One day I stopped into a local music store to kill sometime before my teaching job. Something caught my eye while scanning the infinite wall of guitars. It was a 1987 Ibanez RG 560 in lipstick red. Compared to the shiny new guitars this relic seemed like a piece of hair metal history. There were dents and starches everywhere; to me this enhanced the beauty. My childhood metal dream machine was rediscovered. Suddenly all those hours of watching MTV came back to me instantly.
This guitar was coming home with me if the price was right. After a few minutes of haggling the salesmen on a price, the deal was done. I traded my old amp in and they gave me the guitar to take home. After some fixing up by the guys at the guitar factory this guitar was almost completely back to its former glory.
The next phase in the history of this guitar made it my favorite. In June of 2010 I was scheduled to attend to master class with my hero Steve Vai. Unfortunately, a week before the event I ruptured my Achilles tendon playing kickball. Yes, playing kickball. You can stop laughing now. Nothing was going to stop me from meeting Steve Vai. I had surgery two days before the master class with him. Needless to stay I was in a lot of pain on the big day. So after the master class I got to meet Steve Vai and have him sign my guitar. I told him, “Dude, I had surgery two days ago and nothing was going to stop me from meeting you.” He replied, “OK” and seemed a little scared.
Loved reading this! Made me think about my first pro keyboard... the Korg X3. I loved that board! I did so many shows and studio sessions with that thing. Kickball...I'd probably do the same thing if I tried to play anything now lol
ReplyDeleteThat's a great story about meeting Steve Vai. I'm a big collector and have quite a few autographed items. I loved his response to you as one of my favorite parts of meeting celebrities is watching other people go up to them and tell them their stories and seeing how the celebrities react. Some stars go out of their way to make fans feel appreciated no matter how ridiculous or silly the stories are and others just sign away like an assembly line with no emotional interaction whatsoever.
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