Note to the hordes of teens aimlessly wandering at Summerfest Tuesday night. You missed an opportunity to see and hear a master electric blues guitarist weep and wail his way through a stirring 90-minute set.

Mato Nanji, the lead man in Indigenous, showed Milwaukee why he is often compared with Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. It's a shame that his audience at the Potawatomi Bingo Casino Stage & Pavilion was sparse, but the people who were there were appropriately appreciative.

First some background. Nanji, two siblings and a cousin began playing blues music in his parents' basement on the Yankton Indian reservation in South Dakota in the early '90s.

Members of the Nakota Indian nation, they called their band Indigenous, and by the mid-'90s they had emerged from the cellar and started receiving national attention.

The group recorded albums and opened for a variety of national superstars, including Bob Dylan and B.B. King. Five years ago, Indigenous restructured and Nanji was the only member of his family to remain with it.

Bassist Derek Post and drummer Charles Sanders now back Nanji, whose fast, fluid and visceral guitar work is the whole show.

Nanji and his colleagues are efficient -- the concert Tuesday night started five minutes early -- and all business. The only flash is in his playing, and that was enough.

We heard echoes of Hendrix's style at times, but it was the comparison with Vaughan that was particularly striking. Too bad the sound at Potawatomi is so poorly balanced, vocals are often smothered and muddied.

Not only did Nanji's guitar playing remind me of Vaughan. I think I heard a voice that often sounded like Stevie Ray's.