London Guitar Show observations...

[Antag]

With my wife's words ringing in my ears ("if you bring another guitar home I shall divorce you!!"), I went to the London Guitar show today.

Anyone who is in range of London, hasn't gone, & has either tomorrow or Sunday free needs to give serious thought to going.  It's easy to find, you can buy tickets on the door (a mere £13) & you will enjoy it.

I met Davey, TwilightOdyssey, & Afghan Dave at the Felineguitars & BKP stands - it was nice to talk to you all, even though I couldn't hear a word you said over the racket from the PRS stand next door :) (they must've got special permission to make noise, because it was LOUD)

Sadly, I didn't get a chance to say hello to Tim :( - whenever I passed he was busy or the stand was really crowded.  I did try out a Crawler set in his 70s LP custom though (see Gallery forum) - very nice :)

Anyway, the highlights of the day:

LOL of the day:
All the children queuing up to say hi to Matt Heafy from Trivium on the Dean stand :lol:

Tryout of the day:
Hughes & Kettner Triamp MKII jumps right to the top of my "to buy" list :D I played a Mk1 Triamp some years back & liked it, but the MkII is an awesome piece of kit.  I got to play it quite loud & was really impressed by it - 6 really good useable sounds, the highlight of which was an absolutely blistering lead sound :twisted:  Sadly my demo was cut short by them getting a warning for excessive volume (not me, I might add - some bloke trying out a Switchblade combo generated the most ear-slitting prolonged microphonic feedback I've ever heard :roll:)

Drool of the day: Tough one this, there were so many...
Feline's marine-blue korina Lion (I've seen this guitar slowly take shape on my several visits to Feline, but today was the first time I've seen it with paint on) - if someone doesn't snap it up at the ridiculously low £1400 show price, I'll be staggered (actually, I might be on my way to Croydon with my credit card... :))

An unbelievable Taylor W65C Jumbo 12-string on the Taylor stand in the "acoustic café" :dribble:

Dean ML in blue burst with fixed bridge.  The £2300 price tag was a little rich for my blood though...

The skinny blonde chick with very little clothes adorning the Ashton(?) stand - no idea who they are or what their products were...


Closest-I-came-to-getting-out-my-credit-card of the day: a 3-way tie...
A gorgeous Les Paul std on the Peter Cooks stand (50s neck, black cherry).  What stopped me wasn't the thought of bringing it home, but remembering that I already have 3 Les Pauls - 4 would be just excessive :)

Taylor DN8 for a mere £1350 (they're usually >1800) on the Taylor stand

Raimundo 630 on the Classical Guitar Co stand - I've been thinking about getting a nylon strung guitar for a while - this spruce top/maple back & sides cutaway electro model caught my attention & was really nice to play.


Anyway, a nice day out & a surprising display of self-restraint (see above) from me.  I will DEFINITELY be going next year...

[dave_mc]

man, if i were on the mainland at all, i'd be there so quick it's not even funny...

sounds awesome... nice reviews too.

:drink:

[Sailor Charon]

I have one complaint... It took me nearly 4 hours to get there! And half the time IT WAS VERY HARD TO TALK TO ANYBODY because it was so loud... Got to speak to the folk at Morgan Custom Guitars, but not BKP :(
Didn't see any SG3 faded :(  So didn't get to try one. :(

[WezV]

i ignored this show because i didnt have time to make anything for it  :(

I have had a few commissions on the go and the real day job has been getting in the way of my secondary income luthiery habbit.

Its a shame because i only sent 1 guitar last year and it sold for the asking price and got loads of interest.  I sent 5 to Music Live in novemeber but it didnt look like anyone was buying anything - and i dont just mean my guitars - all the stands still looked full at the end of the weekend.  

I do have a through neck fanned fret mahogany and redwood les paul nearly done that i would have loved to send to LGS but the regular paying jobs can be a bitch sometimes.

[Antag]

Drool of the day: Tough one this, there were so many...
Feline's marine-blue korina Lion (I've seen this guitar slowly take shape on my several visits to Feline, but today was the first time I've seen it with paint on) - if someone doesn't snap it up at the ridiculously low £1400 show price, I'll be staggered (actually, I might be on my way to Croydon with my credit card... :))

An unbelievable Taylor W65C Jumbo 12-string on the Taylor stand in the "acoustic café" :dribble:

Dean ML in blue burst with fixed bridge.  The £2300 price tag was a little rich for my blood though...

The skinny blonde chick with very little clothes adorning the Ashton(?) stand - no idea who they are or what their products were...

Just remembered a couple of other contenders for Drool of the day:

PRS Custom 24 Artist pack in Blue Matteo, 10-top quilt, wide/thin neck, 3-way toggle switch - my perfect PRS, both aesthetically & spec-wise :)

Patrick Eggle acoustics - including a particularly drop dead gorgeous Flame Koa mini-jumbo kinda shape.

[noodleplugerine]

Drool of the day - Black Machine 6 string with a snake wood neck.
Diezel Herbert into a 4x12 of K-100s - $%&#ING AMAZING.

LOL of the day - The queue for the Gibson tourbus - LET'S GO SEE 100 DIFFERENT COLOURED LES PAULS!

2nd lol of the day - The fact that people paying at the door had a shorter queue than the people who had pre-ordered their tickets.

Worst guitar of the day - £3000+ Dean Razorback which has got to be one of the worst guitars I've played in a long time - It was absolutely $%&#ing shite. NOTHING was good about it other than the fancy paintjob - And I played a £600 Dean rebel razorback later on which outplayed it by a MILE.

PS: The people at the Dean stand are seriously rude and idiotic - "You're aware that's a £3000 guitar, right?"

My reply: "You're aware it's nobody in their right mind would buy such a piece of cr@p, right?"


Biggest Regret - Buying a ticket and then being handed an AAA pass -.-

[everton_fc]

Personally I didnt think it was any way as good as the shows of the last 3 or so years I've been at when it was at Wembley.

But, that could be because I was totally not going on a guitar hunt, I was on a amp hunt. Just seemed to me that although there was some very nice kit there, at previous shows, there were more stalls where more bargains could be found at "LGS prices" - but like I said, this year, I didnt even look at a single guitar and no doubt if you're on the look out for a guitar, MY GOD - THERE WERE 1000's to choose from - as amps went, I tried nearly every brand that was there and still came home empty handed, and a little annoyed at the fact that when I said...

"I really like 6L6 valve tones" - the amount of blank looks I got from the 17 year old "assistants" who didnt even seem to know what a valve amp was let alone valve types and characteristics.

Any rant over - was good to meet some BKP satff and thank them for making great pups. My amp hunt continues...

[Simon D]

I've only just got back from LGS. Swansea, it turns out, is quite some way from London, especially when the trains are being a bit, well, special.

I had a good time, got to see some beautiful gear the likes of which never make it this far into Wales, if at all. Didn't really get anywhere near the BKP stand, as it seemed to be constantly rammed. Pity, because I quite fancied trying out a set of Irish Tours, as well as saying hello to the guys.

Drool of the day as far as I'm concerned was every guitar on the Nathan Shepherd Guitars stand - all of them were works of complete art. Mr  Shepherd is also a really nice bloke who was happy to chat for a good 15 minutes even though I told him I couldn't afford to buy anything. Quite a few great looking guitars on the Feline stand too, as well as a stunning koa top Framus superstrat on the Framus/Warwick stand. Oh, and the koa Patrick Eggle acoustic Antag mentioned was indeed fantastic.

On the downside, the noise drove me f@*king nuts after about 2 hours, and I missed Johnny Hiland playing on the PRS stand. Nearly bought a white US Standard Strat from Guitar Village for £450, but backed out when, on closer inspection it turned out to be second-hand with a badly cut neck pocket and some seriously shonky fretwork. Shame, I thought I had a bargain there, and a prime candidate for a set of Irish Tours.

All in, a bloody good day, just wish London wasn't so far!

[Muzzzz]

Ashton is friggin' shitee. They attempt to make EVERYTHING to do with music but fail miserably on most counts. Even for the 'budget' niche market on which they seem to specialise in. Quite well known in Australia though.

Anyone go to the Vai Masterclass?

[Philly Q]

Drool of the day:
Feline's marine-blue korina Lion (I've seen this guitar slowly take shape on my several visits to Feline, but today was the first time I've seen it with paint on) - if someone doesn't snap it up at the ridiculously low £1400 show price, I'll be staggered (actually, I might be on my way to Croydon with my credit card... :))

I need to see a pic of this guitar!  I hope someone took one before it sold.

[noodleplugerine]

Anyone go to the Vai Masterclass?

Me - It sucked, all he did was bullshitee for a bit, answer some lame questions where he could input things like "A song is part of yourself" and then widdle for 3 mins.

Stuff like "I'd never put my name on any of my guitars, I want people to buy guitars because they're good - not because they have my name on it"

Although the cheap Jem has his name on the 24th fret, doesn't it?

Anyway - it wasn't worth the extra £5 or whatever it was.

[Antag]

Drool of the day:
Feline's marine-blue korina Lion (I've seen this guitar slowly take shape on my several visits to Feline, but today was the first time I've seen it with paint on) - if someone doesn't snap it up at the ridiculously low £1400 show price, I'll be staggered (actually, I might be on my way to Croydon with my credit card... :))

I need to see a pic of this guitar!  I hope someone took one before it sold.

Feline's webpage only has a picture of it "in progress", but I'm sure he took pics of the finished article before/during the show.  Actually, I think he snapped a pic of me playing it (he probably won't use that one though - I doubt you could find anyone who looks less like a rocker than me :))

[Philly Q]

Yeah, I've seen the "in progress" pic, but I really want to see the finish and the abalone inlays.  It sounds awesome.

And I expect I look less like a rocker than you do!  

[markofled]

LOL of the day - Anyone go to the steve vai lesson at 2:30 some little kid asked steve if he would like to have a signiture guitar one day. LOL Vai was holding his Ibanez JEM. Plus i got my mate to shout "how often do you change your G string" at Vai dunno if he heard but very funny.

[noodleplugerine]

LOL of the day - Anyone go to the steve vai lesson at 2:30 some little kid asked steve if he would like to have a signiture guitar one day. LOL Vai was holding his Ibanez JEM. Plus i got my mate to shout "how often do you change your G string" at Vai dunno if he heard but very funny.

I heard that!!!

I laughed my head off and told me mate :D