Just in case you missed it, Jam Sessions rocked for a bit this year. The band started out by playing some classic rock (Skynyrd, Creedence, etc.) when I got there with some of my SharePoint Nation brothers. Jeff Julian pointed out to me that Denny Boynton was a great drummer (Denny and I had previously had a phone interview where I was the interviewee a year or so ago). With this in mind (and knowing that Denny had NO idea who I was or that he had interviewed me) I told him to jump on drums and we were going to rock something.
Knowing that I wanted to play something from the classic rock era, I brought my TS-808 overdrive pedal, plugged in and grabbed something with a fixed bridge (this time it was a black Telecaster with CRAPPY strings). The band went into "Sweet Home Alabama", which gave me time to warm up the fingers a bit. After "SHA", everyone looked at each other like "what do we play next". There was some discussion and I just walked over to my amp, kicked in the TS-808 and started the intro to AC/DC's "Highway to Hell".
At this point, I immediately felt an electricity in the air...Denny kicked in with a heavy riff on drums and the bass player jumped in as well. After a few times through the intro, literally out of nowhere a guy jumped on stage who had a real look of a true rocker. He looked at me (who was getting nervous that no one was going to be able to sing) and said "we've got this!". After that, it was all gravy. He layed into the intro vocals and literally blew the roof off of The Groove in Orlando. I've played with a lot of people before, but have never played with someone who had the Brian Johnson vocals down so well.
After Highway to Hell, we stopped for a few seconds to take in the crowd as they were going nuts at this point (before we started playing, they were mostly just standing there doing nothing). While they were still cheering and screaming, I couldn't let it stop, so I immediately started AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long". Again, the vocals were spot on. Again, the crowd went nuts.
We finished up with "Little Wing" by Hendrix which was OK, but I really got to be somewhat artistic with the lead guitar and have a good musical conversation with the lead singer during one of the verses. What was cool was all of us have never played together, and mostly never met! Music is such a great language in that you can always seem to talk to each other, no matter your background.
The next day when I was working the OBA booth at TechEd, I saw the lead singer walk by and we introduced ourselves. His name is Allan Pedersen from Denmark and his band's web site is located here and they ROCK!
Denny you rocked it, man! Great chops!
Allan...Jeez, you should bring your band to Nashville to launch your career. I've never had the honor of playing with such a great vocalist. Great job, mate!
If you have any pictures or videos from the show, post 'em up and let me know where to find them! I'd love to see it again!