I'll be frank, I bought the tickets for this year's Pinkpop Classic edition because of the opportunity to see the Golden earring live. That band always has had something going on that attracted my attention to them and Rinus Gerritsen's unusual way of picking strings and his powerful tone are a big part of that.
Gerritsen has been using Danelectro basses since day one and probably is the best known player of the Longhorn. But in later years he has been using either a Yamaha BB series longscale bass, his self made Doubleneck which couples a Fender P-bass neck with a danelectro short scale neck and his Fretless selfmade "Darwin" bass as his main basses.
Gerritsen with his Fender/Dano double neck
Today, much to my surprise, both the Darwin and the Yamaha were left at home. In their places were two new longhorns. One was an F-hole hollow body sunburst number with Three lipstick pickups, the other a normal looking "Copperburst" number with a Humbucker between the two Lipsticks. Both basses had Sperzel tuners. At first I thought that it were two modified danos from his collection but when looking a little closer (Thanks to the cameraman who kept zooming in on Gerritsen and who's razorsharp footage was seen on two huge 20 foot screens at each side of the stage.) the basses looked a little too "new" to be vintage Dano's.
The copperburst example had a long scale neck with 28 frets and there wasn't even a hint of tarnishing going on in the copper finish. The Sunburst number was tuned a step below but it still had a longer scale than the short scale neck of the doubleneck (the basses stood side-to-side so making height comparisons was easy.) and when Gerritsen took the sunburst one off to switch to his doubleneck, the back of the sunburst one became visible, revealing a control cover made from matching wood as the back of the bass and was also finished in sunburst.
As for how the basses sounded< they sounded awesome. That typical growl and high end spank what Dano's are known for was there in abundance but because of both basses having longer scales, they also had that tight low end which Fender is known for. And then there's also the subject of Gerritsen's fingers, which are the largest contributer to that powerful sound he's getting.
But anyway, does anybody know what the deal is behind those basses? I'd like to know who made them.