So many things happen in a year in guitar, it can be hard to keep track. But when 2023 is done and dusted, how will it be remembered? Will it be remembered? Perhaps not by Kevin Buell, Bruce Springsteen’s guitar tech, who, in February, during a show at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena, got cleaned out by the world’s first mass-produced electric guitar when The Boss threw his Telecaster to him in customary fashion and it connected with his head. Thankfully there was no lasting damage from an incident that proved there was still danger in rock ’n’ roll.
The guitar and those who play it are fated to live out a strange existence; this instrument takes us to some strange places, doing some strange things.
What went through DragonForce’s Herman Li as he shredded down a water slide in a mask and snorkel during the 70,000 Tons Of Metal Cruise? Chlorinated water, if he’s lucky.
The year in gear is a story unto itself, but we must note some of the weird builds we have seen from outside of the music instrument industrial complex; guitars like the custom S-style that Devil & Sons’ Daniel Wallis builds that was equipped with an tones culminated in the building of a replica aluminium Veleno and recreating a tone unerringly close to what we hear on the recording.
