Bernth & Mike Dawes in Manchester

Bernth is an Austrian guitarist, composer and music educator who plays instrumental progressive metal centered on extended-range guitar. He is known for online performance and instructional videos, as well as solo releases including the albums Elevation and The Shadow and tracks such as “Farewell” and “The Kindling.” Before taking his solo work onstage, he toured as a guitarist with the metal band Belphegor. In 2024, he joined bass player Charles Berthoud and guitarist Ola Englund for European concerts on the Escape the Internet Tour.

Mike Dawes is an English fingerstyle guitarist from Guildford who performs instrumental acoustic rock using tapping, harmonics and percussion on the guitar body. He is known for his solo arrangement of Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” and for the albums What Just Happened? and Era. In 2013, Mike Dawes joined Justin Hayward on the Spirits of the Western Sky tour, opening the concerts and playing guitar in Hayward’s band. The partnership was documented on Spirits... Live, filmed at the Buckhead Theatre in Atlanta, and carried into later theatre tours. His solo concerts place melody, bass, rhythm and percussion on a single acoustic guitar, often using altered tunings and two-handed tapping. He has also taken that solo format on tour as a special guest of Tommy Emmanuel.