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CLICK ON IMAGES TO VIEW LARGER VERSIONS. All Thunder photos copyright 2006 Les Linyard I suppose you think being in a band is all limousines, luxury hotels and free hair product? Well you’re right, it is and it’s brilliant – apart from the free hair product unfortunately. On the first day of a tour, I step on board the tour bus, and all my worries disappear as I ease back into the luxury leather bound sofa, kick off my boots, and browse through the DVD selection. |
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I have a tour manager to point me in the right direction (physically not morally), and I never have to remember where the hotel is (because it’s always just outside the tour bus!). He will make sure I'm in the right place at the right time, wearing the right attire, he'll have my laundry done, and keep me up to date with the latest on England’s progress in the cricket – usually delivered as an exceptionally bad Richie Benaud1 impersonation. I have a wonderful guitar tech2 called Brian to look after all my guitars, amps and keyboards, if I break ‘em he can fix 'em. He’s even been known to walk on stage during the show and give me the correct guitar as I've been known, on occasion, to forget to change guitars at the right time. I seem to remember that we played “Moth To The Flame” on one particular tour, and it required a guitar change (we had our guitars tuned a step down3 just for this song). I started the song by myself with a little bit of guitar noodling4, oblivious to the fact it was on the wrong guitar. I felt a tap on my shoulder, and there was Brian with a bemused look on his face and the correct guitar in his hand. So, on the face of it, you can see that it would be difficult for anything major to go wrong. This is true – until you take the professional out of the equation and leave it to the musician. It was the rescheduled Norwich show that caused the problem, let me explain. I always take one of my own Gibson Les Pauls on tour in Japan and rent a spare, this means when I fly home the guitar travels with me and ends up at my house, instead of in the band's storage unit. Our next show was in Norwich two weeks later, and Luke and I decided to drive up in my car. I spent the entire morning doing the pre-show preparation essentials (i.e. choosing my sparkly costume, polishing my boots, and stocking up |
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on hair products).
Eventually I was ready; Luke was knocking at the door,
so we jumped in the car and headed for Norwich. I was meeting Charlie Cash at the venue. He's a friend of the band, and we like to call him Charles because it sounds posh and we’re convinced it annoys him. Now excuse me if I digress, but let me explain a little bit about him. Charles has two strings to his bow, first of all he's a Sports Injury Therapist who quite often comes to a show and gives us a few sporting injuries before we go on. Well not quite, but he gives us the once over to loosen up our tight spots. |
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Secondly, he owns a splendid collection of rare Ibanez guitars, which he was very keen to show us. On a dual purpose trip to Charles’ clinic we had an extensive tour of the said axes5 and he had a slightly less than extensive but altogether more painful tour of our anatomies. I found a couple of guitars that fitted quite nicely, but Charles insisted they were not for sale; one was an Ibanez Explorer 2459 from 1977 and the other an Ibanez 2675 custom agent. Charles told us that he would love to hear what they sounded like through a large sound system, so we duly arranged for him to bring a couple of my favourites from his |
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collection down to Norwich, where I would
put them through their paces during our soundcheck6. |
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“I was going to bring what, in what, to where?"
“The guitar you took to Japan that ended up at your house, you had it on the plane” “Oh yes, you mean the Black Les Paul?” “Yes”
“The
one I was bringing with me today?”
“Yes” “In the car?” “Yes” “To Norwich?” “Yes” “For the show tonight?” “Yes, have you got it?” |
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“No – I forgot!” “Mmmm! Houston I think we have a problem” So, as you can plainly see, it was all Brian’s fault, as he forgot to remind me to bring it; such is the lot of a guitar tech. It’s really no good relying on a musician to remember such a trivial thing as bringing a guitar to a show. And that concludes the case for the defence Mi'Lud. This meant that I didn’t have my main Les Paul for the show – not a major problem as Brian had brought another Les Paul which would do the job nicely, but I had no backup – this could prove to be a bit tricky if I broke a string or something major went wrong with the guitar. At this point I had considered the following: |
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Then I noticed Charles sitting on the edge of the stage and in his hand was my salvation. He had brought the rather splendid Ibanez Explorer; this was a Gibson clone, and a very fine instrument indeed. He was oblivious to the crisis situation, but his eyes lit up when I told him my predicament, and that his guitar would be my spare for the evening. “Now
I’ll really get to hear what it sounds like!”
he said, as he handed it over to Brian.
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The Ibanez Explorer in
action |
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I tried it out in the sound check and it sounded perfect (he had also brought the another Ibanez 2675 but that was a little too valuable and far too heavy to be played, so I just played with that during soundcheck) – In fact it sounded so good I used the Explorer towards the end of the set during Dirty Love and it performed admirably, shame the same couldn’t be said for me! |
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Hi everyone, great
story isn't it... and you thought they were professional!!
Watching them is just like being at a race meeting with
the superbikes (just as chaotic) which is where we met them
through Hawk Kawasaki (who I work with). Let me tell you
a bit about the guitars. The Destroyer is a copy of the
Gibson Explorer which, this one was made in 1977, and is
part of the Golden Oldies Series. The wood is referred to
as African korena, but is actually Japanese sen (ash). A
bit about the law suit era which these guitars come from.
A lot of companies were making Gibson copies at this time,
and as you can guess Gibson where none too pleased. As Ibanez
were the biggest producer at the time Gibson wanted to make
an example of them, so they were taken to court on June
28 1977. The basis of the claim was the infringement of
trademark, based on the copying of Gibson headstock logos.
When these guitars were made retailers kept hearing players
say their Ibanez Les Paul plays better than their real Les
Paul, also, Gibson ended up giving Ibanez an unintended
tribute by all but admitting that their was no perceptible
difference between an Ibanez and Gibson guitar. The 2675
guitar is the jewel in the crown of our collection. We have
been informed that there is only a hand full of these known
of in the world. I feel sorry for the person who painstakingly
took hours to inlay all the mother of pearl into the body,
just look at the pictures. It sounds as good as it looks.
Isn't Benjamin a lucky boy, all these toys to play with...see
below pictures of our collection...
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Key:
1
A legendary Australian cricket
commentator |
