Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster Rory Gallagher

Gallagher was 15 years old when he strolled past a small music store in his hometown of Cork in 1963. It must have been love at first sight when he saw a '61 Strat in 3-Tone Sunburst in the window and very much like Stevie Ray Vaughan's (" I didn't have to play it, I simply knew that this guitar sounds good !") this sunburst strat shaped his entire musical life.
It was then in 1997 that Donal Gallagher handed over his brother's guitar to the staff of the Fender Custom Shop. Exactly 40 reissues were to be made and sold in Europe. The demand was then so enormous that the Gallagher Stratocaster was given a permanent place in Fender’s Custom Shop program.
Only 2 employees of the Fender Custom Shop are authorized to build Rory's Stratocaster. Every detail is meticulously recreated. Starting with the torn off paintwork, through the replaced E-tuner, to the dot inlay on the 12th fret that was also replaced (white plastic instead of the original clay dot), everything here is the same as the famous original. Also the weight, which turned out to be quite light at 3340 grams.
How does Gallagher's Strat feel now, how does it sound? First you notice the really comfortable weight. Then the feel of the back of the neck, which, like the body, has been almost completely stripped of finish. The beautiful, very dark rosewood of the fretboard immediately catches the eye. This has a fairly flat radius of 9.5" and the original guitar was at some point newly fretted with Gibson frets. Of course, these medium jumbos are also present on the reissue and ensure fantastic playability. The well-known prejudice that even removing the very thin nitro lacquer on Heavy Relic instruments brings a further improvement in the vibration behavior, is given new nourishment here. First-class light alder, little lacquer and the whole thing in connection with a neck that is not too thin - yes, this guitar lives and speaks to the player!
The pickups are of course also exact replicas of the original PU's and have a resistance of 5.58 kOhm at the neck and 5.62 kOhm in the middle position and at the bridge. The fact that the Strat still had a 3-way switch these days has almost been forgotten in view of the many conversions. This one still has it! So you can enjoy a powerful and full-bodied blues tone in every position, which is primarily formed by the wood and is transmitted to the amp quite neutrally by the pickups. This amp is of course a small tube amp of the same brand. With not too much power, but volume-knob really open!