Tonight on Summerfest's Potawatomi Bingo Casino Stage, Willy Porter -- a Milwaukee-based singer-songwriter known for his killer finger-style skills and for being a truly nice guy -- demonstrated his mastery of finger-style guitar to an almost full house.

"This is my 23rd Summerfest show in a row," said the baseball-cap wearing Porter at the beginning of the show.

A six-member band -- which at one point featured two drummers -- accompanied Porter and backed him up for the entire performance except during the crowd-pleasing anthemic song "How To Rob A Bank."

"I'm tired of getting ripped off by the same people," he said, introducing the song.

During the 90-minute gig, Porter played about a dozen songs, including "Colored Lights," "Wide Open Mind," "Dandelion," "Barefoot Reel," "If Love Were An Airplane," Leonard Cohen's "Everybody Knows," Peter Gabriel's "Digging In The Dirt" and his vintage hit single, "Angry Words."

Porter's career started around 1994 with the release of his second album, "Dog Eared Dream," which featured "Angry Words." The song gained popularity on AAA radio and landed him opening gigs with Tori Amos, Jeff Beck and The Cranberries. Prior to his commercial success, Porter played every Sunday night at Madison's Club de Wash.

These days, Porter -- who is the father of two children -- tours a lot less. Family is clearly extremely important to Porter, who dedicated "Wide Open Mind" to his "sweetie" and told the audience that "If Love Were An Airplane" is his young son's favorite song of his.

Also, a couple of times during the performance Porter shared his spiritual side, saying that he wrote "How To Rob A Bank" after sitting at his kitchen table praying to Woody Guthrie for advice, and at the end of the show he said "God bless you" to the audience.

Porter has about a dozen Midwest dates scheduled for the next three months, including a show at Harmony In the Bay in Sturgeon Bay on Tuesday, July 20 and a Milwaukee return on Friday, Oct. 8 at The Pabst Theater.

Always humble, grateful and down-to-earth, Porter has a "real guy" presence on stage. Twice during the performance Porter introduced his band members which include back-up vocalist Carmen Nickerson, bass player Brian Mir, Dave Shoepke on drums, Ryan "Casper" Petersen on guitar and the extremely energetic Dave Adler on keyboard.

Also, Porter thanked the sound people and asked the audience to buy one of the guys a Miller.

However, Porter's usual strong showmanship was missing from tonight's show. During most shows, he tells detailed stories and spontaneously makes up songs on stage, but neither were present during the gig. Instead, he shared a couple of charming sentences before going into the tune. At one point he thanked the audience for coming out so early for a music show.

"Anything that happens before 10 p.m. I'm usually a little suspect of it," he says.

No doubt about it, Porter is a Milwaukee favorite due to his incredibly expressive, free-form finger-style guitar playing, his 20-year presence and his genuineness. However, Porter is best in an intimate setting, and nuances of his voice were lost in the airy Potawatomi pavilion.

But despite a slight lack of luster, fans gave Porter a standing ovation and he returned for an encore song that he dedicated to former Brewer, Cecil Cooper.

"It's a beautiful Tuesday night," said Porter.