At the risk of starting a flame war, I would venture that by the time the Beatles broke up, all the individual instrumentalists tastes had changed. The Rics carried them through from early John to a Hard Days Night, but were pretty well gone by Revolver, except for Sir Paul's bass.

These guys were always looking for something different. There were never 2 songs that sounded like they were cloned, a la Supremes. And we all get tired of our new toys after a time.

They were never shy to go back to basics to get the right sound. The video of Handle With Care by the Travelling Wilburys shows Jeff Lynne playing what is probably Tom Petty's 600 with both of them singing along with George, Roy Orbison and Bob Dylan. It doesn't get any better than that.

Port53

I have a very nice, wonderful life going on for myself. And I thank you very much for your "best wishes" and your charm.

Hey guys ,this thread was never started by davclr with the intention to rant. I think he was just enthusiastic about his new Rick and looking around in some DVDs were there might some Ricks had been used and just raised the question why there weren't any at this concert. And it doesn't do this issue any justice to put it on such a level of discussing in an unfriendly manner. As we all know George was very spiritually minded. In an interview shown in the Making Of The Wilburys DVD he said that Roy Orbison was still around with them in his astral body and maybe it was that kind of approach what Dhany Harrison wanted to express (see John Hall above): George was around with them with this guitar. That was all about it, and all that critizising about who is handling what and who is nasty to who else just misses the fine point totally. It is music. Read the great Daniel Baremboim's book : "Sound is life".

George Harrison, during his solo career, continued to play Rickenbacker guitars that were featured in music video performances and in 1987, he played his '63 360/12 on the recording of "Fish On The Sand" on the album "Cloud Nine" that has a cover photo of GH with his Gretsch Duo Jet.

I own the DVD of Concert for George and am quite impressed with it. I thought it was well planned and carried out in a loving and respectful way and a wonderful statement of tribute to a wonderful fellow musician.

I've unofficially subscribed to the theory that it was a night for George's Ric to be the only one on stage, especially with the fact that Petty and company didn't play any Rics.

The whole event was absolutely awesome and such a fitting tribute. I thought it odd that there were no Rics used in the performance, but it didn't seem like that big a deal. It all sounded so good.

However, all those Fenders did seem a bit strange. I may be way off here, but I just assumed that it had something to do with Clapton's endorsement deal.

I don't think so at all.
It's all in here :
Quote from John Hall ( above ) :

"The instrument sat on the stage by itself as people entered the event, with just a spotlight on it. As such it was the icon for George and as such was accorded the greatest honor of the evening among all instruments present. It was a strong symbol, a silent guitar ritual or missing pilot flyby if you will. Dhani Harrison told me he set that up specially. "

This may surprise you but, (according the 'ole Clap-a-rone-ee himself) in his recently published self-biography he says he doesn't presently have an "endorsement deal" with Fender!

In fact as he tells it, "Blackie" was created by him and some hand tools using parts from 10-12 brand new Fenders he bought at a dealer close-out sale in the USA!

He hand inspected what he bought, took the "best of the best hardware" by canablizing his 10-12 new Fenders and then assembled into what we now call "Blackie!".

Also, his wife bought him an off the shelf store bought Mexican made Fender as a birthday present! It's refreshing to see a mega star such as Eric to be so non-ego orientated in this guitar regard.

But, perhaps Eric needs to know that he'd never have to do his "Blackie schtick" if he only bought a Ric!
We all know here of Ric's legendary consistent product QC.

Here's a little nugget of useless information - during the rehearsals for the Concert which were held in a studio/warehouse on an industrial estate in West London, an urgent call was made to my local guitar shop (also in West London) for any Beatles songbooks. Apparently, no one could work out all the chord changes in some of George's compositions! Nice to know that even Clapton and the rest of the superstars have the same problems as the rest of us!