Strings and bubbles.

Last night, a co-worker of mine at TWWIAGE, I'm going to call her the Balancing Queen (or simply BQ), the winery's bookkeeper, treated me to a show at the Napa Valley Opera House.  BQ is a huge acoustic/classical guitar enthusiast and if any guitarists happen to venture into these neck of the woods, she's there.

The Guitar Masters, the evening's offering, turned out to be three guitarists - Andy McKee,  Antoine Dufour and  Stephen Bennett - who each did a set of their own songs and then three songs together for the finale.  Now being of a certain age, when I think of guitarists I enjoy, the ones that most readily pop into my mind include such musicians as Johnny Thunders (may he RIP), Johnny Ramone (may he also RIP) and Angus Young (thankfully, he's still with us), thumpingly accompanied by their friends Marshall, Peavey and Vox.  The Guitar Masters were, all three, very talented and entertaining instrumentalists.

This was the first time I had ever taken in a show at this venue. Construction began on the Opera house in 1879 and was completed in 1880.  The first show there, on February 13th 1880, was a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore. Sadly, the Opera House closed it's doors in 1914 and remained closed for nearly 90 years.  In 2003, after extensive reconstruction, it once again opened to entertain Napans beginning with a run of, you guessed it, H.M.S. Pinafore.  The Opera House's auditorium is rather intimate and is probably best suited to certain performances over others.  I mean, I wouldn't want to see AC/DC perform there - it'd just hurt too much.

We arrived at the Opera House a little early, but BQ being a veteran attendee suggested we have a glass of sparkling wine before we take our seats.  One flute of Chandon's Brut Classic later, I was ready to rock 'n' roll, well, sort of.