WhatIsaw/heardinSt.Louis.com

[Don McClellan]

There were touching moments. Some sweet and some sad. There was comedy. On Sunday, Scotty did the twist with Beatle Bob for a few minutes. That was very funny. There was a scary Hank Williams impersonator and other nostalgia, rock & roll (sort of), beautiful Hawaiian steel playing, lots of E9 classic country pedal steel ballads and more finger lickin', butt kickin', chickin' pickin' then you could shake a biscuit with gravy at.
Plus there was jazz. Doug Jerrnigan is a startlingly exciting C6th player. Wow! TheBigE is still red hot and John Hughey was very aggressive on C6th. It was a blast. Plus John Hughey played an instrumental version of "Look At Us" that was the best E9 playing I heard the whole time. He is truly awesome. There were many other jazz players too including Reece Anderson who tore it up on a 12 string Super Slide. His playing is very schooled and very cool.
I also saw a 12 year old boy playing C6th swing stuff along with a friend of his who was 14 years old and blind. They both played great and were very charming as well.
ZumSteel, ZumSteel, ZumSteel, ZumSteel, etc. Most of the biggest names played a Zum. But all the other steels sounded great too. I heard the Mickey Gilly song "That's All That Maters To Me", played by about 5 different players. I'm glad I like that song a lot.
I also saw a lot of beautiful steel guitars. If you've never been to the convention you're missing something special. Its fun, exciting, boring, beautiful, weird, inspiring, depressing, unique, bizarre, slow as molasses and goes by in a flash. I loved it.

[Del Ogren]

Yep Don, you got it right.
There's an up side and a down side to
everything.

In addition to the best music I've heard
in a while, my wife and I discovered the
best dang barbeque we've ever devowered..

Nest time you're in St. Louis, head off
to Smoki O's.

BBQ that can't be beat.

--del

[Billy Wilson]

What Don said and a whole lot more. How bout Hughey on C6th for Deep Water on the main stage? Smokin!!!