The edge of the fingerboard at the bass-side 19th fret has some wear, but is not as worn as the Torino Red Strat. This number 8 Strat was also used for the Dublin gig two nights before, and it too has Pete’s blood on the scratchplate and strings at the end of the fingerboard. This guitar was used on the Quadrophenia And More tour during 2012-13. It has the mid boost and TBX tone circuit and a three-ply white/black/white pickguard. Next out of the drawer is a Candy Apple Red Strat with number 8 on the back: again a Clapton signature model with Gold Lace Sensors. Early versions of Townshend’s EC Strats had a Kahler locking vibrato, but now everything looks a lot tidier: I never did like the locking nut stuff! The strings are not cut after passing through the machineheads’ string posts until the next day’s final tuning has taken place. Once he has pre-stretched the strings, and after locking them, he then tightens the machinehead screw to keep everything as tight as possible. Big Bends Nut Sauce is put into the slots before Alan strings the guitar up. The vibrato is set for a semitone pull-back, and the action is perhaps high for many Strat players, but for Townshend’s playing technique and power you wouldn’t want it any lower. The bridge width is 52mm on two pivot screw posts, with two trem springs around the back. The first Clapton Strat prototypes (1986-87) had 21 frets and a 25dB midrange boost. The scale length is the expected 648mm, with 22 frets and Sperzel locking machineheads. The guitar is finished in a thin skin nitrocellulose lacquer, which allows more resonance than a modern poly finish and contributes to the acoustic quality. He typically has four to six more of these, and all are Eric Clapton signature models. The first guitar I see is the Torino Red Strat (number 4) that Townshend has been using since 1989. I am taken immediately to a huge flightcase that contains eight Fender Stratocasters encased in thick foam supports that pull out like drawers. As Alan leads me to the festival’s Great Oak Stage, you would be forgiven for thinking that NASA is about to launch a space probe: there’s high-tech equipment everywhere and security is tight, but it’s par for the course in the run-up to a performance by one of the world’s greatest live bands. It soon becomes apparent that preparations for a gig of this magnitude leave nothing to chance. We meet at Hyde Park’s Gate 10, as Alan has agreed to allow G&B a close look at the guitars used by his current employer, ahead of The Who’s headline peformance to 70,000 people at British Summer Time festival. Having also worked with The Rolling Stones, Joe Walsh, Eric Clapton and George Harrison, there’s very little that Townshend’s guitar tech, Alan Rogan, hasn’t seen.
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