The English folk rock legend Richard Thompson played a double set at the 9:30 Club last night. I’m not very familiar with his music, only owning one of his near countless albums, but when I saw his show coming up I knew it wouldn’t be one to miss.

Since his new album consists of new songs but played live, it was only fitting for his first set to be playing it through start to finish. It sounds like a great collection of folk rock, and it was great to hear him with his excellent supporting cast. After a brief intermission, he came back out for seven or eight more songs from his previous albums and finished with two songs for encore. All in all this 61 year-old was rocking for almost three hours straight.

I was most familiar with his excellent acoustic finger work on “1952 Vincent Black Lightning”, truly an epic song that fills this guitarist with awe in terms of picking and songwriting, but this show instead highlighted his solid folk rock chops. This man isn’t called a virtuoso lightly.

For slower fare, try his new “Brother Slips Away”. To see him rock out, try “Dad’s Gonna Kill Me”. His take on classic Britney is strangely fitting. Honestly though, I’m not finding videos that quite live up to his energy and incredible musicianship displayed last night. Among the best guitar solos I’ve heard.

I should add that in the middle of a face-melting solo, he nodded to his roadie who leaped on stage with another guitar, slung it over Richard’s body, who nearly seamlessly transitioned his solo onto the new instrument. I didn’t see a string break on the first, so maybe it was just showing off, but either way I was impressed.

One last point: the best part of a concert where the median age is probably 50 is that not everyone is wearing form-fitting flannel.