Blues Masters 2013 Finalists! What do you think? (Page 2 of 5)

There's also Google auto refresh for Chrome.  There was one contestant in particular early on in the competition that had over 20,000 views on their youtube page.  But when I went back the other night he had barely over 1,300 views on youtube, but a whopping 77,171 points on his yoov.io channel. There's even a comment in the comments section from one of his supporters telling everyone that he was the "popular" vote in the competition with 20,000 views. Pretty funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_-nXxW3Rhk

I think youtube can tell when views are generated legitimately versus a single IP address constantly refreshing.  That's why I trust more of what I see on youtube as opposed to yoov.io's "starcount" system.

Sure: http://bluesmasters.yoov.io/index_hub_hold.php

It would be great to see all 100 in one place but based on the thread response so far, I am thinking that it may be sparse.
If someone has the time to message all the top guys on youtube and let em know about the thread, that would be great.
Other than that, (even though I am super curious as to why *those particular 10* were chosen over what seems more obvious choices) We may never know.

If any of the finalists catch this thread- Contrats to you and good luck in LA!

(I've made a few edits to this for clarity) P

I understand what you are saying!
Here is how I understand the rules:
Round 1 was the video entry. To guarantee that your video was even looked at by the judges, you and 9 others had to have the most points for that week that you entered. (contest was 10 weeks x 10=100) (wonder how they figured if you entered mid week?)

Round 1 boiled down to who can get the most views and most points for a given week.

Next, Round 2: the 100 presented to the judges  and of those, 10 are actually chosen (1 for each week) based on their playing.

We don't really know who the 100 were..

I am going to take Joe at his word and assume that he picked the 10 best of the 100 he had to work with.

The rules were a bit difficult to figure out (yoovio has the right to protect their IP)
I think that some have a misconception that out of *all* the players (2600), JB picked these 10. The way I understand it, he picked these from the 100 (which were based on sharing the link and getting points)

This is why I tried to start thread for contestants that were fairly certain that they were in the top 10 for their week. I would *love* to see the top 10 for the last week! ( and for all the weeks, for that matter) Because I want to steal all their licks!

Hi JBfan,
I feel ya. Many folks are disappointed. I'm kind of tired of typing about it too.
If you are referring at all to my post, read it carefully and let me say that I am trying to help others understand that the contest may have gone exactly as it was supposed to according to the rules. No sour grapes here.
I'm not sure that everyone read the rules as carefully as I did so, trying to help others make sense of them.

As I have said in several other threads and posts, I am excited for the finalists and wish them the best!

One of the things us crazy musicians like to do is learn from other musicians by studying what they do and how they do it.
Joe Bonamassa is a master at this and will be the first to tell you that he is the sum of his input due to studying other players intensely.
That is why I would like to see the top 100 all in one place. (but it's not going to happen:^)

I enjoy keeping an eye on up and coming musicians. not too familiar with most of the finalists so I look forward to researching them but i have been following steve balkun for a few months now.
first heard of him at the international blues challenge in memphis. he made it to the top 8 of this international competition and went through many rounds to get there, being scored by many different judges along the way.

and now you say he has won TWO guitar center contest, judged by two different sets of judges?
talented dude. he's a true blues player

can't wait to look up the other guitar players that must be just as talented if they impressed joe bonamassa.

Is this guy a professional then?  I read in the rules that pro's didn't qualify?

No he would just be an experienced contestant. IBC finalist pays nothing.

Just giving my thoughts, stream-of-conscious style as I go through the finalists.  I liked about half of them.  Congrats to all the finalists, and to all the folks that entered.  Regardless of the results, it was fun to do and a good learning experience.

#1 - Pretty surprised at the winner.  To be honest I saw a lot of takes I liked better, but congrats to him.  What a great opportunity.

I thought the #2 entry was pretty good - he had nice vibrato and played some interesting lines over the track.  A little sloppy here and there, but at least he had decent rhythm for most of it.  Not super-bluesy, but then, the Story of a Quarryman is more of a rock track anyways.

#3- Ouch, painfully out-of-tune bend there...  had to stop shortly thereafter.

I think #4 was pretty good.  Maybe a bit too "shreddy" for a blues contest, but still some bluesy bits, and at least he could play in time.  He did a good job of keeping it interesting.

#5 sounded great - very polished.  Good timing, good bends, nice vibrato, bluesy feel.  My favorite of the bunch, and one of a very small few I could actually watch all the way through.

#6 (lap steel one) - not bad, nothing that totally blew me away but nothing super offensive either.

#7 - nice ideas, but so out of tune on that intro... I almost turned it off after the first 20 seconds, but some of the rest of it was better.  Kind of on-and-off.  I liked some aspects of what he was doing, though, and at least he looked like he getting was into it.

#8 - I think this one was pretty good throughout.  Lots the groove here and there, but for for the most part it was solid.  Nice phrasing, some interesting lines and at he was pretty much in tune and had some vibrato.  Not my favorite entry, but one of the better ones among the finalists.  It did get a little long - I was getting bored by the end and would have liked some more up and down throughout, but still a great take.  I liked #5 better, but this was right up there.

#9 - the intro seemed off rhythmically, but I did really dig his tone and phrasing on the take overall.  Pretty good job.  I kept hoping he'd "take it somewhere" [Edit- he finally did about 3 minutes in] but what he did play was well done (intro aside). I also really liked that he left some space in there.  So many entries didn't - just a steady stream of notes from start to finish.  Rhythm and phrasing were good, too.

I saw the #10 entry a while back, one of the better ones I'd seen throughout.  Not my favorite, but reasonably solid.  Took him a little while to get into the groove, and a bit too shreddy and not bluesy enough for my taste at some point, but not bad overall.

I am glad some of the folks that appeared to have bought points (70k, 60k, etc) didn't make it.  I didn't think their entries were very good, and their point counts were suspicious to say the least.

Couldn't agree more - you can't have a good guitar solo without good rhythm.  Doesn't matter what the genre is, either, blues to folk to shred.