Eldar Vågan wants to honor his guitar heroes, and on March 16, Vazelinagitarist invites himself to his own “Eldar Vågans Gitarhelt Festival” at Rockefeller in Oslo. The news and some of Vågan’s guitar heroes were presented at a press conference in Oslo on 30 January.
The new show concept, which Vågan otherwise plans to make an annual event, was presented to an interested press offer at Rockefeller. He told about the background of the show, and along with his guest guitarists, the five man’s strong guitar string performed some songs in honor of the attending journalists and photographers. Besides Vågan himself, we met Ronni Le Tekrø, Torstein Flakne, Svein Finjarn and the young talent Tobias Ruud.
- After watching Eric Clapton and his guitar comrades in Madison Square Garden on TV, I thought no so well you might even arrange here in Norway, says Vågan. – As a guitarist, I want to honor my heroes playing a concert with them!
Eldar says that through these concerts he wants to honor guitarists who became important to him when he, as a young man, learned to play guitar.
- I would first like to present my big guitar hero from being a teenager, there was one in Norway who could really play as well as Elvis’s guitarist and English rock band, and that was Svein Finjarn. He has been a guitar hero since 1963, said Vågan from the scene when he started the introduction of his heroes.
The next guitar hero that appeared on the scene was Torstein Flakne, which Vågan first met in 1980 when he participated in the NM in Rock with Vazelina Bilopphøggers. Flakne has a familiar background from the trønder bands Kids and Stage Dolls. The third guitarist who was presented was a musician Eldar has known since he started playing in a band, the show Ronni Le Tekrø.
Eldar says that an important point at the guitar hero festival is that he wants to help give young guitarists a chance. Together with the music school Backstage, he started a competition where guitar talent was encouraged to submit audio recordings. According to Vågan, it was a young talent that excelled among all the submitted audio files, it was 14-year-old Tobias Ruud from Leirsund. As the winner of the competition, he will be rewarded with an Epiphone guitar, and will also play a few songs along with the guitar heels on the show in Rockefeller on March 16th. We also heard Tobias in some songs along with the four guitar veterans at the press conference.
Those who want to experience Vågans new guitar show must set the date March 16th. There, Vågan and his guitar heroes will perform in different constellations, and Vågan will also play songs from his own repertoire and be ceremonial master through the concert. He brings his own band, Eldarados, consisting of Terje Methi on bass, Tor Welo, organ and piano, Even Finsrud on drums and Bjørn Einar Hanstveit on percussion.
As is known, Eldar Vågan is also a very hilarious cartoonist, and he can tell that he has drawn his guitar heels, and that everyone is presented with each their big picture this evening.
By Rune Endal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYHVLzkalz8
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