duhvoodooman
March 18th, 2011, 09:34 AM
On Wed. night, I had the pleasure of seeing Tommy Castro and his smokin' band down at B.B. King's House of Blues in NYC. Also saw one of my favorite guitarists, Johnny A, who opened for Castro, but I'll post some impressions of the show itself in the "Have You Heard?" forum when I have a chance.
In the meantime, just wanted to post a quick comment on Tommy's live rig, which surprised me a bit. First, I had always considered him a Strat player, but he played the whole show on a sweet looking vintage sunburst Gibson Firebird, which sounded great. But what really surprised me was the amp. He was playing through a 4x10 speaker cab, mic'ed through the house PA. And what was driving that cab? None other than a Mesa Boogie Transatlantic TA-15 head (http://www.mesaboogie.com/Product_Info/Transatlantic/transatlantic-TA-15.html), same exact model that I own one of myself. It was pretty cool seeing a well-known player like Tommy playing through a little "lunchbox" head like that. The box itself may be small, but the sound was BIG, and his tone was super--great clarity and definition. Just goes to show that you don't need big iron if the venue isn't too large, and there's a high-quality house PA to run through....
In the meantime, just wanted to post a quick comment on Tommy's live rig, which surprised me a bit. First, I had always considered him a Strat player, but he played the whole show on a sweet looking vintage sunburst Gibson Firebird, which sounded great. But what really surprised me was the amp. He was playing through a 4x10 speaker cab, mic'ed through the house PA. And what was driving that cab? None other than a Mesa Boogie Transatlantic TA-15 head (http://www.mesaboogie.com/Product_Info/Transatlantic/transatlantic-TA-15.html), same exact model that I own one of myself. It was pretty cool seeing a well-known player like Tommy playing through a little "lunchbox" head like that. The box itself may be small, but the sound was BIG, and his tone was super--great clarity and definition. Just goes to show that you don't need big iron if the venue isn't too large, and there's a high-quality house PA to run through....