Last summer my wife treated me to a surprise weekend at 'Guitar Town' in Copper Mountain Resort, CO.

Saturday is 'acoustic day' with wizardry galore - favorite of the day was Andy McKee.

Sunday is 'electric day' with Steve Vai as top billing. Here were the performers for electric day last year, before Vai:

Matt Schofield

John Jorgenson Electric band with Chris Casello & Stig Mathiesen

Sonny Landreth

Robben Ford

and then Steve Vai.

Favorites were Matt Schofield and Chris Casello. Schofield is in the vein of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Casello is a mixture of a whole bunch of players and the best entertainer of the entire lineup.

Vai's sound guys must have been somebody other than the rest of the day, because they actually were clipping the main speakers of the PA. It was punishingly brutal. I had both disposable and custom hearing protection with me and the bass guitar as well as the drums were actually clipping the mains - this is actually easy to hear with hearing protection in place. There was no music, and I like Vai's wizardry for what it's worth. We stayed for two songs and then left. Vai made all kinds of funny faces as he played, which he is known to do, and I wondered if he has any hearing left whatsoever to hear simply how terrible it sounded.

We also walked out of Eric Johnson's set the day before because guess what he played mostly at 'Guitar Town'? The piano. Yes, THE Eric Johnson, on the billing as the headliner for the acoustic day, played about 75% piano (and just o.k. piano playing) and 25% acoustic guitar. Highly disappointing.

Best part of the day however was that I won a Taylor 414ce guitar in a drawing.

It was hard comparing with what I got to see/hear in 2009, the other time I've been at the festival. Tommy Emmanuel at about 10' away.

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