COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS/Gray News) – A simple request from a 13-year-old boy in South Carolina at a Zach Bryan concert led to an unforgettable moment.
Ace Canady has only been playing guitar for less than a year. His dad, Jason Canady, said Ace got guitar lessons for Christmas as a gift from Ace’s mom.
He started taking lessons with Brian Conner of Freeway Musica and said he practices in his free time as well.
Ace also watched tutorials on YouTube, and he’s become pretty good in just a matter of months.
“I still do like some of the simple songs,” he said. “But as I get better at it, we do harder songs.”
Ace said he is a fan of old country classics and classic rock.
He can be heard on his back porch strumming to hits by Tom Petty and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
But he also likes some of today’s country artists, particularly Zach Bryan.
So when Canady scored tickets to the Zach Bryan show in Greenville a few months back, Ace was stoked.
“I told him on a Tuesday that I had tickets to Zach Bryan, so he taught himself from Tuesday to Sunday how to play ‘Revival’ on his own, just watching videos,” Jason said.
Within days, Ace had the chords down cold. And on the night of the show in May, the Canadys headed up Bon Secours Arena hoping to put that practice to good use.
“He made a sign on the way up there in a car,” Canady said. “His sister helped him make it. And I knew I was going to get him in the front row, but we didn’t know if he was going to be seen.”
The sign read, “I learned ‘Revival’ on the electric guitar for tonight. Let me play?”
With sky-high hopes, Ace raised the poster to get the singer’s attention.
He said throughout the show, he had a good feeling that he would get on stage.
“I had something telling me I was going to do it,” Ace said.
And sure enough, as the show’s end approached, his wish was granted.
“At the very end, his last song ‘Revival’, security came around and asked if they could put him on the stage with Zach,” Canady said. “And of course, we picked him up and put him over the rails and he got to play ‘Revival’ in front of about 18 to 20,000 people.”
Video shows Ace screaming the lyrics alongside Bryan, as the crowd sang along. Ace described the performance as, “a little scary,” and said he was nervous.
“But I just did it,” he said.
Questions surrounding how he would do swirled around his mind, but he put the fear aside.
“Am I going to mess up or am I going to do good?” he said. “And then I ended up doing just fine. It was wild.”
His dad agreed.
“It was a good night. We went crazy,” he said.
Ace said his friends at school didn’t initially believe he took the stage with one of the biggest contemporary stars in country music.
“They didn’t believe I did it until I showed them the video at school,” Ace said. “They were surprised.”
To top it off, Zach Bryan and his band gave Ace a signed Gibson guitar as a keepsake to remember the incredible experience.
Seeing Ace on stage, strumming with the country music star, and hearing him play country covers in his backyard makes you wonder if this is the beginning of a career.
“He’s always been a real shy guy, but he came out of his shell that night,” Canady said.
It may not be surprising to one day see Ace back on stage, but this time with his name up in lights.
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