Last Thursday night campers from the Rock n' Roll Fantasy Camp boarded the Gibson tour bus for a short ride from the Ultra Sound Studios to the B.B. King Club on 42nd street in the heart of Manhattan. It was their last night to show off all that they had learned over the past five days from classes, lessons, presentations, demonstrations, rehearsals and jams with some of the biggest names in rock n' roll history.
The camp is clearly not designed for the average musician. Think high level corporate executive who works 80 hours a week, keeps his vintage Les Pauls in their cases 360 days a year, who’s hands spend more time on a golf club than a guitar, and thinks that the metronome is where the Twins play. Look, if you need to hire these top names in rock you’re going to have to pay them for their time so the tuition “ain’t gonna be cheap!”
You, too, can join in on the fun if you happen to have an extra $8,499 lying around. That price buys
you a full week of playing music with the likes of Dickey Betts, Jeff Skunk Baxter, Joe Satriani, George Thorogood, Mark Farner, Bruce Kulick, and more. Plus, the camp agenda is filled with dreamy activities like a trip to Gibson’s showroom to pick out your guitars for the week, master classes with Skunk Baxter, a private party at Guitar Center, dinner with Jon Anderson, studio sessions with Joe Satriani, a workshop with Dickey Betts, and last, but not least, a Battle of the Bands night at the B.B. King Club to jam with the “Greats.”
This is a very professional and extremely well produced event with high quality stars, venues, activities, a cool website, and the super packed guitar player’s dream agenda. The people who run Rock n' Roll Fantasy Camp know what they’re doing and do a great job of it. And from what we witnessed that night at the Battle of the Bands, the end result was reached; the campers were having the times of their lives.
They are first-rate dream makers.
But reality came crashing down on me during the Battle of the Bands when I witnessed the first group. Now I’m sure glad the campers were having fun up on stage, because my ears certainly weren’t on the floor in front of it. The sounds and tones coming from the camp attendees vocals and guitars were so bad that I thought I was witnessing a wacky American Idol audition. I think William Hung had a better chance of winning the Battle of the Bands than anyone in this class. The campers’ music was almost unbearable to listen to. If it weren’t for David Letterman’s horn section, the session drummers, bass players, and keys holding down the musical attributes of Wild Thing and Not Fade Away, the songs wouldn’t be recognizable.
But the campers were having a ball. And that's what matters most.
Fortunately, the B.B. King Club was packed with family and friends of the campers so they were able to keep an audience. We caught Peter Tork hiding behind a New York Times at a nearby Starbucks shortly after his group (the first act) left the stage. And let me just say this, he wasn’t in a friendly mood. He told Guitar Jam’s own Ken Volpe to get out of his seat and chased away a few autograph hounds that for some reason wanted the John Hancock of this angry Monkey.
The assault on my ears lasted all night long, but I kept smiling as I watched these campers whoop it up with their band-mates and with rock’s royalty. Even the guitar Gods sounded mortal when it was their turn to play and solo. At one point, it appeared that Dickey Betts found his one way out and walked off the stage because his rig wasn’t producing any sounds for a minute or two. But he did return later in the set during the band’s rendition of Ramblin’ Man and treated my battered ear drums to those legendary major runs and licks made famous in the recording of that song. 
The fact is the campers aren’t musicians and will never be. But that is not the point here. They go to the Rock n’ Roll Fantasy Camp for the fun and excitement of doing all things music for one week. For them it’s about leaving behind the Blackberry and the hundreds of urgent emails from the bosses and clients. It’s about getting away from the wife and kids and all of the daily challenges and hanging out with rock stars and pretending for one night that you are one of them.
That’s where the brilliance lies in this event. And its all part of a rock n’ roll dream.
Comments