I was talking with Chris about this last night, and he says "It's part of the brand of Megadeth. I am a 7 String player and always will be, but whilst I'm in Megadeth, I'll be using 6's".
Likewise, he went on to say he's not using the ENGL's for Megadeth either.
That just shows the professional he is towards his music endeavours! (With this, I just learned something for myself).
I was kind of disapointed to see a 7 string player "going back" (I'm not saying that it's going backwards) to 6 strings, but with that kind of statment he completely removed my worries...not that I or anyone else had something to say about that...in my opinion...Hey, this even shows the versatile player he his and is becoming: playing acoustic guitar, flamenco, Jazz, 7 strings, 6 strings, etc.
Either way, I went to see Megadeth in Priest Fest yesterday, at Lisbon, and I took some pictures of the show...Chris was using two Ibanez S series, one blue (I believe) with Megadeth logo and another one red.
I don't really like the S series visual aspect, specially the solid colors they have..they aren't very heavy-metal
for me. But either way... It would be very cool if Chris asked Ibanez to build 2 LAC models identical to his two 7s, but with 6 strings!
The show was really cool...I really like everyone's stage presence, the stage is very well thought with Chris and James shadow's projected in the back of the stage, with various light effects, very cool!
The sound was amazingly tight! As I am also a guitar player, with some years of music studies with hear training and stuff, and having a very sensitive hear, I find absolutely amazing that Chris can play all the Marty and Chris Poland's lead solos almost accurately with almost the same feeling...I know some of Marty's solos by hear, the articulation, nuances and feeling...and Chris accurately reproduces the solos exactly has they are recorded in the album.
Quoting Dave's phrase
"(...)I think that the guitar company that snags him is going to be lucky." I make Darin J Moore's words my own when saying that "
I'm glad Chris has finally found a "high profile" band that has enlightened many other players out there of his abilities ".
He well deserves it! Since a long time ago...I don't even know him and never spoke with him.... but by hearing others and seeing his attitude towards everything that happened to him...I really believe he well deserves it!
Cheers,
Hugo