I was there today. Just got back
. Here is my review;
Laney booth : Christophe Godin and Mattias "IA" Eklundh ripping it up, very nice. Both of them played for 30 minutes at the booth every hour (switching). Mattias played stuff from his new CD "Road Less Travelled" and ended with "Labamba" from his old CD. Christophe played mostly stuff from his new CD, nice to see a french man can rip it up
.
Dean booth :
Michael Angelo Batio performed and it was basically the same performance as last year. Opening up with "No Boundaries", next he played "Enforcer" and ended with playing on his twin neck in various ways
. Michael Schencker was giving autographs at the booth aa little later, he has gotten old. The theme of the booth was Dimebag Darrell, just like at NAMM in january. They had almost the same setup with his old guitar and clothes he had on when he was killed etc.
Peavey booth : This was a thrill to see Stu Hamm play for 30 minutes and play he can
. He did very nice version of "The Star Spangled Banner" (per request) and ended with the solo from Joe Satriani's "Live in San Francisco" CD/DVD.
Washburn booth :
Nuno Bettencourt was there signing autograths he also performed at the Festhalle at noon but I missed it
. Strange thing about his signature model, they all have licensed Floyds in them and not original Floyd or Schaller.
Randall booth : German Schauss played there showing us and amazing shredder he is
.
Ibanez booth : Got a look at the new JEM and JS model. Nice and so shiny!!!!! To my surprise there is also a SA model with similar finish like the JEM but darker.
PRS booth : No Double Dragon on display (weak!!!!!).
Ernie Ball/Music Man booth : Small booth only a few guitars but there was one interesting guitar. An Axis with a rosewood neck and fretboard.
A lot chinese guitar companies present (same as last year), they have some interesting stuff and just junk also. It's nice to see that they use good hardware, like SD/EMG or Gotoh/Schaller.
Saw a bass with a half monkey grip
. There were a few guitars with monkey grips this year but none them looked right compared to the JEM.
Other people I saw. Our very own Ricky Garcia was there playing near the Dean booth I think. Funny thing he played a string through Cort guitar. I later found out it was the Neil Zaza signature guitar he was playing. I didn't know that Neil Zaza had a signature guitar at Cort.
Overall the show was better this year than last year IMHO.
