Well before I start my little story I think you should know a bit about me. I'm a teenage girl who knows, listens to, and plays the blues. In fact I probably know more about the blues than most people ever will. It so happens that Bo Diddley is probably my favorite guitarist, Johnny Lee Hooker is up there on my top too.

Now just sit back and read my lil story of an interesting adventure with George Thorogood I had.

You see it was August 20th. I was sitting around bummed because my dad said that we weren't going to the GT&D show that night at Ravinia because we hadn't bought tickets and he thought that there probably weren't any good seats available. I begged and begged to go still and finally he gave in, thinking we could just get some lawn seats. Well. We happened to check the Ravinia website, just looking at how booked up the show was. Guess what two seats happen to be open and available due to someone canceling at the last minute. Front Row. Center.

I pretty much flipped this point.

So me and my dad hopped into the car, grabbed something to eat on the way, and then hurried off to Ravinia. We sat around for a bit before the show, chatting with the camera guy on the edge of the stage and a few people around us asking how on earth we got the tickets. You can probably imagine their not-exactly-amused faces after telling them that we JUST bought them a few hours ago.

A bit later the show started, Jonny Lang played first, he was pretty good. I snapped a few nice pics (Take a look if you wish, they're all submitted on here).


After that. Oh boy. It was George's turn.

He started off wonderfully jammin' away to the classics. About mid-show he winked at me. I at the time did not think of it as anything, brushing it off thinking, oh it mustn't have been me he was looking at. A little later the place was jumpin' and I was having a good ol' time, he finished up his last song that he used a slide in and tossed the thing out into the crowd, happened to catch it. I once again brushed it off thinking that there was no way on earth that it was intentional, but I was still completely stoked for getting the thing. What took me by surprise was that just as he came back on stage after a quick wardrobe change he looked to me and made sure that I had the slide, and not the pushy man beside me who looked like he may have had a few before the show. I nearly died. George Thorogood just talked to me. It took me a while to realize what had actually happened. I mean, there had to be a reason he chose me out of all the bunches of people up there. It was then that I stepped back and took a look at myself and what I was wearing.

1. I was wearing my Chess Records shirt, I'm guessing that he recognized it. It's not exactly a common thing to see a high school chick wearing a shirt representing a 50 year old blues record company.
2. I'm singing all of his songs.
3. I had a thumb pick on my thumb. I tend to wear it like a ring and out of habit, was hitting it against the railing on the stage. Thumb picks are rarely used among most guitarists unless you're playing slide guitar or finger picking. George happens to use them too. He must have saw this on my hand.

But getting the slide was only the beginning.

Towards the end of the show on one of his last songs he decided to do something that I shall remember for the rest of my life.

So here I was, singing another one of his songs along with him when he came up to the edge of the stage during a solo. It was directly in front of me and in fact had I reached over, I probably could have touched his shoe. This was pretty dang cool, but he had done this a few times in other songs and I just stood there groovin' like usual. But then I noticed something different, he came off the edge of the stage and turned to me and told me to step a bit closer. I did. And then he leaned over me with his guitar. Me, not knowing what the hell was going on reached up and touched his guitar, he laughed. He then proceeded to place his guitar upon my head, and in a sense knighted or dubbed me saying that I was "The future of rock and roll".

I just about died at this point.

After the show the cameraman gave me his workers patch (which is now on the front of one of my guitars). I almost hugged him, even though I didn't know him I was still so totally stoked that it wasn't even funny.

It was only a little bit later while I was in the car with my dad on the way home that I thought "Oh dang.....this means I gotta live up to something now doesn't it?"