Buckethead: A Guilty Pleasure
I was a teenager back in the 1980's. Like many boys that aged during that time, I loved heavy metal. All the big bands were my idols and none more so than the guitar players. When I was told that I must see Buckethead a few weeks before the Highberry Music Festival, I added it to the to do list and did not really think much about it. Once I got to the festival, I was surprised how much buzz was going on about Buckethead. I got to the stage early that first night and set up, not really knowing what kind of music I would be hearing.
I was completely unprepared for what happened next. There was no band, just a tall lanky fellow dressed all in black wearing a white plastic mask and a white chicken bucket on his head. I swear, he looked like an extra from The Purge. He did not look quite human, with hands so long they looked nearly twice as long as my own. Once he started playing, the metalhead fan boy of my youth emerged, and I was in a heaven of rock and roll nostalgia. For those of you who did not attend a heavy metal concert back in the 1980's, the most important part of the concert was a mandatory five to ten minute guitar solo. This was a nearly two and a half hour hard and heavy guitar solo. There was a brief break in the middle of the set. The artist took this opportunity play with his nunchucks for a bit and to toss out, one by one, a huge bag of toys into the audience. His guitar riffs tapped into a little bit of everything both from popular culture and musical history. By the end of the show, I felt as young as the headbanger I was decades ago. If you are any kind of fan of hard rocking guitar, go see Buckethead next time he plays near you, and get there early. You might get a free toy.
Photos & Words: Grav Weldon
Edited by: Greg Heffelfinger
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