Mike Dawes in Minneapolis

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.