What's the cheapest gigable guitar (let's say for a covers band) that you'd be happy with?

Sassafras

Never played a bad Vintage guitar and wouldn't hesitate to gig with them.

gubble

I gig a Vintage V100 week in week out. Have done for over 3 years now.

If i needed a budget guitar that I had to take out on gigs my first port of call would be vintage.

In fact i'd love a Vintage icon Strat

dogload

I've gigged with my Korina Epiphone SG which I paid 140 quid for, and I think I'd use an Epi 335 if it were nicely set up. 

Otherwise I have always gigged with my Tokai Strat (£150 new, in 1983) and more recently a Squier J Mascis Jazzmaster.

HAL9000

guitargeek62;666777" said:

Assuming new prices only, then I'd go for Squier Affinity Tele, or a hardtail Ibanez. Both should be possible at ~£150.

A Pacifica would work, if they had wider nuts.

Affinity Teles are Fender's best-kept secret. Superb necks, still have that Tele 'spank', and a top-loader bridge which IMHO beats a string-through hands down.

Phil_aka_Pip

cheapest guitar I've gigged with and liked it was my Tokai ES-60

cheapest guitar I gigged with was a white LP copy with 3 pickups, gold bling, and Maya on the headstock. It wasn't horrible, but I stopped using it after I got a real LP.

IvisonGuitars

GuitarMonkey said:

miserneil;666865" said:

I played Sheppards Bush Empire a few months ago with a Marlin Sidewinder Strat...it faired absolutely fine with a proper set up and the audience couldnt have cared less if it was a Marlin, a '54 Fender or a lump of cheese! Food for thought, especially for a boutique snob like me...

Did you smash it to bits at the end of your set?

Whatever for? It's a perfectly serviceable guitar.

The cheapest guitar I regularly gig with - and best Telecaster type guitar I've owned - is my @GSPBasses Tele. It came with Mojo Pickups as an added bonus and cost about £250 if I recall correctly.

drwiddly

The cheapest guitar I gig with now is my Heartfield Talon. It has a pointy, Jackson style headstock but is basically an RG550 with Di Marzio's and an OFR. Great guitar and cost me £250 on e-Bay.

Sarge

My first ever gig was with a £25 mdf short scale bass, it worked fine and had a really hot pbass pickup, I learned bass on that piece of crap for around 12 months until I upgraded to full scale.

GuitarMonkey

EricTheWeary said:

I saw Saxon ( I'm so cool...) and Graham Oliver played either his white SG or his V throughout. For the encore he played a blue SG copy. Odd, I thought. Then he proceeded to smash it up at the end of the song.

I thought both 'well, I could have had that' and 'not smashing up one of your good guitars takes the credibility from this, as an act of passion,out of what you are doing.'

Same when I saw Feeder around 2002. Grant played his vintage Sunburst Jazzmaster all through, then a Squier Strat for the last song which he trashed. 

ICBM

GuitarMonkey said:

Same when I saw Feeder around 2002. Grant played his vintage Sunburst Jazzmaster all through, then a Squier Strat for the last song which he trashed. 

Dick.

Shame, I quite like Feeder.

Sassafras

Can't believe people are still smashing up their guitars. Has anyone seen someone do that and think: hmm, that's a good idea, it won't make me look a complete twat at all.

Sassafras

About 30 years ago I had a mate who looked a bit like Hendrix, that's as far as the similarity went, he certainly couldn't play like him. He was up on stage with a Telecaster which I thought was a bit odd, I couldn't remember him having one. As he got to the end of his set he started to smash it against the wall and immediately there was a scream from a member of the audience "that's my fucking guitar he's smashing up" he screamed repeatedly.

If you have to smash up guitars try not to do it with borrowed equipment. You'll get hurt.

johnonguitar

Cheapest guitar I've ever gigged with was a USA Strat but that was modded with Texas Specials as well. I've had it since I was 15. Brat.

If consider gigging my sons PRS SE EG but with new tuners and pickups. There's a Hotrail in the neck at the moment. Maybe I could go just with the tuners.

Reverend

I gig with Gibson Les Paul and Flying Vz. And also an Ibanez Destroyer 2 that's was £460

AlexHunter

Usually a Feline Lion. But I use a 339 as the cheap backup. Having said that, I've previously gigged entry level Lag guitars with no mods and a few Teles that I've put together.

Cabicular

70 quid Danelectro 59 (sh)
Even new they are buttons and far better than they have any right to be at the price

usedtobe

£70? :-O

ICBM

I think the real problem at the super-cheap end is consistency. That Chinese Squier I had was as good as a USA Double Fat Strat once I'd upgraded the pickups - I would defy anyone to tell the difference blindfolded, possibly even if they were playing it themselves... it really was that good. The only reason I sold it is because I didn't particularly like the colour (a quite cheesy Candy Apple Red) and my singer took a liking to it, so I let her buy it.

But I've played others that weren't as good, one with quite poor fretting which would obviously cost something to fix.

Moltisanti

my main guitar in my Maiden tribute is a Mexican strat i paid £200 for...a few tweaks, some sandpaper and some decent pickups and bam it's ace

SquireJapan

They key question here for me is what can you get that's a solid gigging guitar without modifications.

Consistency though, that's a good point ...