Re: What do IRON MAIDEN's guitarists really use on their guitars?
...Still of the Night to me is like the pure representation of a good rock song (I'm saying good because I heard the coolest Tom Morello quote the other day...), and I just love everything about that song, but I didn't really like Aldrich's solo. To me, that solo was wankage. Pure pentatonic wankage. They also played Burn though, and that was definitely the highlight of that DVD for me. Killer in every sense. Everyone has their own opinion and I stand by mine.
I respect that totally. Like I said, haven't seen it. And I am a huge Sykes fan as well. But I will say in my opinion - though I agree with you about the song Still of the Night being pure rock :notworthy
sadly IMO, the solo on the original recording is mixed horribly. You can barely tell what Sykes is doing until what I believe to be tremolo bar harmonic-drop (IIRC John confirmed this, told me he used a Charvel Strat w/a Floyd he occasionally used for that solo, and it might still be on his website gear page?), and then the huge climb to the crescendo.
Anyway, point being - I've never seen anyone
besides John pull it off exactly. Not that I could tell if that muted part before the harmonic would be note-for-note anyway, y'know?

But the night I saw him (Aldrich)do it, it was extremely convincing on the 'audible' part...maybe not perfect, but pretty cool...
Which leads me to,
No one wrote in stone that when it comes to playing live you have to play everything like it is on the record. I have to give Janick that. I don't see anyone dissing Jimmy Page for changing out stuff live and pulling off different solos. As I've said many times before, I DO like Janick, but he's nowhere near Dave for me!!!
True, but it
is sort of an unwritten rule that if you're gonna change it,
it better be cooler than the recorded version, which sure - maybe it's just me, but not hearin' it from Janick...:lmao: Not bagging on the guy, just not feelin' him. Sorry.
I give you for example one a link to a MySpace fan-page solo-era Sykes recording of Thin Lizzy's 'Cold Sweat' where Sykes changes the solo ever-so slightly but it
RIPS (he absolutely
destroys on it) :cool2:,
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=216602449
Not to mention Sykes' tone kills on it....but you get my drift....:friday: