Guitar Player Magazine, one of the oldest and most venerable guitar magazines in the world put on a fantastic guitar competition event. Held in San Francisco at the ornate Great American Music Hall on Sept. 23, 06, this was a near sold out evening. Billed as "Guitar Hero 2006" 10 guitar finalists, chosen out of thousands of submissions took the stage and shredded the audience and us judges into a blissful guitar heavenly state.

When GP asked me to be one of the judges I was delighted and honored. After all, the judging panel included such guitar luminaries and legends as Joe Satriani, Steve Lukather, Richie Kotzen, Rafael Moreira plus Steve Read, head of Artists Relations for Musicians Friend. An illustrious panel indeed.

10 guitar slingers successively took the stage, backed up by the more than competent house band and showed their guitar prowess. Styles ranged from heavy metal shredding to tasteful fusion to acoustic slap/popping guitar. Mr. Ed DeGenaro played a fretless guitar which we all admitted, was the most difficult instrument to master. The youngest contestant was 15 years old!! Joshua Karickhoff from Pennsylvania. He was strutting his stuff like a young rock god, shredded like hell and was oh so cute. I immediately adopted him. 2 contestants came all the way from Russia, one with an interpreter. They played well, even if not as flashy as some of the others.

A word about the MC's who kept it rolling all night: Greg Khin and Michael Molenda shared the duties, both very witty, funny and full of enthusiasm for the event. Thumbs up from the judging bench for the MCing.

With all this amazing guitar talent hitting our ears, it was not an easy task to determine who would take away the GH06 title. But decide we did! Trey Alexander from Pennsylvania got most of our votes in all categories. He delivered a fantastic performance that had style, tone, musicality, showmanship and a sincerity that just came thru.

The first runner-up was Patrick Woods, who played solo acoustic guitar, slapping and popping with great dexterity and rythm feel. Truly marvelous. The second runner-up was David Powers from New York, who's entrance was probably the most entertaining of all (stripping off a business suit to reveal a superman t-shirt).. cool! His playing though was great.

This was a super event and kudos to GP for putting it on. And inviting me. Many thanks to Reggie Mars (bassist/producer) who came with me to San Francisco. More details will be in an upcoming GP edition (January 07) plus the full event will also be shown on video. Check GP for updates.

Guitar Hero 2006

Some cool snap shots below. Click on each to get to a larger display. My best wishes go out to all the participants and I wish each and every one lots of success.
IN SHRED WE TRUST
Shredmistress Rynata