play it [on the radio], I don't know. But if you call me, you got me."

Following "Hoochie Coochie Man," the show began to deteriorate as "Buddy Guy the Pro" apparently left the building and was replaced by "Buddy Guy the Goofy Showman."

He pulled his old (and tired) trick of walking out onto the floor to play and sing a bit while being escorted by security through a sea of fans. (He didn't, however, venture into the ladies' room, which he did at this same venue a few years back.)

He also embarked on the regular (and even more tired) Buddy Guy routine of playing snippets of tunes made famous by other great guitarists. The problem with this is that it saps the show of its momentum and kills the flow. He would start a Jimi Hendrix song and then pull the plug on it. He played a little Eric Clapton--screwed up on the number--and then went on to another tangent. It's hard to imagine Clapton doing the same thing with a Buddy Guy song during one of his shows.

From that point, Guy continued to operate in a glass ball of confusion, and it grew increasingly less interesting to watch.

When he stuck to his own material, such as he did with "What Kind of Woman is This" from 2005's "Bring 'Em In," the result could be quite entertaining. But it simply didn't happen often enough to save this show from frustrating mediocrity.