Guitar Expo

The weekend before last was the semi-annual guitar expo at the Oaks Convention Center. Chip and Sandy went to this in June, and told me I simply had to see it. I needed no convincing, and have had this on my calendar since then. I asked Darling Wife if she wanted to come, and she did, so we made an afternoon of it.

Even though we were told it was massive, our first reaction on walking in was something like "holy f&@%." An entire expo hall filled with guitars. Football fields of guitars. It was boggling. We walked up and down the aisles in awe.

The first couple of rows were mostly acoustic instruments - mostly guitars, with some banjos, mandolins, and ukeleles thrown in. It's billed as a "vintage guitar show", and many of the instruments really were vintage - from the 60's and 70's, all the back through the 20's. Martin, Taylor, Gibson, etc.

The next aisles were more weighted towards electric guitars. It was a smorgasbord. I never knew there were so many Les Pauls in the world, let alone all under one roof. Gibson, Fender, Gretsch, Rickenbacker, etc.

Darling Wife was just as enthusiastic as I was, and any number of times laughed and said "oh, you need one of those!" I think her final list was 7 guitars that I had to have. If I can remember the list, I'll post it separately. The next step, of course, is winning the lottery.

The true vintage instruments were fascinating to look at, but I wouldn't want to own one. I don't want a 1938 Martin for $25,000, or a 1959 Les Paul, or whatever. First, I'd be terrified to have anything that valuable. Second, I just can't believe that a 1938 Martin sounds *that* much better than a new or recent Martin. Third, even if you convince me that it does, I'm not a good enough player to be worth that difference. If you have the money and like collecting cool stuff, god bless you - but that's not interesting to me. I'm happy to look at it, but I have *no* desire to own it.

It also turned out to be something of a social event. I knew we weren't going to see Chip and Sandy - they were there first thing in the morning (and Sandy made an impulse purchase of a new Taylor acoustic - an upgrade from the one she had!) We did run into a few people we know from the acoustic meetup, and it was fun to chat and compare notes about what we'd seen and what we lust after.

It was a total blast, and I can't wait for the next one. I'm only sad that I'll have to wait until June.