Model: Gibson ES-355
Color: Ebony/Black
Year: ?
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Used in...
- 2012
- featured in some backstage shots at Coachella (April 2012)
- played live in (I Wanna Live in a Dream in My) Record Machine and (Stranded on) The Wrong Beach in August 2012
- kept backstage as a spare guitar in the later part of the 2012 HFB tour
Details
Original vintage ES-355s in Ebony are rare finds. And original vintage ES-355s in Ebony with a stopbar and a long pickguard are real unicorns.
So, here are my two guesses about this guitar:
- it is a Custom Shop Series reissue, artificially aged, made between 2006 and 2011 (most probable)
OR
- it is an original vintage model from either 1959 or 1960 that has been refinished in black (least probable).
Anyway, it was first seen in April 2012 inside Noel's tour bus at Coachella. It was probably kept backstage so that Noel could strum a few chords in his room during the tour.
If it is a fairly recent reissue, was it bought somewhere in the US shortly before Coachella? Who knows.
It is quite likely that it was kept backstage and/or as a spare during the following dates of the tour. Sometime during the subsequent months, a sticker with Japanese writing was added to the pickguard (more about that in the next section).
At the Frequency Festival in Wien (16 August 2012), Noel's cherry red ES-345 with a trapeze tailpiece was damaged in some way:
"So, it would seem the last time we spoke I was getting ready for a festival in Vienna? It was good as I remember. [...] Spoiled only by the death of one of my guitars. Well, it might not be actually dead but it was seriously maimed. A sad day. Rest in pieces my friend, I loved you very much."1
At the next gig, the V Festival in Chelmsford, the broken ES-345 was replaced with this elusive ebony ES-355.
It was then used also at the second V Festival date in Weston, at Marlay Park in Dublin, at Belsonic Festival in Belfast and at Rock en Seine in Paris.
Then, in early September, at the Jersey & BIC Borunemouth gig, the damaged ES-345 (now repaired) reappeared and the ebony ES-355 dropped into oblivion...
Stickers
We can safely say that the sticker was added in May 2012 during the Japan/Korea leg of the tour. It is not unusual for Japanese fans to give small gifts to the band, so that might be where it comes from. The sticker, made by an art collective named B-Side Label, reads "zawa-zawa".2
I can't speak a word of Japanese, but it seems that "zawa-zawa" is a pretty common onomatopoeia used in manga and anime: it is the sound effect for "liveliness and noise", for "when a crowd gathers and starts whispering around" and for the sound of "trees soughing" or "leaves of a forest moving."
Fascinating!
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For informational and non-commercial use only. Please do NOT publish this content elsewhere.
If you share or use this information, please provide proper credit and link to the website.
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Visit the “Info & About” page for contact details and more.
Thanks!
The Chief's Guitars - Noel Gallagher's guitars: a complete guide - Oasis and NGHFB 