Most rock and roll fans already know that Harmonix will bring The Beatles: Rock Band to store shelves worldwide on 9/09/09. What has become almost lost in the shuffle is that Activision will be releasing their Guitar Hero 5 eight days earlier, in an attempt to move some units before the world is swallowed up by Next-Gen Beatlemania. It must be in that same hopeful mindset that they have sent out a trio of screenshots for GH5, featuring legendary guitar icon Carlos Santana.

Although it's been known since May that Santana would be one of the featured bands, these shots mark the first time we've seen him in all his digital glory. I do think it's a bit odd that Activision would take the time to render Carlos as a playable character, since the game is only shipping with one Santana song, "No One Depends On". I guess we can take this as early confirmation that more Santana tracks will be added via DLC somewhere down the road.

Here's the other two screens: