The Canadian Guitar Festival

This Year’s Competition…
August 5, 2010
by theopenmictour

I thought I’d talk briefly about my (Jason speaking here) experience at the Canadian Guitar Festival. It was awesome. I had more fun than last year when I did make it into the finals. I knew going into the festival that I hadn’t come as far along in my playing as I could’ve in a year’s time. I’d certainly gotten better, but I played the same two songs that I played last year. I know I played them better this time around. I played them on a much nicer guitar too…so I guess that has a lot to say about my competition.

Check out the winner, Calum Graham’s website.

I had the opportunity to sit around the camp fire with guitarist Antoine Dufour and Craig D’Andrea – two of my idols. Knowing that Antoine was a judge in the morning’s competition I thought ‘I need to make him like me.’ So I told him that I illegally downloaded one of his albums. That didn’t work out.

On the bright side, Closer Still now has a show booked with Craig in NYC at Kenny’s Castaways on September 2nd. Check out the Closer Still page for details, but more importantly, YouTube search Craig D’Andrea.

If one good thing came out of my weekend in Canada…it would be fake nails. I saw a bunch of guys play with them on during the weekend and decided to try it out. Turns out, it’s amazing. Like having five custom-made guitar picks glued to your fingertips. And they look damn good too!