Watch: Paul Gilbert spontaneously jams with guitar shopper he overheard playing Little Wing
While testing out an ’80s Ibanez Roadstar, Gilbert played along with a fellow guitar shopper…
Image: C Brandon / Getty
Imagine this – you’re in a music store, testing out a guitar and having a little jam to a song you like. Suddenly, you can hear it being played expertly just across the shop floor, and the person sitting behind that guitar is from a famous rock band.
It’s the sort of situation guitarists sometimes daydream of, but for this player that situation was reality. Earlier this week, none other than Paul Gilbert overheard someone playing Jimi Hendrix’s Little Wing in a store – a song he’s covered before – and decided to join in.
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At Johnny Roadhouse Music in Manchester, UK, the Mr. Big guitarist captured the moment in a video and shared it online. He can be seen playing a rather cool-looking green ’80s Ibanez Roadstar, as the player in the background can’t believe his eyes.
“The other guy in the music store started playing Little Wing so I joined in,” writes Gilbert on Instagram. “I wanted to take this ’80s Ibanez home so much. But it won’t fit in my suitcase.”
One of the comments under Gilbert’s video reads, “The ‘other guy’ is my partner, he very quickly stopped once he realised who he was up against,” accompanied by a laughing face emoji.
Take a look below (via Guitar World):
With Gilbert’s super speedy approach to playing, we think most people would probably stop in their tracks when up against such pace. Last year in an interview with Positive Grid, Gilbert addressed the drawbacks about being the type of player who champions speed: “That’s one of the dangers of the faster, trickier stuff – it’s so easy to get pulled away from the vibe,” he said.
“Because you’re like, ‘I just want to get it right. I just gotta metronome this for the next five years, and then maybe, meanwhile, it’s all the rock and roll’. The force of the emotion has left the building long ago. That’s so precious, you gotta keep that at all costs.”
You can view Gilbert’s full cover of Little Wing from a 2017 show below: