Scott, you mean I can't walk into School of Rock and come sounding like Dream Theater????

Bands like Dream Theater, stellar players from top to bottom, ruin music for a lot of people. I can play scales until the day I day but I will never play like Jordan Rudess. And guitar players can play scales until THEY die and not play like John Petrucci. Those are the kind of bands that when I see them, I am not inspired to work harder. They make me understand the futility of the whole game!! There are Rush copy bands everywhere. Thus, kids CAN learn to play the Alex Lifeson stuff. Same for Van Halen, Aerosmith...

Remember when everybody drooled over Van Halen doing "Eruption"? All I heard was "He is so great! He is amazing! He is the greatest player ever!!" I have heard at least 3 dozen players copy that whole thing note for note. Doesn't that mean they are also great and amazing? They are playing the same stuff.....

I do agree the guitar is now sitting at the back of the stage, but the John Mayer types, the John Scofield types, those players who play in a genre where the guitar IS the instrument, they will keep the guitar alive. Whether that is true across the board of genres or not is debatable. I watch Lollapalooza every year. The big draws the last few years were the DJs who play extended mixes of other people's stuff sampled. Not even AN instrument, much less THAT instrument.

So I think it comes down to where you are looking. That weird SkrillX person, whoever he is, doesn't really even know music. He is a computer whiz, but he isn't really a musician. But isn't he popular??

So, you can still find a guitar out front if you know where to look. The basic premise though I have to agree with. You are likely going to find it in older acts, but it's there.

Can you even TRY to imagine Joe Walsh playing with a computer on stage??