Jeff Beck - Nessun dorma

This is a performance from British guitarist Jeff Beck, it is from the 2010 Crossroads Festival, and it is an amazing performance. He plays his instrumental version of the classic opera piece "Nessun dorma". It has been sung by many famous opera singers, and is one of the most famous tenor arias from any opera. It is also widely recognizable due to the use of the piece in other contexts such as film, television and other rendition like Beck's version.
Beck's version was recorded on his solo album "Emotion & Commotion", and it was done with a 40-piece symphony orchestra. Beck's guitar piece supplements the human voice in the piece. Beck has stated that he always wanted to emulate the human voice with the guitar, and that this piece just really works on the guitar.
They play it on a much smaller scale live, the bassist Tal Wilkenfeld switches to an upright bass, and even plays with a bow for a part of the performance. The drummer switches to a different technique using a different kind of drum sticks, and uses the various high-hats to make them slowly vibrate and create sound. The rest is a keyboard section synthesizing the orchestral parts. It sounds surprisingly good, and it's a great performance.

Enjoy ; )

Charlie Daniels Band - The Devil Went Down To Georgia

This song may be considered to be country, and I'm not really sure where to put it. In my book it's a little fast to be country, but then again not all country sounds like Dolly Parton, some of it is fast and something you can dance to.
The song however has been embraced by the rock community, and the lyrics share a lot of similar things to blues music. The lyrics are about a kid who is challenged by the devil to a fiddle battle against the devil. If he wins he'll get a solid gold violin and if he loses the devil gets his soul. The devil also often appears in blues lyrics.
The song has been embraced by the rock world, and was featured in an updated version in the video game "Guitar Here III: Legends of Rock".
It's a great song and a delightfully energetic performance from the band and Charlie Daniels himself. He plays the fiddle so hard he breaks several hairs in his bow, and needs to switch bow towards the end of the song. That's cool. It's just a great performance.




The band Primus also did a cover of the song. They did a really nice clay-mation video for it, and I thought I'd include that. It's not as good as the original, but visually it tells the story very well.

Enjoy all of it ; )