How would you all rate Mike as a guitar player? Especially you guitar players.

I've heard people who play guitar say all kinds of stuff about him. One friend of mine thinks he flat out sucks and does nothing but play the same scales over and over at different speeds. Then I've heard some say his speed is very impressive and plays an awesome lead guitar, and is great at soloing. "Better than average but not great" is what I've commonly heard. I dunno, I think he's the man. Not the best ever by any means, but very underrated.

I cant rate him technically as I no nothing about playing, but from a purely sonic point of view he is by far the best IMO.

very good at what he does, but very uncreative and generic at the same time.

huge hendrix influence

Technical Skill: 9
Creative Skill: 5

Same here. But when he's on, there's no modern guitarist today that can match some of his solos (IMO, of course).

he probably played much better when he was getting high

I think his playing has vastly improved in the last couple of years. There seems to more control and melody in his playing these days, although the even flow solo still sounds like a loose electical cord flopping on the side of the road at times.

agreed...on the first few albums and Temple Of The Dog he came up with some amazing licks(I hate that term) and had some real powerful solos.

He used to rip, yet it was interesting(maybe he was just modifiying other peoples solos he learned growing up thats why his old stuff was so good). Now he mostly sounds like he's practicing scales.

I never understood why people got so upset about the Life Wasted solo fade out...the solo got boring fast and should have stoped 20 sec sooner and the solo in the middle of the song is just plan horrible.

Still love him though.

I think we have an unfortunate view of hearing mike solo all the time through bootlegs and recordings. I mean how many times have we heard an Evenflow solo? For me alot, and after a while of course it becomes unmoving. Having said that.....

I started playing guitar because of Mike Mccready. As i developed my skills, i have come to the realization that he is good, but not great by any means. He is very good and fast at pentatonic scales, but so are millions of other guitarist including myself. And he throws in a minor scale hear and there. But other than that, he is very generic and not very innovated. i was hoping with the latest album that he would do something different, and i think we saw flashes of it like the ending lead in WWS, but overall i was a little disapointed. Personally, i dont think there is room for him in the band to be that innovated to begin with, which is unfortunate. Sometimes you have to be a team player. But he's good for PJ and thats what counts.

Inconsistent at times, but usually pretty good.

I felt in the early days his solos matched better with the songs. Present day, especially Riot Act solos, he seems to just go off with no connection to the song...going through the motions. Slightly repeitive too.

My favorite solor by him are Breath, YLB, Alive...I feel he fits the solo right into the tune, it makes for a better experience. Avocado is great step from Binaural and RA as solos go.

Pretty generic in the studio. Does not record well at all, but that could also be a problem with the producers. He sounded good when produced by Rick Parasher (sic) on Ten and Temple of the Dog.

Live he can be amazingly expressive and really capture the moment well. Other times he can get a bit squeelly and too high pitched. But full props that he just doesn't do the same solo every night.

Has good knowledge and control of his effects and uses them well. He's full blown sloppy but it's part of his charm. He is a great showman too. I love when he drops Zeppelin solos into songs. I know people always say he is Hendrix influenced but I hear way more Jimmy Page in his playing than anything else.

I wish he'd widen his repetoire a bit and flirt with style solos (Come Back would have worked great with a country flavored solo), work on his slide and use it more. I really wish he'd learntro turn existing songs inside out. I'd love to hear a pure funk or blues version of Evenflow.

I would say he's not technically one of the greatest guitarists, but plays with more soul than anyone I've heard recently. And that counts for a lot. It's like the opposite of Dave Navaro. He's a talented guitarist with no soul.

Not a guitar player so anything I say should be taken with a grain of salt, but he is a really emotional player--very expressive. Yellow Ledbetter, Alive, and I am mine are great examples of this. I dont' think any one of them is that technically brilliant but they are joyful, triumphant, lonely, cathartic. He does that better than most other people i've heard.

I like him a lot but he sure follows the Whitey Blues Handbook: Em penatonic as fast as you can. Blues scale on 1, ready, go.

I completely agree with the statement about Navaro. The guy is machine. I wonder what it was like when he was in the studio with Flea for that one Peppers album. "Okay, we'll just jam right here....nevermind."

He's a great lead guitarist, but so are millions of players. I think some of his most innovative playing was on the Mad Season album.

It would be great to see him mix it up a bit but as someone else stated, it doens't really seem like it's in the cards for PJ.

Mike was the main reason i picked up the guitar, and to me (personally) he is still one of the best players around. He puts a lot of emotion into his playing live and you can really feel that he's putting his heart out there a lot. Granted he's not reinventing the wheel but sometimes seeing him live, i questions that. Love me some Mikey!!

same here. I also love the look on his face when he's really into a solo, like pure bliss or something. In Hawaii I could see him singing the words to Inside Job and you could tell he was getting really emotional. He's just really into the music and I appreciate it.

I'm almost always unimpressed when Mike is just ripping away at a solo. I mean, it's great energy, but it doesnt MOVE me. I always get more feel out of his slower solo guitar work, like in Immortality, NAIS, Ledbetter, I Am Mine, etc.