SeSSion diary A little PRSpect
When it came to arena-sized solos Adam Goldsmith had to discover what sound was acceptable in the 80s
This month I’ve been involved in a project that has proved more fun than many things I normally do: playing in the house band for the Children in Need Rocks. This 80s concert at London’s Wembley Arena included the artists Erasure, Mica Paris, Nick Heywood, Katrina and the Waves, Jason Donovan, an X Factor winner or two, OMD, Europe and various others. This has proved fun because a) The 80s are chock-full of comedy potential as well as some truly classic songs, and b) I don’t often get to play big rock guitar solos in arenas (then again, I’m not sure how many Persil adverts Kirk Hammett has played on recently, so horses for courses I guess).
The general premise of the gig was slightly odd, as it was filmed like a live TV show, but in an arena, so it felt more like a gig. I found one of the main challenges to be combining the performance element of a big arena gig with maintaining the accuracy needed for a studio date.
There were several big arena guitar moments, the highlight for me being the classic solo from Heart’s Alone. While not particularly technically challenging, it is a solo which many people are familiar with and you really don’t want to make mistakes in front of the 12,000 people at the gig, or the several million people that watch Children in Need when it goes out on the TV (which I believe it will have done by the time you read this).
Gear-wise I managed to use the same guitar for the whole gig, which is great. I’ve been provided with a lovely PRS Custom 24 recently by my friends at the UK branch of that company. For all my enthusiasm for vintage Gibsons, for a gig like this you can’t beat having something so fantastically well built and versatile. The PRS is just that, with the intonation being so perfect my tuner was almost redundant.
The only issue I found was that I wasn’t a fan of the wiring and pickup design. I rectified this on the recommendation of my tech for many years, Stuart Monks, a legend who has worked for everyone you’ve ever heard of and quite a few you haven’t. He suggested converting the five-way Strat-style switch to a three-way, giving me the classic Gibson wiring options for the two humbuckers. He also then installed a ‘pull up’ option on the tone knob, which provided the classic in-between strat tones, which were much in demand in the 80s. In addition, he installed some Bare Knuckle ‘Mule’ pickups, which are a touch more vintage PAF and airy sounding than the modern-rock-style pickups, which come as standard (I know I should probably have a DGT for that but I wanted the 24th fret).
The result being the split coil plus the classic Boss chorus was exactly the 80s vibe needed. The trick with 80s style chorus, in my opinion, is that anything too posh (I have a Strymon Möbius which fits this description) is simply that – too posh, too nice and lush, so my faithful Boss MS 3 was perfect on this occasion. While it’s capable of generating expensive sounding choruses it obviously will give meat and potatoes 80s-style vibes in spades.
All this really was great fun, although I have to admit to a rather large pang of jealousy watching Europe play The Final Countdown at the end of the whole evening, complete with the guitar player at the front for the solo on his knees. Now that’s a classic arena rock tune!