EDMONTON - MCs have been introducing B.B. King as the "King of the Blues" for so long now, he gets standing ovations just for sitting down.

Not that you'd begrudge him the seat. At the age of 80, he's about 15 years past the shelf-life of the average bluesman. So if he needs to sit in order to make it through two hours of tunes without an opening act or intermission? Well, hail to the king.

The mere fact that his chops still sometimes outstrip younger guitar slingers with frightening ease and precision speaks volumes about the title, earned over 50 years of blending blues, jazz, and cottonfield angst.

It's getting tougher, however, to meet the B.B. King who can so dominate a room with a simple three-note riff. While he still flares away on occasion with smoking abandon and plenty of thick Gibson tone on Lucille, such instances are few and far between.

Halfway through last night's sold out show at the Jubilee Auditorium, he joked that he likes to talk so much that some people would go home and complain that he talked all night. He wasn't kidding. When it comes to an exercise in how to stretch a dozen or so songs - and bits of songs - into a two-hour show, he really IS the king.

Still, there were moments of brilliance. He launched into a riff on I'll Survive off of Riding With The King, his '90s collaboration with Eric Clapton, that was reminiscent of the classic Summertime and would've been haunting, if he hadn't wept mock tears throughout.

King was once asked how he could make it through one more night of having to play The Thrill is Gone, his signature single, first written and recorded by Texas pianist Roy Hawkins way back in 1951, but turned into a megahit by King in 1970. Thirty-five years, an average of 275 nights a year? By my count (OK, my computer's) that's about 9,625 renditions. To most artists, that total would make it the most aptly named tune in their arsenal. To King, it's still fun.

"We play some songs - The Thrill is Gone - every night. I have to or they'll throw tomatoes at me. I tell the band to play it as they feel it, not note for note. That's the way we play. We don't get tired of it because it's never the same," he told media last year.

He hadn't played it by press time last night, but he pretty much always closes with it these days anyway. What he did show was that he still values an eclectic approach to his song arrangements: he opened with a double-time version of Why I Sing the Blues that might've crackled, had the first half-dozen songs on the night not been marred by some truly horrendous sound work. His nine-piece band did its best during two warmup numbers to get the balance down, but it was apparent all night that the rhythm section was frustrated by the ups and downs, particularly in drum volume.

As a result, they suffered from a malady even the best blues bands sometimes face: an inability to get in the groove for the first four or five tunes. When you're only looking at a dozen or so on the night, that can be a real problem.

On a sedate I Need You So, King demonstrated he can still belt it out with the best of them, although once again his advanced age combined to ensure he didn't play much lead. Nightlife was complicated by so much high-end on the horn section that it drowned King out, and was therefore truncated at King's direction, which happened several times during the night. In fact, it wasn't until the horns left the stage after about 45 minutes, and King was left to front a five-piece, that things came together.

Of course, going to see B.B. King these days is kind of like visiting your grandma: you know neither has long left on this Earth, and it might be the last chance. As such, the folksy, sing-a-long atmosphere didn't seem to phase the crowd at all.

They weren't expecting one of his classic '60s shows, and they didn't get one. Instead, they sang along, poorly, to the chorus of When Love Comes to Town, and King pulled out an occasional cooking solo that belied his age and spoke directly to his stature.

By the time he kicked into All Night Long (or Rock Me Baby, depending on which artist is doing it), the crowd was nodding and clapping along. Even on an off night, when he's more inclined to lay down schtick than get down with the blues, it seems B.B. King can still hold court with the best of them.