Gibson RD

The other night I saw Ghost in concert for the second time.  Since I already commented on the prior concert last year, I’ll comment on the guitars instead.   Aside from the singer, who calls himself Papa Emeritus III, the other band members – two guitarists, a bassist, keyboardist, and drummer – refer to themselves as “Nameless Ghouls” and dress identically.  Both years the costumes were black robes with various symbols on them, with the facial coverings differing:  in 2014 it was “plague doctor” masks (black, beaked faces like the medieval plague doctors who attempted, none too successfully, to cure the Black Death in the 1300s) and this time around it was silver devil masks, mouthless with horns.  Both are damn cool.

The two guitarists, NG/GB (guitarist, black) and NG/GW (guitarist, white) played Gibson RDs, in black and white, thus the names.   They traded solos, so each could be considered a lead guitarist.  Later in the set, NG/GB pulled out a sunburst RD.  Since he has an Omega symbol on his black RD, some of the fans have begun referring to him as Omega.  As you can imagine, calling them all Nameless Ghouls gets confusing.

The odd thing is that Ghost seem to be the first band to play these instruments professionally.  I’ve yet to see any other musician use them - except Jimmy Page playing one on "Misty Mountain Hop" at Knebworth.  And Gibson is a popular brand.   Les Pauls, SGs, Explorers, Flying Vs, ES335s, Firebirds, all have several musicians well associated with the specific models.   Krist Novoselic of Nirvana played a bass version. 

Design.  It looks like someone took brown acid, freaked out, and attacked an Explorer.  Then instead of using an offset headstock, 6 tuners in a row, they simply used the standard 3x2 Gibson headstock.  When the acid wore off, they decided that active electronics were cool – which we now associate with EMG pickups.  The Standards kept standard pickups, with the Artist and Custom models with the fancy electronics.  Active electronics were something Gibson was experimenting with back then, and the RD wasn't the only model they came in. "Artist" versions of the Les Paul and ES335 were also issued, but not very popular.  My guitar teacher, Joel, had an ES335 Artist model - a bunch of switches on an otherwise 50s style guitar was a dead giveaway.

Joel also gave me a stack of old Gibson sales literature which included the RD.  The original run was in 1977-79, with reissues sold in 2007, 2009, 2011, and 2014; only the 2014 has active electronics. 

In addition to not seeing any professionals play this model until Ghost came around, I’d never seen any in music stores or used guitar stores – until I found a 2014 Artist at Guitar Center Times Square recently.  I might have played it briefly out of sheer boredom and curiosity, as I’d never buy it - white with gold hardware is not my scene, black with chrome/nickel is my preference.

The show at the Fillmore Silver Spring was packed – much more crowded than last year’s show.  Will Ghost be able to continue their momentum?  Who knows.  If they do, I can see Gibson RDs suddenly getting much more popular.   The guitar players among the Ghost fandom have already begun to notice.