When the King of Pop passed away two months ago, I watched the film of one of the final practice performances with no uncertain sense of reverence. It was a fine performance, but it was eerie to hear about his passing and then have it framed against this video as undeniable proof that he was in fine health just days before his passing. But what else caught my attention was the beautiful blonde guitarist standing next to him during that performance.

Originally I just thought she was just some extra hired to play air-guitar during the tour, but when she stood up and sang a line of "We are the World" at Jackson's memorial, I realized that this couldn't be so. So I went looking through the interwebs to find an answer about her identiy, and alas... could find none.

That was, until, today. Today I got the latest issue of Guitar World Magazine, and she had her own special mention. Behold Orianthi Panagaras, and pay special attention to what Carlos Santana has to say about her in this video.

10/09/09 Update; I just noticed that the video I linked to had been removed by Youtube for some reason. Why they would do that for a news clip, I don't know... so instead of having you watch 5 minutes of news, here's a video of her playing.

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