Las Tortugas: Dance of the Dead III took place over Halloween weekend at the Evergreen Lodge just outside Yosemite National Park. It featured some of the most popular bands from the region’s fertile jam-band scene, including Tea Leaf Green, ALO, and hosts Blue Turtle Seduction. The highlight from a player’s point of view was surely Guitarmageddon, where a gang of guitarists from the festival bill gathered to forgo the serve-the-song law, and let their guitar freak flags fly.

Featured players included ALO’s Dan “Lebo” Lebowitz, scene stalwart Sean Leahy, and Tea Leaf Green’s Josh Clark, who has brought his malleable Guitarmageddon concept to several other festivals and clubs over the past six years. On the main Tortugas stage this Halloween, the players all wore Grim Reaper costumes, and busted out their deadliest chops on event-appropriate tunes such as Blue Öyster Cult’s  “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” Curtis Mayfield’s “Freddy’s Dead,” and Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs.” Lebo played his Takamine acoustic-electric as if were a Les Paul, complete with edgy distortion tones and string-bending galore. Leahy’s visceral slide playing cut through the clutter like a meat cleaver. Clark dazzled with sheer power and speed—that cat is quick! For the encores, a slew of other players jumped onstage for Guns N’ Roses’ “Used to Love Her,” and a GNR—style version of Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.”

The next Guitarmageddon event is scheduled on November 29 at the Independent in San Francisco, where Guitarmageddon will do a set of Nirvana covers as the opening act for the instrumental Led Zeppelin tribute, Bustle in Your Hedgerow. —Jimmy Leslie