Backstage Meetings

I have to say that I am not easily starstruck. My dad was in charge of a lot of conventions when I was young and I met a lot of special guest speakers, in college I was the stage manager or assistant stage manager of the Agape music festival for 3 years and saw and dealt with a lot of artistist there. I ran sound and was stage manager for Nashville North in Taylorville, IL for a couple years, where a lot of big name country acts came through. All that to say I'm generally not impressed by fame. Well, that is until it becomes personal. One of the first cassette tapes I ever owned was Phil Keaggy's Find Me in These Fields and over the years his style has been a major influence of my playing (not that I can play like Phil ) I have seen him in concert a few times. Once on his Crimson and Blue tour back in 1994, on the Keaggy, King, Dente tour, once in a masterclass and concert at Greenville College and last night at Harvester Christian Church. We arrived to find that the "Artist Circle" seating area which we had tickets for was oversold and we had to sit in an "artist circle overflow" area. They were not bad seats, I wasn't really upset by this. At intermission we were told that because of this error, the people who had to sit there would get to have a personal meet and greet with Phil after the show. So after the show we went back and I got to meet Phil. Pretty much a handshake, a couple stupid sounding compliments from me, and a picture. He also gave us all signed copies of his recent CD set, but it was enough. You listen and idolize someone for that long and when you get a chance to meet them face to face, it's pretty cool.

So although I don't easily get starstruck, I do make exceptions.