Playing with Jean Michel Jarre at the 2024 Starmus Festival in Bratislava was the opportunity to meet and perform live with Sir Brian May who was Jarre’s guest for 3 tracks. I was able to spend a few days with him, talking shop of course, but not just: I had a close up view on how he uses his gear, part of his magic “signature” tone. Brian played his iconic Red Special guitar loud on 3 custom Vox AC30. It was his original Red Special guitar built long ago with his father: 3 Burns pick ups, large frets, remarkably stable tremolo arm, treble booster attached to his guitar strap decorated with a series of 6 pence coins that he uses as picks (he also uses fingers and sometimes plastic picks). He has a spare copy of the precious Red Standard but admits that even if it was carefully copied it wouldn’t have the same “mojo”. The range of tones he gets is amazing by mixing volume knob changes and adjusting pick ups various switches settings. Chorus and delay are in a rack. When he first plugged in at full volume on stage the magic came straight from his fingers.

Music is not only a matter of gear and technique: Brian is a very sensitive and emotional player, and over the years he fine tuned his gear to express his emotions throughout a large palette of sounds ranging from clear to heavy saturated rock sounds always bearing his unique personality. Besides his musical talent his is a lovely person. He said that this featuring with JMJ was a very challenging experience, far from his usual Queen “comfort” zone. He seldom plays on other artists repertoires, so it was a great opportunity for JMJ, Adi and me to share the stage with him. Sir Brian May is a guitar hero with a PHD in Astrophysics and to sum up, a true gentleman.