Duff with a Bird

[Chris P.]

Duff with a bicentennial Bird. Did he ever played it live?

[godofthunder]

  Never seen this, it just looks wrong!  Just like my first 76 I bought in 76, wish I still had it. At least I have my black 77.  I can't imagine that bird surviving a GnR tour. Speaking of which GnR starts a tour this summer, I wonder if they will survive till the end of it, I know where I'd put my money.

[Chris P.]

If you click on it and enlarge the pic you see it's already repaired. I think the body broke at the jack input.

[godofthunder]

  Never seen this, it just looks wrong!  Just like my first 76 I bought in 76, wish I still had it. At leat I have my black 77.  Please delete this second post!

[wellREDman]

I'm a old fan of Duff
 and big fan of Thunderbirds,
  but together? wrong
     

[Alanko]

I was hoping this had been a recent development. I've never really liked Duff's tone; that thin pingy sound with a tiny bit of breakup and a washy chorus effect. He seems like a great pick player, saddled with a fairly vanilla '80s tone. I don't dig the GK 'rails' tone as much as some.

Agree with other posts, that T-bird has had an injury in the past around the jack socket. I did something broadly similar to my old SG when I was a teenager between a few cable yanks and at least one plummet to the floor.

I don't think the T-bird looks out of place on Duff. If anything I think those weird '80s PJ basses looked a bit too sterile and yuppy-clean-cut for a guy rocking the junkie chic look. I don't imagine he will be able to fret too accurately in leather gloves though!

[doombass]

I suppose he actually used Bicentennials, probably in the beginning of GnR. Here's an ebony one:

[uwe]

I've seen a live concert on TV from GnR daze where he played a Les Paul Standard (or De Luxe?) bass, same sound as his P/J hybrid, it's what he dials in and how he plays. Though Duff always belittles his own playing, I like it. And it got himself heard. The bass actually sounds best of all instruments on the GnR debut, other parts of the production sound surprisingly cheap. I was shocked when I reheard it recently. It sounded a bit like demos that had been touched up in a more expensive studion with too little time. Especially the acoustic guitars sound terribly "pasted on" to the rest of the sound.

[66Atlas]

Slash had the semi-matching Jackson firebird at the same time. It looked equally out of place on him.