Bevan was called forward to perform with members of John Denver's original band.
"Yeah, that really was something," he said.
He has embraced the music of John Denver since he was a lad growing up in Dunedin.
"I would have been about seven or so and a few things came together at once."
He was learning guitar, and while on a family holiday his dad pulled out an old cassette tape and put it on the car's player.
"I think it was the only one that worked," he said with a laugh.
"I really enjoyed listening to it - those songs - and here was a guy singing and playing a guitar.
When he heard Rocky Mountain High that was it.
He was hooked and wanted to head down the John Denver path.
Denver tragically died in an air crash in 1997 which stunned his legions of fans worldwide including here in the Bay where he had been lined up to be the 1998 Mission Concert star.
Julio Iglesias was brought in to take the stage that year.
When Denver died Bevan was just 10 years old, but the devotion to his music did not die.
"I didn't set out to be just like him but I really loved his music - I was also listening to other guitar guys like James Taylor and Jim Croce."
He later as a teenager joined a John Denver fan club to "soak up" the whole experience of the artist and when the club president heard he was singing and playing his music he arranged for him to lay a couple of tracks down.
The president was impressed and sent the recording across to the organisers of the annual John Denver memorial festival in Aspen - and they too were impressed enough to say "Get him over here".
He was 18.
"My first big trip away."
His appearance in Aspen, and acclaimed performance, caught the attention of Mosgiel-based promoter Dennis Brown who was convinced he could carry off a great tribute show.
Which emerged in 2008 with the "Whisper the Wind" tour, and that later morphed into the larger "Take Me Home" tour concept which sparked up big time during a tour of Australia last year.
He had also toured Australia, and New Zealand, in 2013 as support for country legend Charlie Pride and audiences were as impressed as Pride.
After he heard the young Kiwi he was moved to say, "Close your eyes and it's just like listening to John".
Gardiner said the show was not about him trying to be Denver though.
"I'm being myself but I'm honouring him."
Yet while he does not set out to sing like Denver the purity and simplicity of his voice gets through big time with the audiences.
Now he is bringing the show to Kiwi audiences - a show which is the musical story of Denver's life through archival footage - and his unique songs as performed by Gardiner and the band.
● Bevan Gardiner and his five-piece band of international musicians, as well as acclaimed female vocalist Georgie Daniell, will be bringing the more than two-hour Take Me Home - The Music & Life of John Denver tribute show to Napier, at the Municipal Theatre, on May 13, as part of a 20-concert New Zealand tour.