Mike Dawes is a lanky, handsome, 25-year-old Brit with a wonderfully unpretentious, self-deprecatory, offbeat sense of humour, an infectious jokiness and a single-minded seriousness about his work.

He’s one of the world’s foremost finger-style acoustic guitar players. He also has a Bermuda connection. I can boast that I sat directly behind his first cousin and her spouse in a packed St Andrew’s Church.

His first number, Boogie Shred, showcased all the elements that go to make up the Dawes technique. He commands a huge range of percussion sounds using his right hand against the guitar body, ranging from a driving bass drum (ball of hand just above the sound hole) through the lightest hi-hat snaps (little finger inside the lower edge of the sound hole) to brushed cymbals (nails stroking the kick-plate), snares and even the Indian tabla (finger pads on body below sound hole).

His right hand also floats above the keyboard picking stopped harmonics, sometimes darting down the fretboard to stop and pluck a note that he cannot reach with the left hand, which is generally busy hammering-on (or off) melodies or riffs. His touch is light as a feather, unshowy, economical and absolutely accurate. He is also, because of his lightness of touch, highly amplified.

Amplification is a two-edged sword. If you’re loud, then mistakes become very, very loud. Mike Dawes doesn’t make any. He has mastery of his electronic equipment, operating loops, echo, tremolo and a range of sound switches with unobtrusive toe taps. This Boogie was pure fun to listen to and a great opener. Next, a cover of Stevie Wonder’s Superstition. It’s interesting to compare Dawes’s and Adam Rafferty’s (Guitar Festival 2010) treatments of this Seventies atmospheric number. Rafferty went all out for the big riff and metal percussion sounds, and separated the melody using rasgueado-style outward strokes on the treble strings. Dawes’s treatment is lighter altogether, although with a really heavy, chocky wooden sound, like some blank marimba playing under a hammered riff.

In the third number, Dawes’s original, The Impossible, the tempo went down to a more contemplative mood. Dawes introduced an African lute/harp sound using the space below the 4th fret capo, while using the tabla drumming effect. There followed a melody that Michael had composed in Northern Ireland, Fortress, which invoked that country’s recent tragic past, using Celtic harmonies. Dawes gave an Irish flutelike legato to the arrangement. The first half finished with another Dawes original, Somewhere Home, full of lyrical harmonics, hints of old ballads and ending with a jiglike tune with a Middle Eastern flavour. Dawes’s lankiness extends to his fingers. I observed him easily making a seven-fret stretch during this number!

The second half opened with a composition by the late Don Ross, Tight Trite Night, an up-tempo rock sound with a driving bass under leisurely chord work. Michael then used the standard Blue Moon, as arranged by the Australian Tommy Emmanuel, to demonstrate how he builds and adapts a melody to his style, starting with the bass line, then adding the beat and then the melody line. French guitarist Pierre Bensusan’s composition, So Long Michael, composed after the death of his friend, the guitarist Michael Hedges, is a direct descendant of the 17th-century form of the tombeau or memorial piece, beautifully executed by Dawes. Michael then strolled round the church playing a slow waltz, Maybe Someday Soon, with no amplification. Such are the acoustics of St Andrew’s that all the audience could hear him from either end of the nave.

Dawes finished the programme of the evening with a version of David Guetta’s rave dance number, Titanium, with Steve Crawford operating the lights of the church in the first rave dance number played in St Andrew’s! The audience were on their feet cheering. This was one of the best concerts in all the 12 years of the festival. Congratulations and thanks to Steve Crawford and his team for bringing us such great talent.