I know, I know, I know…Don’t Check Your Guitar when you’re flying. So many of you will want to reply to this blog with that advice, so I’ll beat you to the punch and say, I know. And - never again. But in my defense, I bought this awesome new flight case, covered it with stickers, and have always had good luck checking my guitar when I fly. So, I thought, what could go wrong?
Never mind the fact that I was traveling from Denver to Edinburgh, Scotland, by way of Frankfurt, so that I could perform in the legendary Fringe Festival. This was to me, in many respects, the biggest gig of my life. Not the ideal time for the airlines to lose my guitar, which is what happened on my way to the festival.
Not to worry - my Edinburgh contact said he had a loaner guitar for me, as long as I could play a classical style. No problem! I said, anything will do in this predicament. But I should have known when he added, “because I’ve got a guitar that could use a good playing.” With thirty minutes to showtime, I learned that his loaner guitar actually had two broken strings, and was unplayable. But as we all know - the show must go on!
And it did. For 45 minutes I worked my way through my prepared set, singing my ten songs to the best of my ability, a cappella. I snapped, clapped, stomped, and practiced my most epic air guitar licks, doing my best to fill the space left by my missing guitar. Thankfully, the crowd was very understanding and supportive, and stayed for the entire show.
Fast forward two weeks, and my guitar was thankfully returned to me, all in good working order. Lesson learned, story created, and you can check my YouTube page (@jeremydionmusic) to see some video from the a cappella performance.
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned!