Dewayne "Blackbyrd" McKnight from the Framus Amps Booth at NAMM 2010

At the 2010 Winter NAMM Show we caught up with legendary guitarist, Dewayne “Blackbyrd” McKnight, who was performing with TM Stevens (Shocka Zooloo) and Jonas Hellborg at the Warrick/Framus booth. McKnight had just been signed by Framus amps that day and we were lucky enough to see him perform on a Framus amplifier for the first time since his endorsement. They had quite a crowd gathered as they pushed the envelope on the decibel limits set by the NAMM Noise Patrol.

Click through to read more and see Blackbyrd on video!

We watched Blackbyrd tear up some funk fusion on lead guitar as the NAMM Noise Patrol guys tried to get his (and TM’s) attention to throttle back on the volume during their set. Luckily, the noise patrol guys were wearing their cloaking devices and were not detected by the band and they pretty much did their thing without being shut down. Yeah, I know that was a Star Trek reference, but if you saw the lights on TM’s bass, you would get the vibe… It was refreshing to see and hear Dewayne play with TM and actually have the maddening sound of the background noise of the huge center fall away like a mute button had been stepped on for the crowd.

We had a chance to talk to Dewayne afterwards….watch the video to see what he had to say.