Went for a drive down to Melbourne to take a look at the Melbourne Guitar Festival. http://www.melbourneguitarmakersfestival.com
Did the drive up and back in a day, left home about 5:00am, nice little 1000km round trip and then played a 4 hour gig with the band till 2.00am. Big Day!
I really wanted to go to the exhibition to have a look at the guitars and meet up with a few of the Luthiers. 95% steel string with only a couple of classicals on show. Will try and get my act together next year and exhibit my classical guitars at this show to even up the balance.
Uke’s are obviously on the way back as a few exhibitors had these displayed. Played one of the acoustics from Chris Melville and it felt great and sounded really nice too, his level of finish and detail is top quality.
Played a spruce top lattice from Gerard Gilet which was very nice, quality build and first class workmanship from a guy who has been doing this for over 30 years. Sachar Amos had a classical on display too and this had a great neck and a quality set up, lovely french polish finish.
In Wagga you do seem miles away and its nice to go and meet up with a few luthiers face to face and shoot the breeze.
Met David Churchill who has also been building acoutics for over 30 years and he had two lovely guitars on show with cedar tops that were incrdibly light in colour. Great sounding instruments.