DrKev
Moderator
Mystery revealed!
Rory Gallagher's iconic 1961 Fender Stratocaster, which sold at auction yesterday for over $1.1 million was bought by...
Live Nation Gaiety Ltd, run by Irish concert promoter and multi-millionaire Dennis Desmond. The guitar has been DONATED to the National Museum of Ireland!
I had guessed Brian May might have bought it. May was a huge Rory fan. His career-long stage rig of Vox amplifiers with a Dallas Rangemaster Treble Booster is directly copied from Rory's own stage rig. And Sir Brian is the type of guy who would donate it. But I also thought it was possible that legend and world's greatest guitare nerd Joe Bonamassa would buy it. Joe B had already said he would not bid BUT he also recently announced a series of Rory Gallagher tribute concerts to be held in Ireland in Cork (Rory's home town) next summer (tickets for which sold out almost immediately). That strengthened ideas that Joe (himself a huge Rory Gallagher fan) could still have bid for the guitar.
So we now know it was Irish concert promoter Dennis Desmond's company that bought the guitar, with various Irish government people negotiating, for donation to the National Museum of Ireland. This is GREAT news. Aside from restoring some modicum of faith that governments can occasionally do something useful for the general good, this ensures the guitar will be visible to the public and puts to rest fears the guitar would be snapped up by an ageing millionaire collector nobody has heard of who would keep it in a glass case on his super yacht, or worse still, stored in a case in a secure lock-up, or under his bed, never to be seen again.
Of course there is now massive speculation that Bonamassa will play Rory's strat for the Cork tribute concerts. And let's face it, how could he not? Rory Gallagher was one of Bonamassa's biggest musical influences. It would be unthinkable that one of the world's greatest guitar players, and biggest guitar nerd, would NOT be given access to Rory's strat for tribute concerts in Rory's home town. Exciting times for guitar nerds and Rory Gallagher fans!
And by the way, in Ireland the second G in Gallagher is never pronounced. Gallagher = Ga - La - Her
(And when I say never I really mean it, unless you're not Irish and inherited the name, like those Oasis brothers)
Rory Gallagher's iconic 1961 Fender Stratocaster, which sold at auction yesterday for over $1.1 million was bought by...
Live Nation Gaiety Ltd, run by Irish concert promoter and multi-millionaire Dennis Desmond. The guitar has been DONATED to the National Museum of Ireland!
I had guessed Brian May might have bought it. May was a huge Rory fan. His career-long stage rig of Vox amplifiers with a Dallas Rangemaster Treble Booster is directly copied from Rory's own stage rig. And Sir Brian is the type of guy who would donate it. But I also thought it was possible that legend and world's greatest guitare nerd Joe Bonamassa would buy it. Joe B had already said he would not bid BUT he also recently announced a series of Rory Gallagher tribute concerts to be held in Ireland in Cork (Rory's home town) next summer (tickets for which sold out almost immediately). That strengthened ideas that Joe (himself a huge Rory Gallagher fan) could still have bid for the guitar.
So we now know it was Irish concert promoter Dennis Desmond's company that bought the guitar, with various Irish government people negotiating, for donation to the National Museum of Ireland. This is GREAT news. Aside from restoring some modicum of faith that governments can occasionally do something useful for the general good, this ensures the guitar will be visible to the public and puts to rest fears the guitar would be snapped up by an ageing millionaire collector nobody has heard of who would keep it in a glass case on his super yacht, or worse still, stored in a case in a secure lock-up, or under his bed, never to be seen again.
Of course there is now massive speculation that Bonamassa will play Rory's strat for the Cork tribute concerts. And let's face it, how could he not? Rory Gallagher was one of Bonamassa's biggest musical influences. It would be unthinkable that one of the world's greatest guitar players, and biggest guitar nerd, would NOT be given access to Rory's strat for tribute concerts in Rory's home town. Exciting times for guitar nerds and Rory Gallagher fans!
And by the way, in Ireland the second G in Gallagher is never pronounced. Gallagher = Ga - La - Her
(And when I say never I really mean it, unless you're not Irish and inherited the name, like those Oasis brothers)
Last edited:
