After a lengthy break (because of the whole you-know-what), Pearl Jam are finally out on the road, supporting their 2020 record “Gigaton.” Grunge legends are currently touring the United States and the current touring plan includes shows during May and September.
The run kicked off on May 3 and will last until May 20. After that, they’re heading over to Europe before coming back to the U.S. in September. If you want a closer look into it, here’s a fan-filmed video of the entire May 6 show from Los Angeles.
But as Guitar World reports, some fans have noticed that Mike McCready and Stone Gossard are using a somewhat unexpected combination of gear. We’re looking at digital modeling amps paired with some rare Gibsons.
As the source explains, McCready was seen with a couple of Fender amps from the Tone Master series. These amplifiers are designed to replicate Fender’s old-school tube-driven units without using any tubes. The signal processing is all-digital tube emulation.
In particular, we’re looking at Fender’s Blonde Twin Reverb and Deluxe Reverb from the said series. McCready also has a Rola Lead Custom head plugged into a 4-by-12-inch Marshall cab. The main theory here is that Fenders provide him with clean tones while the Rola serves for distorted settings.
What’s interesting here is that Tone Master is a relatively more affordable series. The price tags on these are around $1k. We could assume that not only get the job done for the clean parts, but are way more practical and consistent to use on the road.
As far as Gossard’s setup goes, he was seen using a Gibson Les Paul Signature semi-hollow-body guitar with a gold top. For those unfamiliar with the model in question, this is a weird combination of an ES-335 And a Les Paul. It’s essentially like a 335 with its treble-side cutaway identical to those of Les Pauls. Other than that, we have the expected semi-hollow body with two F-shaped soundholes. These are not only weird but also rare, and they mark the last-ever Gibson model to be designed by Mr. Les Paul himself.
You can check out more details about this particular guitar in the video below.
And here’s a closer look at Gossard from one of the recent fan-filmed videos.
Other than that, Gossard’s using his Les Paul Sunburst with a Bigsby vibrato system. McCready is also playing his regular Strat although he was seen with a Gibson Firebird, equipped with P-90 pickups.
Meanwhile, Eddie Vedder is rocking a Pete Townshend Gibson Les Paul Deluxe signature model, a 2005 replica of The Who guitarist’s modified 1974 LP.
For tour dates, check out their website here.
Photo: YouTube Screenshot
