The thing I was most looking forward to - the photo opp in front of the wall of Marshall amps! LOL
GearFest is a weekend dedicated to musicians. Sweetwater is one of the nation's top dealers for instruments and gear. Each summer, it opens its campus to thousands of musicians and fans. There are several vendors hawking recording equipment inside and outside. We wandered around the merchandise tents but didn't really try anything out and certainly didn't purchase anything. Well, I take that back... I bought a cute ring made from beads and guitar string. Recording artists (mostly touring musicians and session players) are brought in to give presentations and demo the merchandise. We (mostly Wes and Dominique because I was not familiar with a single name on the "famous guests" list) reviewed the schedule of presenters and decided to attend a few workshops each day.
Steve Vai
The first musician we saw was Steve Vai. He is a famous solo guitarist who is known for his seven stringed guitar and technical & creative playing. I wasn't familiar with his music but I became a fan as soon as he started performing. He is an amazing player and his music sounds new. We've all heard a bunch of guitar music throughout our lives but his compositions sounded unique; not like anything else I've heard. Sadly, he only played two songs and then sat down to an interview. I didn't understand a lot of the technical jargon and I think he was mostly promoting the Vai Module (some fancy piece of equipment). He did tell us about his line of guitars that has vials of his own blood swirled into the lacquer design. Which sounds gross but is probably a great collectible for a fan. Steve Vai was who Wes was looking forward to the most.
Nick Bowcott (he had all of this neat memorabilia displayed but started packing it up as soon as his clinic was over)
My favorite workshop was Nick Bowcott's. He played in Grim Reaper and is a music journalist. Dominique actually took guitar lessons from him for about a year. He played on a left-handed white striped Van Halen guitar that was specially made for him. I think the story was that Nick liked that style of guitar but someone famous had it so he didn't want to copy him but then that famous person died but before he died, he requested that a replica be made for Nick. Or something like that; it was really hard to hear in the room where the workshop was held. I wasn't exactly sure what his workshop was supposed to be about (he kind of just told stories and rambled on) but he was the only presenter we saw who wasn't trying to promote their merchandise. I think he just wanted to motivate people to play guitar and become rock stars. LOL He was surprisingly inspirational; he told us that hard work will surpass talent any day because a determined hard-working person who believes in their dream will achieve their goals much more likely than a talented lazy person or a hopeful person who isn't willing to put in the effort. At the end of it, I was clapping and chanting, "Amen, brother!" along with everyone else. His talk was inspired by Dimebag Darrell from the band Pantera. "Dime" was one of Nick's closest friends and when he passed in the early 2000s, Nick started giving workshops in his honor. For this presentation, Nick wore one of Dimebag's shirts and taught us some of his guitar technique. There was one technique that Nick wasn't very familiar with so he invited a woman named Courtney (who plays in an Iron Maiden cover band named The Iron Maidens) onto the stage to demonstrate.
Michael Sweet
The musician Dominique was most looking forward to was Michael Sweet of the band, Stryper. A few of the presenters tried to be subtle when promoting their gear, but Michael had no problem advertising his guitar pedal box thing. It's some fancy piece of equipment that he helped design and a lot of the presets are inspired by his style of playing. I really don't even know exactly what it is and I had to listen to him talk about it for an hour. Ha ha ha! He also gave a very personal audience Q & A session. Stryper is a Christian heavy metal band so there were some fans who gave testimonies about how Michael's music literally saved them. It was a little awkward. Michael didn't play very many songs, which was how most of the workshops went (I expected there to be more music).
Eric Johnson
We also saw Eric Johnson (another solo guitarist). He was supposed to be giving a "special performance" but after a handful of songs, the concert turned into an audience Q &A session. It would have been an interesting interview but no one in the audience had access to a microphone so no one (including Eric) could fully understand the questions. I think he did his best to answer, though. I enjoyed GearFest alright but I really expected there to be a lot more demos and performances. Instead, the presenters were hired by Sweetwater to sell, sell, sell! Wes liked all of the talks on guitar tone and technique.
The Sweetwater All-Stars on top; other GearFest highlights throughout
The supposed highlight of GearFest was the customer appreciation concert (I, personally, think the highlight was the rows and rows of food trucks 😂) The concert started with a young (aged 15 - 18) band of Sweetwater musicians named Bonsai. They are all currently taking lessons on the Sweetwater campus and they were really good. During the set change, I Believe in a Thing Called Love played on the loud speakers, which was exciting because that was the first song of the festival that I recognized and I was wearing my The Darkness concert t-shirt! The Sweetwater All-Stars played for the remainder of the concert. The all-stars are made up of several Sweetwater employees who are also really good musicians. Their CEO played the saxophone! Many of the presenters (including all of the ones mentioned in this blog) took turns playing a song with the all-stars. The concert was extremely efficient. The MC would announce a featured soloist, famous person would come out, play exactly one song, go off stage and the next one was announced. I think anywhere from 20 - 30 musicians came out to play during the two-hour concert. It was really fun! I love trying new things and am not afraid to jump into topics that I am unfamiliar with but I don't like heavy metal music nor do I play an instrument so I really expected GearFest to be for Wes and Dominique but I think, in the end, I enjoyed it as much as they did and am really glad we went.
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