“Further proof that the gear doesn’t matter when you have the skills to pay the bills”: When their gear didn’t turn up for a festival performance, Primus played brand-new Fender guitars from Guitar Center – with the tags still on
2024 Year in Review: Les Claypool and co proved that tone really is in the fingers when they turned to off-the-shelf guitars for a high-profile festival spot
2024 Year in Review: What do you do when you get to the venue but your gear has been delayed in transit? Unless you’re able to borrow what you need from another band, you’ll probably have to visit the nearest guitar shop.
Which is precisely what Primus did when they arrived to play Sick New World Festival in April, with their equipment running late due to extreme weather.
Maybe some bands would have struggled without their tried-and-tested tools, but not Primus, with fans commenting how the California trio sounded as good as ever come stage time.
“Just further proof that the gear doesn’t matter when you have the skills to pay the bills,” one person noted, with another fan agreeing how “Les sounds like Les on any bass” and declaring their love for how “he kept the tags on.”
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Amit has been writing for titles like Total Guitar, MusicRadar and Guitar World for over a decade and counts Richie Kotzen, Guthrie Govan and Jeff Beck among his primary influences as a guitar player. He's worked for magazines like Kerrang!, Metal Hammer, Classic Rock, Prog, Record Collector, Planet Rock, Rhythm and Bass Player, as well as newspapers like Metro and The Independent, interviewing everyone from Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy to Slash and Jimmy Page, and once even traded solos with a member of Slayer on a track released internationally. As a session guitarist, he's played alongside members of Judas Priest and Uriah Heep in London ensemble Metalworks, as well as handled lead guitars for legends like Glen Matlock (Sex Pistols, The Faces) and Stu Hamm (Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, G3).
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