I once saw Steve Vai receive a 5 minute standing ovation at Hammersmith Apollo when he played “Whispering a Prayer” note perfect - nobody in that crowd would let him start the next song! Was 3 hours of fantastic playing, and I’ve seen him a few times since but he never quite conjured that magic since (or not in London anyway).
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From Joy Division & Queen to some Sibelius 
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Call me insanely biased (which I obviously am) but my son played the rock version of Pachelbel’s “Canon” at a school concert aged 14, it’s considered a grade 7 piece.
I first heard this played by a 16 year old and was absolutely blown away by it, as was my son’s head of music when he played it at audition. He went on to win the school’s talent contest with it.
Worth a listen if you’ve never heard this version of the well known classical piece before, 2nd half in particular gets a bit insane! (It’s not quite note perfect, but given his age and the difficulty…)
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Was that your son? What’s to say! BRILLIANT TALENT 
!!!
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Yes it was, thanks!! Sad thing is after writing an album with a band at 15 it all fell apart, they split up and he stopped playing after that, such a shame…
Heck! That’s awful! Hope he comes back to the music, he’s obviously very gifted!!!
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Yeah me too, I tried to get him to apply for Britain’s Got Talent but he wouldn’t, he never believed he was particularly good no matter what anyone said, I had to bribe him with a new guitar and amp just to get him to play that concert
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WOW! What a shame! He’s got the talent I’d die for (figuratively speaking). Something I always wanted to be able to do but brain and fingers just don’t mesh!!! 
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Yeah same, I learnt classical guitar to grade 6 standard but I couldn’t play that piece to save my life (and believe me I tried!! I couldn’t get through the first page lol). I’d have loved to have been good enough to play in a band
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But at least you can PLAY a guitar (WELL!) , I never could. 
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Iron Maiden, Sonisphere festival Knebworth 2010. May be biased as am a big Maiden fan and it was my first time seeing them, but my word that was a gig!
The day before, @TinMan1 's nomination of Rammstein were on, a phenomenal performance again, lots of fun, awesome pyro, but then in a blink it was all over - they had a 2 hour slot, went off after 50 mins, came on for a 10 min encore and that was it! Everyone was genuinely stood around waiting for them to come back on again, fully expectant of more, but all we got to see was their crew dismantling the set!
Just watched/listened to this and heard that he no longer plays. Fantastic to watch and he is REALLY good, but you know that.
Its a shame that things did not work out musically for him, but you could tell by his demeanor and the way he walks away at the end that he is not showing off in any way and feels as if he has done his bit and just wants to get away. I think this supports his view that he was not talented.
It is rare talent like this that needs a very particular motivation to keep them performing and a lot of that is down to luck. If he had met the right people at the right time, he could have turned out like Brian May, but unfortunately that was not to be, which is a shame for us all. I hope he has found happiness in whatever he has chosen as a career and it brought me a lot of joy to watch his performance. Thanks for sharing.
Small world, I took my son to that exact same festival, amazing weekend, but yes unfortunately Rammstein were rather short on that occasion, no idea why…
I think I took this photo just before Iron Maiden came on, it looks a bit like their set hiding behind the curtain:-
Thanks very much for you kind comments, I’m sure you’re right, if it hadn’t been for the fact half his band members disappeared off to various universities after he’d put so much effort in to writing songs and getting them gigs, then a friend in a studio who’d recorded their album suddenly disappeared along with their files just before it was finished…ah well, life is full of what-ifs! He’s moved to Austria now to live with his girlfriend and works as a programmer, the music scene there isn’t anything like it was down in Plymouth so unlikely he’ll manage to get anything going on the side, but he seems happy which is the main thing!
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wow, now that is a coincidence!!
He may yet return to it. It can happen, given time and no stress.
Honourable No.2 Daughter was very active on the music scene at Uni, then was doing gigs in a group, but drifted away from it.
Twenty years later, much wiser about the music business and more at ease with performing because it’s now an enjoyable no-stress hobby and an escape from thinking about work, she’s back in an excellent like-minded group, recording stuff and doing gigs - covid compliant.
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I’ve seen a lot of concerts that I would consider great performances, like the Queen one at Live Aid as previously mentioned and some I put in the discussion I started earlier in the year regarding what had the most effect on you, but The Jeff Healey Band concert at Hammersmith Odeon in 1990 was great because of the effect he had on the audience that night, I have never seen a crowd react like that to a performer, maybe it was because he was a blind guitarist who played Blues Rock with the guitar on his lap, I don’t know? I saw him a few years later at Cambridge Corn Exchange and he wasn’t the same.
I teach music in a secondary school in Chingford North London - very impressive!!! 
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My most memorable live concert was by Simple Minds in Westonbirt Arboretum about 8 years ago. Even though it was in June, the rain was torrential that night but we enjoyed every moment of it. We had a soggy picnic and shared a bottle of Chablis (our daugher drove us). Pleased to also say that our daugher has made a full recovery from the trauma seeing her parents dancing that night.
Other memorable ones are; David Bowie’s Serious Monnlight tour, Dire Straits, Bruce Springsteen, Jethro Tull, Eric Clapton and Joan Armatrading. There have been many more but these are the only ones I can remember!
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