A life on the road or in the studio as the keeper of a rock star's legendary guitar collection might seem like a busman's holiday to some, but what does it really entail? And what would the likes of Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, and Noel Gallagher do without one? Mark Cunningham met some of the biggest guitar technicians in the business to find out.

In the early 1960s, when the likes of Hank Marvin and George Harrison gave the electric guitar the status it now enjoys in British rock, the onus of ensuring that instruments were match fit for concerts and recording sessions was on the musician. Tell that to a guitarist of even a second division band in the 1990s and he'll probably reply, 'Change my own guitar strings? Leave it out! I've got my own guitar tech!'

Gradually, as guitarists turned into rock gods, the importance of having their instruments of destruction in tiptop condition at the drop of a hat became paramount, and today the guitar technician is as vital to the smooth running of a band as the front-of-house sound engineer. Aside from his responsibility for the maintenance of a guitarist's instruments and amplification, the guitar tech is his boss' umbilical cord to the outside world, a glorified gopher, a real-life Man Friday, and the success of a live performance will often depend on the tech's reaction speed and precise instrument changeovers.

Many a guitar tech initially harboured ambitions of being a successful musician himself, but found that the only way of making it to the top was by working for someone already there. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, it just calls for a different focus and some skills developed in other areas. Some techs, however, had never played a guitar in their lives before landing their jobs.

Status Quo's man in the wings, Alan 'Tonto' Jhowry began humping flightcases for punk bands and driving to venues. He says: "I got more involved, with other roadie work, until I was tuning guitars, but I didn't really know what I was doing. So I got myself an old guitar to get accustomed to the way the instrument worked, then I went out on the road with Level 42.

"There is no written law that states you must have long hair, a belt with a mag light and a bunch of keys on it, and a big lump of dope in your back pocket. We're not like that. With some bands, they pay a fantastic sum of money for the light show, stage sets, and sound hire, only to see a roadie strutting about, looking like a sack of shit. But I feel that a roadie should look presentable, like an ambassador for the band, so I actually dress for a show."

In his youth, Keith Smith was just another Beatles fan with dreams of becoming a famous guitarist. Such aspirations dissolved after he became fascinated by the technical aspects of live music as road manager for a friend's band. Nowadays, having accumulated enviable experience on the road with The Who, The Power Station, and Pink Floyd, he works exclusively for Paul McCartney. As Keith recalls, much of his early knowledge was gleaned through adversity. "That first band were potless, and I think that's where a lot of my ideas for equipment and initiative came from. We couldn't afford to go out and buy loads of gear or pay for repairs, so we made a lot of it ourselves."

Keith's introduction to The Who came by accident when he began mixing for Simon Townshend, Pete's brother. "Simon's band's PA system eventually became the nucleus of The Who's company, Eel Pie Sound, and Pete asked me to work for them. That PA later became part of The Who's monitoring system. My first major break as a guitar tech came just after Keith Moon died when I was offered the job of bass technician for John Entwistle, and from that point onwards, I found myself specialising in one area of crew work."

Pete Sissons joined the Suede crew in 1992, and after a brief 'apprenticeship', became guitar tech for Bernard Butler and his successor, Richard Oakes. "I'm not a long-term trainee and neither am I a particularly good guitarist myself, although I don't think that is essential. I was studying at Teeside Polytechnic when I met Suede's [present] manager, Charlie Charlton. When I started with Suede, I was just selling the T-shirts, but over the course of about a year or two, I progressed to the role of guitar tech which is where I always wanted to be. I learned a lot from Dougie Guthrie who worked with The Wonderstuff and Suede's original guitarist Bernard Butler. I'm in a lucky position now, because with Richard being fairly green about the equipment when he joined, it became my baby."

IN GOAL

Being part of a road crew for even the most famous names is far from glamorous, so forget the myths. Looking after Eric Clapton's considerable racks of guitars, however, would appear to have its attraction. Lee Dickson has been doing exactly that since Clapton's Japanese tour in December 1979 and describes himself as being "like a goalkeeper — I always want to have a clean sheet".

Lee's on-tour day normally starts at around 10am when the trucks arrive at the concert venue. "I get my gear in position by 11am, and within 30 minutes, I'll have my workbench operational; I take the guitars out of their cases to see if they travelled OK. I put up the racks and stands, position the risers, and set up Eric's amps. But when we're resident at the Royal Albert Hall for about a fortnight, after the first couple of gigs, I'll arrive at around 2pm to do a bit of re-stringing.

"I like to keep busy, so I always try to arrange things whereby I have very little downtime. While the rest of the crew are eating at 5 or 6pm, I sneak off to my corner where it's quiet and mess around with things I might not have a chance to do at any other time. It's all very well to use tuners and headphones, but it's nice to have silence and check the intonation of the acoustics.

"At 6pm when the doors open, I tune the acoustics then leave them to settle because the temperature of the room is bound to alter the tuning slightly. I then give them a final tune-up, while the support band are on. I leave it to the very last minute possible before I tune the 12-string, because it can be a beast. On songs like Motherless Child, Eric hits it so hard that the scratch plate has red pick grooves across it and the body. It was actually hurting him to play the downstrokes that hard at one point, so I had to file down the bridge a little. Using a capo multiplies the risk of breaking a string. In fact, nearly every day he will break a string.

"I'm tuning up throughout the show too, because there are so many different guitars — 18 at the moment. Not every guitar is duplicated, otherwise we would be looking at around 30 guitars which is insane. The old Dobro he uses is so unique that you can't find anything remotely near it. But I do have something that Eric can just play slide on if anything untoward happened."

When on tour with Paul McCartney as his backline crew chief, Keith Smith's main role is one of a delegating decision-maker. "We can afford to have the best people working for us and to some extent that makes the whole operation extremely smooth running. From midday, it's pretty much non-stop until 4pm when Paul and the band arrive for soundcheck. With Paul, a soundcheck can easily last an hour, because he plays bass, electric and acoustic guitars, and piano during the show, and wants to play two or three numbers on each. He's the ultimate pro and has to know that everything is in place before he goes on stage."

"... the guitar tech is his boss' umbilical cord to the outside world, a glorified gopher, a real-life Man Friday..."

UNDER PRESSURE

A tech is put under immense pressure during a major concert and he can often operate in the face of normally impossible situations. "There are so many guitar changes in a Quo show, because they use quite a few different tunings," says Tonto. "Then there is the giant 44 foot wall of Marshall amplification. If any of it goes down, my head goes into a complete daze because not only do I have to fix the problem, I also have to keep my guitar change schedule going. There have been shows where I've walked past my wife and not realised she was there. It's because when I'm under that pressure, I am living 100% for the band and everyone else has to wait."

HIGHLY STRUNG

After a year on the road with Hot Chocolate, "doing everything", Geoff 'Bison' Banks became a key figure in the Genesis organisation in 1974, and now works as a 'floating' guitar tech for their individual solo projects. Currently touring the world with Phil Collins, he is taking care of guitarist Daryl Stuermer's and bass player Nathan East's equipment. "I change strings every day on Daryl's guitars and every other day on Nathan's basses. I get 50 sets of strings at a time and that'll do me for maybe 25 gigs," says Geoff. "It depends on where we are going to be playing. We're about to go out to places like Singapore and Taiwan, so I think it'll be wise to stock up with about 70 sets, and they will probably do me for the whole South East Asia leg of the tour. In America, I don't carry huge amounts, because we can always get strings sent to us by Federal Express."

Understandably, putting on a fresh set of strings immediately before a performance can make a tech nervous, although Lee Dickson is more relaxed about it than most. "Eric might come back from a holiday and his fingers could be killing him. We would have a short rehearsal period in which they wouldn't have time to harden. So on these occasions, we might go down a gauge as little as ten minutes before the set. The only way I can deal with that is to put the strings on, stretch them, pull and bend them quite fiercely to emulate what Eric is likely to do, then re-tune them and hope that they stay in tune. It gives me tremendous satisfaction when he's played the last five numbers and done some incredible, devastating guitar playing, then given me the guitar and it's still in tune."

Lee prefers to have both an audible and visual reference for tuning. "I have a selection of strobe tuners, but I really like the Peterson as it has a tone reference output running over five octaves. That's useful for checking harmonics where you pluck the harmonic and compare it to the tone. But where it might tell you that a note is bang on, it can't assure you that the intonation is right. But I can tell if I'm playing it through the 15 Watt Fender practice amp with headphones on."

"I think I'd die if I saw someone knock over one of their guitars, and whoever did it would find themselves incredibly bruised!"

TOOTHPICKS & DENTAL FLOSS

Lee's workbench is a sight to behold. Like a back alley hardware store, it contains virtually any item a musician is likely to need on the road. Inspecting it at a secret Clapton rehearsal hideaway, the only useful thing I couldn't find was a condom! "The workbench has a couple of work lights," explains Lee, "so that I see what I'm doing during the show. I have a couple of different neck rests, one of which is ideal for guitars with capos. I have all the relevant repair manuals, a Makita for quick dismantling jobs, a wide selection of picks, cleaning stuff. There is a drawer where I keep all the strings, fret cleaning plates, string cleaner, toothpicks, dental floss, sandpaper, super glue — you name it, I've got it here somewhere.

"I have various items for easy access jobs, like quick grip screwdrivers, a full set of Allen keys, my test meter, and other things you need in a hurry. There's a hygrometer which I like to put up especially if we are playing outdoors or in very hot or cold climates. I can immediately see if the temperature or humidity has changed, so that I can anticipate any problems with the guitars. I also have drawers full of spares like pick-up assemblies and my computer printer for printing out Eric's set lists."

OFF THE ROAD

What does a guitar tech do when his boss's tour finishes? Does he ask the bus driver to drop him off at the nearest Job Centre? Those at the top of their profession can often organise their diaries so that their services are immediately in demand by another world class band. Alan Rogan, for example, can be working for AC/DC one month and George Harrison the next.

Geoff Banks has a similar lifestyle. "It's been rare for me to be off the road," he says, "because in between commitments with Genesis, I've been touring with Yes, Robert Plant, and Brian May. If there's a session at The Farm, Genesis's studio, I make sure there's a wide selection of guitars to choose from. Both Mike Rutherford and Daryl primarily use Fender Stratocasters, and we generally use a broken-down, modified version of the live rig for recording. There is quite a bit of sitting around, but the whole thing is about me being prepared to jump in if something needs organising.

"Genesis have accumulated a hell of a range of equipment over the years. We've got things like Colorsound fuzz boxes, old Vox AC30 amps, and virtually anything you can think of. If they're looking for a particular sound, they might decide to use something that maybe they hadn't touched since 1975, but it'll still be well maintained in storage and I'll wheel it out."

Since the end of 1993, when Paul McCartney completed his last world tour, Keith Smith has been assisting with the running and recent refurbishment of McCartney's private studio. "Paul generally only gives himself one day off a week and the rest of the time he's in the studio doing something that will involve us. There are two or three of us that work permanently at the studio and we all muck in. One day, I could be working on Paul's guitars; the next, I could be a tape op."

For Quo man Tonto, studio life quickly becomes a tedious affair. "It gets very boring. I'm a great lover of Status Quo's music and Sade's too, but even that can't compensate for the boredom of hearing the same song all day. They like having me around because of my humour, and if things ever get tense, they know I'll break the ice with a few wisecracks."

What does Lee Dickson get up to while Mr. Slowhand is sunning himself in Antigua? Sit around and twiddle his string winder? "I've got plenty to do. Eric's management have a storage studio where everything is kept and I go there to do the unglamorous side of the job, like putting wheels on flightcases. I'm pretty much left to my own devices, as long as everything that's needed for a tour is in place." Tonto, meanwhile, can be found in jail. "I run a music workshop at Pentonville Prison, which is financed by Quo. The band provided all the music equipment about four years ago, and the inmates formed a band. I go in there occasionally and teach the guys how to be roadies."

"There is no written law that states you must have long hair, a belt with a mag light and a bunch of keys on it, and a big lump of dope in your back pocket. We're not like that."

ACTS OF GOD

As experienced and resourceful as they are, not even the super techs can prevent disasters caused by the elements. And outdoor festivals, as Geoff Banks will readily confirm, can be the cause of many sleepless nights. "There was an incident in Italy when all the power went out, and, of course, when that happens everything stops," says Geoff. "Because I was looking after two guys, I had to run around two rigs, turn everything off, wait until the power came back on, then run back and turn on two complete guitar and bass rigs, and reset delay lines and MIDI programs.

"If it's raining you can get problems with equipment getting wet, like Mike Rutherford's Moog Taurus bass pedals and Daryl Stuermer's pedal board, because they can short out. Another problem is when audiences start throwing things on to the stage through excitement — Coca-Cola and electricity do not mix very well."

Shivers race up Tonto's spine whenever he is reminded of a certain Quo gig in Seville where all his skills were put to the ultimate test. "We were in a bullring and the stage had a roof, but the sides where the PA stacks were didn't. Out of the blue, it started to rain, and I had to move things under shelter while carrying on with the guitar changes. A sudden storm sent a lighting gantry crashing to the stage, taking the entire wall of Marshalls with it. 16 heads and 16 cabinets littered the stage, all the inputs were ripped out, seven speakers were torn, and 19 valves smashed. I just told the band to leave the stage, gave orders to the crew, and within 20 minutes, the band were back with all the gear working. The crowd thought it was all part of the act."

For some guitar techs, it's not the weather that is the biggest enemy, it's the personalities of the band. Keith Smith testifies: "With The Who, you never knew what was going to happen on stage. It was a very volatile, pressuring atmosphere, and I had to be on my guard all the time. I'm glad that it was like that on my first major job, because it set me up to be more alert and ready for things going wrong than maybe the next guy."

COMFORT, WHAT COMFORT?

There is normally a marked difference in quality between the on-tour accommodation booked for the stars and their crews, but what else would you expect? It's not all that bad though, as Keith Smith says... "you get to a certain age and level of experience where a tour manager would know better than to book a Floyd or Paul McCartney crew into a dump of a hotel. There would be too much belly-aching for him to handle." On long haul tours, however, it is more common for road crews to sleep on buses as they travel from city to city. "The buses we have are worth £280,000," says Tonto. "They have beds, front and back lounges, and are very luxurious. I love 'em."

Rock legend would have you believe that the backstage scenes of almost every tour date resemble banned Fellini movies, with scores of naked nubiles offering drugs and gratis personal services to crew members, in the hope of an introduction to the stars. Sorry to disappoint, but... "it's rare that we'll party the night away when we're on tour," says Geoff Banks. "If we're doing a Knebworth type of show or one of the big German festivals, by the time we've got all the gear out, taken a shower, got on the bus and maybe had a few beers, we're all dying to go to bed because there's another show the next day."

Tonto is just as much of a party animal. "I can't really do my job very well with a hangover — I end up cutting my fingers when I'm re-stringing the guitars. But I have been caught out a few times. The guys wind me up about it and say they'll play a bit softer for me."

"I can't really do my job very well with a hangover — I end up cutting my fingers when I'm re-stringing the guitars."

BEFOREHAND

Preparing for a big budget world tour can be almost as gruelling as being on the road itself. But getting stuck into the intense organisation is something that Keith Smith relishes. Not only was he partly responsible for equipping the first post-Roger Waters Pink Floyd line-up which toured in 1987, but he also helped Paul McCartney the following year with preparations for his first world tour since 1976.

Keith says: "For that first Floyd tour, we were in prep mode for about nine months before the first date. We had to completely re-equip the band, because it was essentially the new Pink Floyd with Jon Carin, Guy Pratt, and Tim Renwick. We started from scratch, although Dave Gilmour obviously had his own rig.

"Dave had been down to Paul's studio to play on the Flowers In The Dirt album. When Paul mentioned that he was planning to tour and wanted the best possible crew, Dave Gilmour, bless him, put my name forward and I was asked if I'd like a job.

"John Hammel has been working for Paul for over 20 years. He is and was Paul's guitar tech, but he's taken on a much more personal role. So I took on the job of backline crew chief and took charge of all of Paul's and Robbie McIntosh's guitars and equipment. As soon as John arrived with Paul, he would take over Paul's gear and I would look after Robbie's. That's how it worked on the '89 tour and it's stayed that way ever since.

"Although Paul's not interested in the technicalities of gear, he is very concerned with how it sounds when he's playing through it. If he's playing his Les Paul, he'll just want to plug it into his AC30 and that'll be fine with him. With John's help, I had to convince Paul that with the sizes of venues we were playing, we had to build a sensible backline. Reliability was uppermost in my mind, and I ended up equipping the whole band with Boogie gear. We spent a lot of money, but it was worth it, because it performed brilliantly and travelled well. Paul stuck with his Boogie bass rig on the next tour, although he changed to Vox AC30s with 4 by 12 cabs for his guitars which sounded great. Paul used to say to John: 'If I could just have an AC30 that was four times as big and loud, but didn't feedback and squeal every time I got near it, I'd be very happy'. Paul played guitar for about one-third of the set on the last tour so it was very important we got things right."

HANDS OFF

Anyone taking a shine to Rossi and Parfitt's axes should tread very carefully. "Their guitars are among the world's most photographed and so many people are interested in them," says Tonto. "I just tell them to keep clear. I think I'd die if I saw someone knock over one of their guitars, and whoever did it would find themselves incredibly bruised! The last few years have seen me gradually modifying Francis' main green '58 Telecaster — it has a normal E to E tuning — and he has a G&L ASAT as a spare for this Tele. The modifications began by having the standard single coil pick-ups taken out, then putting in a five-way switch so he has a middle pick-up. He's using a red Lace Sensor pick-up at the bridge, with a silver for mid and blue at the neck. We also put in higher frets, and there's now a little dip in the neck so that the action comes up a little. It's all geared to help Francis improve his playing. He has a G&L stock saddle, which is off the ASAT guitar that Leo Fender made for Francis before he died. That guitar is now quite valuable. Fender, the company, took G&L to court, because the ASAT had Leo Fender's signature on the headstock, and, as a result, none of the new models have the signature. But we've got three signature necks that are bound to be pricey collectors' items."

The keeper of the most famous living guitarist's instruments refuses to reveal exactly how many items are in the collection. "I generally say he has a shitload," says Lee Dickson. "Most people imagine that Eric has one of the most desirable collections in the world, but it really isn't the case. I find that it's the guitar dealers who have the most impressive guitars, because that's their business."

One of the most valuable and highly prized private guitar collections in the world is owned by Who bassist, John Entwistle. As Entwistle's one-time technician, Keith Smith had the pleasure of guarding the Ox's fort. "While I was working for John, he got up to about 250 guitars, but then he sold a lot. But he started collecting again on the last two tours. He even has collections within his collection. He used to collect the Fender custom colours, like candy apple red. He found a great Precision, then a really good Jazz Bass, a Strat, a Tele, and a Jazzmaster to form a fantastic collection of candy apple reds. Then he'd go for burgundy mist and green, and so on."

Entwistle's collection defies description and is a testimony to someone who seems to be permanently living on the borders of excess. He says of his guitars: "They're all over the house. Most of the working ones are kept in my studio, but my really important ones, an original Gibson Explorer and a Flying V, stay in their flightcases and don't get to work at all."

- Noel Gallagher of Oasis
- Tech: Jason 'The Geezer' Rhodes

"Like Noel, I'm a vintage guitar freak and I get dead suspicious of anything new," says Jason Rhodes (pictured), who has also serviced the likes of Johnny Marr, Edwyn Collins, New Order, and the Happy Mondays.

"Noel can afford pretty much any bit of gear he likes now, and when we were over in the States earlier this year, we spent some time looking around music shops, but he didn't find anything he was too struck on. But we've had a couple of developments such as the Union Jack Epiphone that Meg, Noel's girlfriend, had made for him, which I took down to Bill Puplett Guitars in Harrow to get all the frets seen to. Until now, Noel's used his burgundy '70s Epiphone Riviera as his main electric guitar, but I can't get him away from the Union Jack now. At long last, we now have an Epiphone Noel Gallagher signature guitar that I think is gonna be called the Supernova."

- Graeme Duffin of Wet Wet Wet
- Tech: Rab Randall

In the studio, Graeme Duffin uses a Les Paul Custom, a Moon semi-acoustic 12-string, and a Moon Telecaster-shaped six-string with coil tap options that allow him to emulate Les Paul, Tele, and Strat sounds. He also plays Patrick Eggle Berlin Pro and Lowden acoustics. On stage for the band's last tour, Duffin was using a custom-designed double-neck guitar. He says: "Both necks are six-string, with one side set up especially for slide. I have the bottom neck with a high action and tuned to an open D chord — this is the guitar that I use on stage for 'Love Is All Around'. I needed something on which I could re-create the slide and other parts, and I reckoned that the double-neck was the only means for me to do that live."

His rack system is based on a couple of Roland GP-8 guitar effects processors, one of which he invested in around seven years ago when the product was new to the market. It has since been a vital feature of his standard rig. "I run it through a TC Electronic TC1128 programmable 28-band graphic equaliser and have a second identical GP-8, which I run through a Peavey Valveverb for tremolo effects and a Mesa/Boogie studio preamp for both overdriven and clean valve sounds. The stereo outputs from both GP-8s come back into a Yamaha MV802 mixer, in stereo, obviously. I have two outboard effects on the auxiliary sends of the MV802, those being a Yamaha SPX-90 for stereo echo-type effects and a Roland DEP3 for all my reverb programmes. The whole thing then runs through a Marshall 90200 valve power amp in stereo, and it drives a pair of Mesa/Boogie one by 12 cabinets fitted with Electrovoice speakers.

"At the front end of the system, I have a couple of Sennheiser EM2003 wireless diversity receivers. In order to compensate for the difference in sound between wired and wireless guitars, I have a Yamaha GQ2015 stereo 15-band equaliser. One side is set up for the radios, the other is set up to fire me an identical sound just in case I have a problem with the radio system and have to resort to plugging in a lead. As a backup to all this — in case, it all went down on me — I have an ART XGS2000 Express tri-channel digital effects and tube preamp system, which is MIDI'd to everything else in the rack. It was reasonably inexpensive and is comprehensive enough in the facilities it offers. It will have a good attempt at copying everything in the main rack. It doesn't sound as good, but after all the effort that went into the main rack, I'm quite pleased about that!"

- Crispian Mills of Kula Shaker
- Tech: Simon Roberts

After their singles 'Grateful When You're Dead', 'Tattva', and 'Hey Dude', a storming performance at Oasis's Knebworth gig, and now their brilliant debut album K, Kula Shaker are on course to become one of the top rock bands in Britain. Their quasi-Eastern sound owes much to the influences picked up by singer/songwriter/guitarist, Crispian Mills (pictured) whose gear is looked after by backline tech, Simon Roberts.

"Crispian isn't very equipment-orientated as a player and doesn't have heaps of gear for me to take care of," explains Roberts. "He's essentially a Strat man. The Strat's a versatile guitar and you can put a lot of your character into it, and it looks good.

There's been no science behind his sound, and he thinks it's all luck. When he was looking for a new amp, he wanted something classic and all valve, so he went for a Fender Twin, and, for effects, a wah-wah and a multi-effects unit which gives him compression, overdrive, and a lot of delay."

- Francis Rossi of Status Quo
- Tech: Tonto (pictured)

"Francis uses a Samson True Diversity radio system," says Tonto. "The guitar comes out of the radio, goes straight into a Marshall Guvnor pedal, then to a Marshall Bluesbreaker, and from that into a Turbo RAT. The signal is then sent back to a Roland GP-8 multi effects processor, but he doesn't use it for effects as such. He uses it more to control output. Triggering from the pedalboard, Francis will, for instance, hit number 1 to switch to 80% volume, number 2 for 85%, 3 for 90%, and number 4 for 100% flat out volume. He's still driving the amp to get the sound he wants, but just reducing the level, and it's a good method of control. The GP-8 goes out into the preamp of the Marshall head, then out to a splitter box.

"We then send to four outputs, going to four individual Marshall heads, so we are effectively splitting the preamp and the power amp. The splitters are unique, because they have little MOSFETs which I get updated by a guy in Wales. They are very good for sending signals without distorting the sound, and in Francis' rack, there are two — one is a straight splitter and the other has a graphic mode, which helps us get the sound of five Marshall cabs from only one, which is ideal for smaller venues. It's not loud, but it sounds very big.

"From the speaker output, we send the signal to a Palmer speaker simulator, then back to the cabs. In a live situation, we put a microphone on one of the cabs to help us get the Marshall live sound plus the uninterfered with speaker sound, which are both totally different."

- Don Henley of The Eagles
- Tech: Mike Harlow

No fewer than a monstrous 74 guitars were being used by the Eagles' Joe Walsh, Glenn Frey, Don Felder, and, in his non-drumming moments, Don Henley, when the reformed band visited British shores on the European leg of their Hell Freezes Over tour in July and August of this year. But this was arguably the only example of decadence shown by the former hellraising, West Coast country rockers.

Backstage at Wembley Stadium, Mike Harlow, one of four guitar techs assisting the band, showed me Don Felder's considerable axe arsenal and said: "Don's guitars range from a Gibson 6/12-string double-neck and a Strat, to an electric mandolin and a Fender pedal steel. Each song requires a different sound and tuning, and they don't go in for a lot of electronics garbage, so we have to change for every one. Fortunately, we've got the changes down to just a few seconds."