Chasing Ghosts, Catching Dreams: A Guitarist, A Mentor, and Sacred Ground
“The ghosts remain. They always will. They continue to call us toward better work.”
There are moments that appear to happen in a single evening.
In truth, they have been unfolding for decades.
On Saturday, August 1, Brian Quinn will walk onto the stage at Saratoga Performing Arts Center to sit in with Get The Led Out. To most of the audience, it will be another outstanding summer concert. For Brian, it represents something far greater—a lifetime of work arriving at one of America’s great stages.
For me, it is also personal.
Brian Quinn is my guitar mentor.
His teaching, encouragement, and example shape my daily musical efforts. Every day I pick up a guitar, I hear echoes of lessons he has shared—not simply about technique or tone, but about patience, preparation, listening, and respect for the craft. As a professor, coach, and lifelong student myself, those lessons feel remarkably familiar.
Brian teaches the same way he plays—with patience, precision, and generosity. He has a gift for making difficult ideas approachable without making them seem easy. Every lesson leaves me wanting to practice rather than feeling overwhelmed. That may be the mark of every great teacher, whether in music, sport, or the classroom.
Whether the instrument is a guitar, a stopwatch, or a classroom, excellence is built the same way.
Show up.
Do the work.
Return tomorrow.
People remember the albums.
Craftsmen remember the work that made them possible.
For more than a decade, Brian stood at stage left as the lead guitarist for Candlebox, my favorite band. More than ten years. Three studio albums. Two live albums. Thousands of rehearsals, sound checks, flights, hotel rooms, recording sessions, and performances that audiences experienced as a few unforgettable hours.
Nobody becomes the guitarist trusted to carry a major touring band because of one inspired performance.
The craft is built in ordinary days repeated until they become extraordinary years.
Brian has spent a lifetime chasing ghosts.
Not haunted ones.
Guiding ones.
The ghosts of Jimmy Page and the musicians whose records first convinced a young boy to pick up a guitar. Every serious pursuit begins this way. We inherit a standard before we earn a place beside it.
Runners chase the ghosts of Frank Shorter, Steve Perfontaine, Dr. Jack Daniels, and John L. Parker Jr. Coaches chase the mentors who taught them how to see an athlete. Musicians chase the sounds that first made them believe another level existed.
You never truly catch the ghost.
You simply become worthy of sharing the road with it.
My SPAC
Long before I knew Brian Quinn, I knew Saratoga Performing Arts Center.
My parents introduced me to SPAC as a child. Every Mother’s Day we traveled there for the annual Mother’s Day concert. Music was never just entertainment in our family. It was an occasion, a tradition, and a reason to gather.
As I grew older, the venue grew with me.
In 1985, I attended my first rock concert there when The Power Station took the stage. The music was louder, the amplifiers bigger, and the crowd different, but it was the same stage that had already become part of my family’s history.
Life moved forward.
School became college.
College became graduate school.
Graduate school became a career of classrooms, laboratories, athletes, coaching, races, and writing.
Yet SPAC remained.
Most recently, I returned with my parents to hear Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax. Sitting beside them once again beneath the pines, I realized that some places quietly become part of a family’s story. The artists change. The seasons change. Parents grow older. Children become adults.
The stage remains.
That is the gift of places like SPAC.
They do not simply host performances.
They preserve memories.
Every visit adds another layer to the story.
Sacred Ground
Some stages are rented.
Others are earned.
Saratoga Performing Arts Center belongs to the second category.
Nestled among the pines of Saratoga Spa State Park, SPAC has become one of America’s great artistic crossroads. Each summer, the New York City Ballet returns to a stage that has become one of its seasonal homes. Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax have filled the amphitheater with music of extraordinary precision and grace. On other evenings, that same stage has belonged to Rush, Steve Winwood, The Power Station, and Alter Bridge.
That is what makes SPAC different.
It has never belonged to a single audience or a single tradition.
Ballet, classical music, progressive rock, hard rock, and popular music have all found a home there.
The venue asks only one question:
Is the work worthy?
Brian Quinn has spent a lifetime answering that question.
He picked up a guitar at the age of five. As a teenager he was already performing before sold-out crowds. Philadelphia became his proving ground, where he earned two Philadelphia Music Awards as Best Guitarist before his career carried him through Fosterchild and eventually into more than a decade as lead guitarist for Candlebox. Three studio albums. Two live albums. A career built through repetition, discipline, and a relentless commitment to becoming better.
There is another fitting layer to this performance.
Get The Led Out is not about imitation.
It is about honoring Led Zeppelin’s music by bringing it to life for another generation. Every musician begins by learning the language of those who came before before gradually discovering a voice that is unmistakably their own.
The ghosts are never copied.
They are honored.
There is a quiet symmetry in Brian’s arrival at SPAC.
His career has never been confined to one musical lane, and neither has this stage. Both have been defined by versatility, craftsmanship, and respect for the work itself.
The music changes.
The standard does not.
That is why this night matters.
Brian Quinn will walk onto the SPAC stage with Get The Led Out.
I will not be there to hear the first note.
Of course I wish I could be.
But some performances deserve celebration whether witnessed from the audience or from afar.
This performance is not simply another concert.
It is the visible expression of thousands of invisible days.
The hours no one applauded.
The scales repeated until they became instinct.
The rehearsals that ended long after everyone else had gone home.
Dreams are rarely caught in a single evening.
They are assembled quietly.
Another practice.
Another rehearsal.
Another lesson.
Then, eventually…
Another stage.
The ghosts remain.
They always will.
They continue to call us toward better work.
Distance runners and musicians spend much of their lives pursuing standards they may never completely reach. Yet the pursuit itself changes them. The finish line, the final chord, and the standing ovation are only moments. The real achievement is becoming the kind of person capable of reaching them.
Every time I pick up my own guitar, I am reminded that the dream is rarely found in one performance.
It is found in returning to the instrument one more day.
Congratulations, Brian.
Enjoy every note beneath the pines at SPAC.
You earned it.
Author’s Note
This essay is a personal reflection inspired by Brian Quinn’s guest appearance with Get The Led Out at Saratoga Performing Arts Center.
It is not intended to be a comprehensive biography, but rather a meditation on craftsmanship, mentorship, perseverance, and the places that quietly become part of our lives. Career details are drawn from Brian Quinn’s official biography and other publicly available sources. The reflections and experiences shared here are my own.
For more than four decades, SPAC has been woven into my family’s story. My parents first introduced me to the venue through the annual Mother’s Day concerts. My first rock concert there was The Power Station in 1985. More recently, I returned with them to hear Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax. Those experiences gave SPAC a permanent place in my life long before Brian became my guitar mentor.
This essay is offered simply as an expression of gratitude—for the music, the lessons, the mentorship, and the enduring reminder that the pursuit of excellence is measured not by a single performance, but by a lifetime of returning to the work.
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