Haters gonna hate, but I finally collected this the other day...
It's awesome. I had it reserved for first dibs since before the world went crazy, and it finally showed up. The relic job is a bit clunky, but it plays really, really well. They over did the neck tint though - it looks like it has been played after someone was digging for coal with their bare hands. It also has a Wolfgang pickup rather than a Frankenstein which is odd
I think this era EVH is irrelevant enough to get away with playing this live now...aside from other musicians nobody is going to know what it is. That millennial Billy Eillish doesn't even know who Van Halen are haha.... I play in one 80s metal tribute band and a heavy Alt rock originals band, so this is going to get used for both
Comments
This guitar changed our world forever.
Congrats, I personally couldn't play it in public, the expectations would be too high.
Imagine the work that has to go into getting the stripe job to look accurate, the Fender custom shop charged £25k for the original replica, and honestly, it seemed to be justified in the level of detail. Not quite, but maybe.
I love hearing the new stories I hear about Ed, and the crazy things he did, for example, the track that really got me listening to Van Halen was Beat it, and Jump which was around the same time-I was more into Motorhead and Iron Maiden, so hadn't really got into VH.
There was a recent Steve Lukather interview where he discussed the recording of Beat it. Eddie had chopped up the tape when he put the solo over MJ's vocal track, which ruined the synchronisation track that was there to lock 2 tape machines together, and Lukather had to put guitar bass and drum tracks together over the ruined tape, he had to save the project.
Thank god he managed it, imagine if the track was ruined.
I think that is the only way you could get to use this guitar in a set, for the solo in Beat it, and only if you could nail it.
This guy gets it, but he has enough gimmicks to not need Frankenstein.
Here's a few more - what is cool is that you can feel where it has been masked off and painted in layers as per the original.
The Custom shop one was ridiculous, but it was a far more faithful recreation. There's a Fender trem on that, and it famously never held its tune. The floyd didn't appear until he started using Kramers if I remember correctly. I remember Eddie saying 'this guitar got famous when I painted it red' most people don't know it's the same guitar as the black and white one.
As for playing it live, meh - I'm going to use it, I have my first gig back next week and the d-tuna is a life saver as I play between drop C# and D#. Its a guitar like any other, ok so it looks like a famous guitar from 40 years ago (how depressing is that) but I think the best tribute possible to to use it and enjoy it. When I see someone with a jem I don't think anything of it, I just think it's a cool looking guitar.
One thing I do like is, you can spend £4k on a PRS or R8 and nobody gives it a second look - everyone who has seen this has said what the hell is THAT? Nobody has said oh Its Van Halen's guitar... yet anyway
I think you do need to look for a 71 quarter though.
enjoy it, it brought back a lot of happy memories for me.
cheers
andy k
I'll never buy one though (probably not available lefty anyway...), I'm happy with my two Wolfgangs. And you have bigger nuts than me if you're going to play it out