Some video I shot of the former Nickel Creek mandolin player at Vulcan Park in Birmingham. I apologize for the crappy quality of the video, but my camera has no manual focus and it kept focusing on Preppy McSmugerton in front of me, rather than Chris, until the guy in front of me left early. The audio quality is also not great, you might wish to use headphones and crank it a bit to hear everything.

The video is long (7 minutes) because I could not bring myself so cut any more of his amazing...well, shredding is not taking it to far.

It is rare to see someone in such control of an instrument that is seems more like an appendage than a separate entity. He reminds me of seeing video of Hendrix playing live in that way, in that Hendrix was not so much playing the guitar, but becoming one with it and flexing it like a muscle. The combination of joy and passion and skill was intoxicating.

The video starts with a bit of his opening number, followed by a bit of his cover of The White Stripes "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground", followed by the first of the two jaw-dropping classical bits, followed by an instrumental, followed by some of the last classical bit he did. As he said when he introduced it: "This is a helluva piece right here."