Experience PRS 2010: Plant Tour, Guitars Galore and a Big Tent Jam
Today, Matt Warnock, Editor, Guitar International and I focused most of our time on the operations and production side of the PRS guitar equation.
Today, Matt Warnock, Editor, Guitar International and I focused most of our time on the operations and production side of the PRS guitar equation.
Almost by pure coincidence I found myself in Belo Horizonte, Brazil during the first week of August, 2010, just as the city’s annual Savassi Jazz Festival was fully under way.
During my week long course on jazz-guitar improvisation, I meet with the students for four hours each afternoon on the University’s newly built campus extension which houses the music department. The students came from a wide variety of backgrounds, and were at various levels in their musical development, but one thing that they all shared was an eagerness to learn and an enjoyment of all things guitar.
A seemingly insignificant event happened last weekend: two touring bands from the Bay Area played in the basement of the Double Door in Chicago to a measly crowd of about twenty people. To anyone not in the “Dirtroom,” this paltry concert might as well have not happened at all, and this truth is incredibly unfortunate.
On a cool, rainy fall evening in downtown Chicago, the kind of day that painfully reminds the city’s residents that the long, cold winter is fast approaching, the Paulinho Garcia Quartet featuring Art Davis took the stage at the Auditorium Theater and warmed the crowd with two breathtaking sets of Brazilian standards and arrangements of American jazz classics.
What do you get when you combine some of the top metal bands, booze, stage diving and partying outside on a broiling hot New Jersey summer day? Hell, it must be the Rockstar Energy Drink UPROAR Festival. This festival, like the Rockstar Mayhem Festival, has two stages of live music and plenty of the same drunken craziness.
You are a guitarist in a successful rock band. You are planning to tour in support of your most recent record, which has sold more than a million copies. The tour will take you throughout most of the world. The following test will help you to spend on tour. Remember, your band is a platinum-selling act, and one of the most popular hard-rock bands around.
As the night crept by and the Sun slowly started to set, the backdrop changed from a pale blue sky to a multi-gray canvas with patches of pure darkness that were headed right towards us. Buddy Guy’s band began taking the stage one by one and you could feel the anticipation growing, anticipation that we were soon to be greeted by one of the greatest performers and showman of all time. I don’t want to sound clichéd, but the word “legendary” is truly what comes to mind when you see Buddy Guy take the stage.
The Illinois River, a massive iron bridge that stretches across it, and a pale blue sky that threatened rain like a school yard bully, served as the backdrop at the Peoria, IL Steamboat Days celebration, June 18, 2010. It looked like the perfect day for a blues concert, and minus the erratic weather, turned out to be one of the best shows I’ve seen in awhile. Playing tunes from their latest release, Flood, Moreland and Arbuckle commanded the stage with their brilliant concoction of Mississippi-esque Blues and high energy Southern rock. These guys are a welcome break from the 12-bar form in a Robert Johnson-like manner, telling a story of tragedy and overcoming it from chord to chord.
Sheryl Crow and her talented crew rocked the grounds at the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts, Vienna, Virginia , June 17, 2010, with a robust show filled with hit after major hit.
