There’s nothing worse than going shopping with no money just because the rest of the family have Christmas money burning a hole!
I suspect (in fact I know) that the only reason I was invited was to provide taxi duties and because I know my way around Manchester!
Thankfully I was able to escape the clinical drudgery of the Arndale shopping centre and go and visit a nearby music store – Forsyth’s on Deansgate, where I happened to know that they had a stock of the wonderful Faith acoustic guitars.
Faith Guitars have gained a reputation for their craftsmanship, tone and simple beauty at a fraction of the cost of the much coveted hand made Irish Lowden’s on which they’re modelled.
I have had my eyes on a Faith Neptune High Gloss Cutaway for some time but had yet to play one. However, today, all that changed.
They had 3 in stock and I got to play all three. One was a standard size, the second was the jumbo version. The third had a custom finish and was a bit more expensive.
The shop assistant was very friendly and he even set me up in a little rehearsal room complete with a nice fender amp to plug into.
So there I was, playing not one but three beautiful guitars plugged in with a touch of reverb into a quality amplifier with a rich bass (especially from the Jumbo) and the zingy high frequencies you get from new strings and a Shadow Nanoflex II under saddle pickup.
Suddenly the shopping trip seemed a little more worthwhile.
I detuned to drop D and did plenty of finger picking up and down the neck. The second guitar had a much better action and playing up the neck was easy.
The third was just beautiful with a subtle sunburn finish and I spent almost as much time looking at the grain both front and back as I did playing it.
Sadly it’s tone wasn’t quite as rich as the jumbo version.
The shop assistant stuck his head round the door and asked what I thought and we had a lengthy discussion about the merits of each and the woods used on each.
He explained that they would set up the action to my taste and that I shouldn’t use that as a factor to decide on which model to go for.
Sadly I wasn’t in a position to buy buy but none the less I enquired about the price of each and made a note in Google Keep as to the exact model and price of each – all of which were in the post Christmas sales! Plenty of change from 800 quid is impressive for a solid top guitar of this quality.
Needless to say the wife didn’t see it that way – “maybe when we’ve fixed up the house” was her I’m a realist and you’ve got your head in the clouds retort.
She’s right of course 🙁
But what wonderful clouds they were and I remained in the moment as much as possible for the rest of the day until my aching calves reminded me of the reality of 6 hours shopping!!
P.S. Thanks for letting me re-live the moment once again. Blogging definitely has it’s benefits 🙂