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“The fire gave me a huge wakeup call”: Joe Bonamassa recalls how his Nerdville gear collection was nearly engulfed in flames
Joe Bonamassa later met the firefighter who saved Nerdville at one of his shows in Vegas.
Image: Erika Goldring / Getty
Joe Bonamassa’s Nerdville home museum of music gear was once nearly wiped out in a fire.
According to the Blues titan, whose gear collection consists of over 1,000 items, his neighbour managed to save the day and call for firefighters to tackle the blaze before it damaged anything inside. Funnily enough, one of them was even a Bonamassa fan.
JoBo recently opened the door to the magical land of Nerdville for a mini documentary filmed by gear marketplace, Reverb. The brand was first welcomed into the museum eight years ago, and now it has revisited to see what inventory Bonamassa has amassed since then.
Speaking of how he treats the gear he collects and what he chooses to play with or to simply display, Bonamassa says, “I’m responsible for this stuff, and the fire gave me a huge wakeup call.”
He goes on to add, “I was up in Oakland, we’d just started a tour. That night I get a call at 2am from my neighbour. He [sent] a video going, ‘Don’t worry, I got you, the fire department’s here.’”
In Reverb’s video, you can see footage of the flames, which Bonamassa describes as “raging”. It swept through an area of bamboo that was growing alongside Nerdville at the time.
“It was during the windy season and the dry season, where that shit should’ve swept right up the side [of Nerdville] and took the whole thing out,” he adds.
Thankfully, one of the firefighters who came to the rescue actually had plans to catch Bonamassa live: “The fire guy runs up and he sees the Nerdville sign and he goes, ‘oh shit I know who this is. I’m seeing him in Vegas on Friday!’ So, he puts out the fire and he comes to Vegas and I met him.”
You can watch the full documentary below:
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