Guitar Changes

[syncopatico]

Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick changes guitars for *every* song live, because it LOOKS COOL!

[progmatist]

You saw Howe used his Rickenbacker 12 string? The only time I've ever seen him play electric 12 string, it's always been the Steinberger. While I'll can see using things like an electric 12 string, steel, the acoustic instruments and even the laud (the instrument that Howe likes to call his "Portugese guitar"), but having the Les Paul, ES-175, Strat, Tele, and Steinberger 6 string all seem a bit excessive. He probably could have made due with, say, the ES-175 and just one or two of the solid body guitars.

He used a Danelectro 12 string for the song Sketches in the Sun on the GTR album.

howe-sketches.jpg

[GuitarGeek]

I remember once in an interview that he was considering using only the Variax on tour. I was never impressed with the Variax tones. Fortunately, he thought better of that idea.
In the totally useless info department, I have to wonder how much he has spent over the years paying for a second airline seat for his ES-175. He says he always keeps it with him when he travels.

Well, I think the Coral sitar setting on the Variax sounds pretty good. I have a friend who has one of them, and he says have the sounds are terrible, but the other half are great.

As for the ES-175, he keeps it with him because he's afraid it'll get damaged if he puts it in the cargo hold. He actually had one guitar that got damaged when he went on holiday. Airlines are notorious for losing, damaging and even destroying guitars (and other musical instruments). John Cippolina once told of getting off one plane just in time to see a ground crew turkey throw his guitar case onto the tarmac, then carefully lift a coffin out of the plane and onto the baggage carrier. "The guy in the coffin was already dead, but my guitar died of a broken neck". When I saw Miriodor about 7 years ago in Washington DC, their guitarist was not a happy camper, because his guitar got trashed by the airline. And I know there's lots of other ugly stories.

Roy Buchanan was actually the first guitarist I heard of buying a seat for his guitar. He said he'd tell the ticket counter person the name of the other person was "F. Guitar", F being short for "Fender". And I think it was Albert Lee who I read liked to carry his guitar in a suit bag, back in the days when you could carry one on the plane and hang it from a hook by your seat. When that option went away, he had a guitar built that would meet the carry on restrictions (I know a lot of modular synth case manufacturers also trumpet which of their cases meet such regulations). And I've even heard of guitarists dismantling bolt-on guitars, and putting them in an over night bag, so that it'll fit in the over head bin.

[GuitarGeek]

Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
You saw Howe used his Rickenbacker 12 string? The only time I've ever seen him play electric 12 string, it's always been the Steinberger. While I'll can see using things like an electric 12 string, steel, the acoustic instruments and even the laud (the instrument that Howe likes to call his "Portugese guitar"), but having the Les Paul, ES-175, Strat, Tele, and Steinberger 6 string all seem a bit excessive. He probably could have made due with, say, the ES-175 and just one or two of the solid body guitars.

He used a Danelectro 12 string for the song Sketches in the Sun on the GTR album.

I was talking about live. Videos shown on TV don't count. The only time I've known him to use the Danelectro live was on the Tales From Topographic Oceans tour, and I think, the Night Of The Guitars concert. I know he used his first Rickenbacker 12 string (a 70's era Mapglo 360/12 that got stolen in the mid 80's, along with his sunburst Strat and an Ibanez guitar synth controller) on the late 70's tours to play Awaken, but the videos I've seen from the Union tour and each of the instances I've seen Yes do the song live, he uses a Steinberger, which I think is now his "go to" electric 12 string, though he does sometimes use the second Rick 12 string he got after the first one stolen (the replacement being 60's vintage model, I believe one of the Rose/Morris export models, identifiable by the conventional "f hole" instead of the "slash" soundhole usually associated with Rickenbackers).

[GuitarGeek]

Yeah, besides the whammy bar, it could be a simple matter of wanting specific tones for specific songs (or sections of songs). It takes a lot of effort and gear to mix up a bunch of different sounds on a recording. Some folks might take the opportunity to adapt the songs to a smaller rig onstage in order to keep it simpler, even if it means not having the same range of tones, while the likes of Steve Howe will consider it worth the extra trouble to keep changing all the time.

Well, yeah, I know that, but it still seems a bit excessive, sometimes. I can only imagine what the bill for shipping all of those guitars around the world must be. And I have the impression at one time, he didn't even like having a guitar tech, preferring to tune and set up his guitars himself (I think that changed in the late 90's). I even remember him saying the reason he went to using just the ES Artists onstage with Asia was because he started off rehearsing with a bunch of guitars, and he suddenly realized he didn't want to deal with having to restring and tune all these guitars before every show, so he went to using just the four ES Artist guitars, plus his old Martin, and once it came into the setlist, the Coral sitar on Eye To Eye.

[GuitarGeek]

Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick changes guitars for *every* song live, because it LOOKS COOL!

I don't know if he still does it, but back in the days before locking tremolo systems existed, he used to wear as many as three guitars at once. He'd start a song playing one guitar, then when it started having tuning problems, his guitar tech (this being back in the days when they were still called "roadies") would grab the first guitar from him, and he'd play the second guitar, then when that one started to slip, the guitar tech would grab the second guitar, and Rick would finish the song with the third guitar. Or at least that was his explanation he gave in at least one interview, I guess the result of him having a really aggressive attack when he plays.

I recall reading once that he tours with something like 30-40 guitars, but that was back in the 80's and early 90's, I somehow imagine these days, he doesn't travel with so many guitars anymore.

[iguana]

You saw Howe used his Rickenbacker 12 string? The only time I've ever seen him play electric 12 string, it's always been the Steinberger. While I'll can see using things like an electric 12 string, steel, the acoustic instruments and even the laud (the instrument that Howe likes to call his "Portugese guitar"), but having the Les Paul, ES-175, Strat, Tele, and Steinberger 6 string all seem a bit excessive. He probably could have made due with, say, the ES-175 and just one or two of the solid body guitars.

yes, that was during the european dates. he played it for the first half of “awaken” (“house of yes” has him on the steinberger, as common) just like in 1977 and i was surprised to see that. as far as i can recall (and i can't even play the guitar!):

YinD: 175, martin12
Homeworld: tele, martin12
PerpChg: 175
LgtnStrikes: flamenco6 (billy did all the other electric stuff)
Messenger: martin12, strat
AYAI: martin12, steel, 175
IWBAGD: tele
Face2Face: steinberger
Hearts: steel
Awaken: rick12, tele, steel
ISAGP: portuguese, 175
SH solo: scharpach6
OOALH: les paul
roundabout (truncated version): 175

so that's ten. i lost count, apologies. still a fair amount! radical downscale to five guitar for the “masterworks” set afterwards.

[progmatist]

^^ There's the Tele Custom he used for The Gates of Delirium...differs from the standard Tele due to its neck humbucker.

[GuitarGeek]

^^ There's the Tele Custom he used for The Gates of Delirium...differs from the standard Tele due to its neck humbucker.

Actually, that's not a Telecaster Custom that Howe uses. It was originally a mid or late 50's Tele (identifiable by the blonde finish in combination with the white pickguard), which came stock with a single coil pickup in the neck position.. Howe added the humbucker and the Gibson style pickup switch when he got the guitar.

The Telecaster Custom had separate volume and tone controls for each pickup (Keith Richards used one as his main standard tuning guitar during the Emotional Rescue/Tattoo You era), whereas Howe's has the traditional single volume and tone control arrangement. I've never seen a blonde Telecaster Custom, nor one with a white pickguard (the ones I've seen all have black pickguards, and typically are either black, sunburst, natural or brown).

Anyway, Steve's Tele is one of my main "go to" guitars. He used it on all three pieces on Relayer, as well as things like Awaken, Only Time Will Tell, and so on. First time I saw Yes, back in 97, he used it for Open Your Eyes.

[Progbear]

Some of Howe's guitars are set up on playing stands. This allows him to wear one and switch to another during the song. I believe he does this with the electric sitar on Close To The Edge. Pedal steel only requires walk over.

This was the setup when I saw Camel back in ’92. Andy and Colin had a bunch of guitars on stands, allowing them to switch from electric/bass to acoustic easily. The stage was a sea of gear, what with Mickey Simmonds’ huge keyboard rig, plus extra keyboards for Andy/Colin to play when necessary and of course Andy’s flute. And it was a pretty small stage (New George’s in San Rafael), so good on them for finding a way to fit all that gear on it!

[GuitarGeek]

This was the setup when I saw Camel back in ’92. Andy and Colin had a bunch of guitars on stands, allowing them to switch from electric/bass to acoustic easily.

A lot of people have done that, though I think Howe might ahve been the first to do it, with the Coral sitar on the Close To The Edge tour. Then, on the Topographic Oceans tour, he had that "guitar tree" built, which had the Coral sitar, the Danelectro 12 string, and the Fender bouleneck steel all mounted on on "branches" that could be rotated around (though I don't think there's any piece where he actually uses all three) to the one he needed to play, in addition to whichever guitar he was wearing at the time (usually either the walnut ES-345 or a Les Paul Jr).

Alex Lifeson used to also use an acoustic guitar on a stand. It always bugged me that on the studio versions of Closer To The Heart and Hemispheres, he plays a 12 string acoustic, but it seems he always played those on 6 string live for some reason.

I also remember reading an article on one of the guys from The Hooters (remember them?) who had a mandolin mounted on a stand so he could switch back and forth between it and electric guitar.

[Scott Bails]

A lot of people have done that, though I think Howe might ahve been the first to do it, with the Coral sitar on the Close To The Edge tour. Then, on the Topographic Oceans tour, he had that "guitar tree" built, which had the Coral sitar, the Danelectro 12 string, and the Fender bouleneck steel all mounted on on "branches" that could be rotated around (though I don't think there's any piece where he actually uses all three) to the one he needed to play, in addition to whichever guitar he was wearing at the time (usually either the walnut ES-345 or a Les Paul Jr).

Which makes it even more frustrating that he couldn't use acoustic guitar on "And You And I" back then.

[GuitarGeek]

Which makes it even more frustrating that he couldn't use acoustic guitar on "And You And I" back then.

It wasn't that he "couldn't". Other bands were using acoustic guitars onstage (eg Jethro Tull and Genesis), and at some point before the QPR concert, he had electronics installed in both his Kohno nylon guitar and his favorite Martin. I'd have to dig out the guitar collection book again, but I think the custom Guild 12 string he used on the studio version of And You And I also had electronics in it.

Surely, he could have had Mike Tait (who was in charge of building whatever Yes needed for the stage, in terms of things like the Coral sitar stand or the guitar tree) build him a stand that could accommodate an acoustic instrument. I suspect he either didn't want to carry an extra acoustic instrument (besides his Martin and laud) or he didn't want to deal with some of the feedback issues that could still occur when using an acoustic instrument in a group setting.