Ou oui sur JCM 900, il était bien en évidence aux débuts du groupe.
Maintenant il tourne plus sur fender/vox, mais les débuts glorieux, c'est beaucoup de marshall.
La légende veut même qu'il ait joué quelque temps sur un marshall signature Slash, mais je ne suis pas certain qu'il s'en vante.
Bien.
Vous voyez le type en kilt qui bouge sans arrêt.
Et bien c'est lui.
D'abord bassiste il est devenu guitariste, puis a quitté le groupe de Williams visiblement.
Toujours est-il qu'en tant que guitariste, il utilisait le matériel décrit dans l'article suivant :
Citation:
Adam Birch has been Fil's tech ever since he took over on guitar, though he was on the road with the band before that,
"Adam used to be the tech on the other side of the stage when I was on bass," explains Fil, "and I only agreed to switch if I could have him as my tech!"
Adam's role is to take care of the guitars, as well as maintain Fil's insanely complex amp and effects set-up.
The full list of Fils' guitars on stage reads like the stock list for a rather cool vintage guitar shop -
A Gretsch Red Firebird, a Gibson Les Paul Gold Top Deluxe and 335 Cherry, both belonging to Guy Chambers, a Rosewood Fender USA Reissue Tele, Blue Fender USA Tele, Guild JF30 12 string acoustic, Guild JF30 6 string acoustic
And his penchant for pedals shows the same vintage bias -
2 Big Muffs, 2 Marshall Govnors, Ratt Pro, Voodoo Vibe, Boss DD3, Boss RV3, Jim Dunlop Wah, 2 Custom made pedals by Jute at Blah St Studios - Mouse distortion and Blow Job ( enough said about that one!)
"Fil plays all these, except the Martin 00-18SH and the Guild JF65-12, which Guy Chambers the MD plays," says Adam, taking us along the rack, "The Martin's got a Transducer under the bridge but no work has been done to the body - Guy didn't want anyone hacking it up, so we've got a Fishman preamp on the floor..."
Surely that would be a feedback nightmare?
"We've had no problems with the Martin, though all the other guitars have feedback busters in them, but that little one's been fine.
"All the other acoustics are on loan from our friend Jamie at Fender. The Gibson, that's Guy's as well. All the electrics are played by Fil, but a few of them belong to Guy - The Les Paul Gold Top deluxe, the 335 and the Rosewood Tele are all Guy's.
"The Speaker Cabs are Marshall Blues Breaker 2x12" shells, but with Celestion 75w's in for a bit more power. He's got three on the stage and one up on the riser for when he goes up to do his solo."
Fil's effects are controlled by a custom Mike Hill switching system,
"Mike used to work for Marshall, and he now builds custom pedal boards." Adam continues, "all this does is open up a load of send and returns. The signal goes into the guts of the rack, then you can bring in a separate loop for each effects. It keeps the signal nice and clean..."
Fil explains why it's necessary to have it all separate,
"there's so much shit going on that a) I would have been tied down to a huge pedal board for the whole gig and b) the signal would be so full of hiss from all the vintage pedals, there'd be no guitar sound!"
Adam continues, "I've got a pedal board as well so I can do a lot of the switching if he's off doing his thing. And all the radio units are in Mike's rack as well."
And is all this that much more authentic than using Digital modelling?
"I think Guy was after a much more 60s vibe on this tour," explains Fil, "which the analogue pedals really help with. I do think those Line 6 things are great, but I've still got this phobia about all things MIDI live - as soon as I see a little display like that it's like, if that fucks up, it's all gone, where as with this, there are four heads there, and each effect is isolated. The other thing is I'm way too clumsy - I spend half my time bashing this gear up and poor Adam has to stop it from falling apart."
So what's Fil using to drive all these cabs and effects?
"He has a choice of three different Marshall Super Lead heads," comments Adam, "each in it's own loop, with a dummy load when it's not in use. They drive the same cabs - it's not like each cab has it's own head, we've only got one channel.
Fil adds, "The three heads are like clean, dirty and lead, but it's more like dirty, dirtier and bang out of order!"
