A Really Cool Night

I've wanted to be a Rock Star from the first time I played air guitar in front of my mirror when I was 13.

Come on, admit it...you wanted to be one too. Maybe not in rock n' roll, but in some other arena.

I never admitted it to myself. I was a drummer most of my limited music career, with only a smattering of guitar. Hard to be a Rock Star playing drums though. Got to play lead guitar or sing to really be a Rock Star.

I started to re-learn how to play guitar last summer. I had played over the years but it was all slop and buzzing strings.

I found a great guitar lesson website. On this site, they have a couple of hundred rock songs, broken down in detail on how to play the guitar parts.

One of them was Santana's Oye Como Va.

I looked at the lessons and said to myself, "I can play that."

Now, that is a dangerous thing to think.

First, what it really means is, "If I work my ass off and learn a bunch of stuff I don't know and can't play, I HOPE I can play it."

So I started an eight month process of learning the song. It took that long.

I don't know what I was thinking! Really. Why did I think that I could play a guitar song written and played by one of the great masters of the rock guitar?

It was a mixture of hopefulness, desire and audacity.

But I got it done. Not perfect duplication but pretty close.

I didn't know how much people love Santana...and this song seems to be the one they associate with him the most.

We played this song last night at the close of our second set.

It was a wonderful night. Slightly warm, a hundred people inside the restaurant and another hundred or more milling around outside in the parking lot. This is an open air restaurant so everyone could hear and feel the music.

As we started the song with the signature organ on a simple yet compelling Latin rhythm, people responded by completely filling the dance floor, including all the spaces between the tables and everywhere else a person could fit. Almost everyone was up and dancing.

I had no idea how much people love this song.

After the organ start, comes the dominant cow bell and drums...the excitement notched up...then I started to play the first guitar lead melody...at rock volume with a slightly distorted sound...things were really cookin' now!

Nothing like a screaming rock n' roll guitar to get the blood boiling.

A quick sidebar...this is a small town. Most people here know that I am just starting to learn lead guitar. And they are very supportive. So that is in the mix of excitement too because this was the first REAL guitar lead that I have played and they were into it as my first...kindly supportive.

When we went into the first rhythmic break, we hit it perfect...all together...hard hitting. It was awesome! The excitement went up another notch.

This kept happening as we when through the different movements of the song.

By the end, everyone was facing the band, huge smiles on their faces, bobbing up and down, dancing in place.

When we ended, there was a big ovation. Took a couple of bows to get through the applause.

Now that was fun!