I must be serious for a minute. Philippe Bertaud might be the best guitarist I've ever seen. He was our peformer last night, and the entire room was stretching and craning to see this man work. Jim Austin just jumped up in the middle of the second song and plopped his chair in the middle of the center isle. Jim is the Executive Director of the Houston International Festival. When he jumped up like that, I knew Philippe was a shoo in for next year's event. Jim also has really long legs, and I had to kind of hurdle him to get through the room, but that's o.k. Philippe's performance was smooth, charming (as you would expect a Frenchman to be), and effortless. He could be as silly as Benny Hill while playing as seriously as any master. A gentle voice to match gentle tunes that would roll into passionate tangos and flamicos and then into soothing Asian scales mixed with the beat of the Carribean. World class is defined in a man like this because he understands the music of the world (even making a wink at ZZ Top's... you got it... "La Grange"). Erika, if you're reading, you need to meet Philippe! Philippe, you need to meet Erika. Philippe has a whole different approach to his hammer-ons (am I spelling that right?) as he hammers the fret board with his left hand that can stretch about 5 frets, and then keeps an intricate percussive rythmn going on the body of the guitar with his right hand. Wow. Mr. Bertaud will be back, I PROMISE. Wouldn't it be cool to have Mr. Bertaud and Ms. Luckett on the stage together? I'd probably have to get another fire extinguisher for that one...