On this tour, George took with him a completely different setup to date. What a surprise! For starters, there wasn't a single Marshall amp head in sight! Blimey! However, Marshall cabinets were used for most of the US dates. This setup varied during the course of the tour, in size, and combination of amps used. Effects were on the floor and running in line. This was old school...in a big way.

The amp section of this rig consisted of 100-watt Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifiers, 100-watt Fender Tone Masters, 50-watt Peavey Classic 50 heads and Fender Twin Reverbs. The main workhorse of the rig was the Dual Rectifiers. What is interesting to note about these amps is the uniqueness of this version of these amps on tour with George.Originating in 1989, Mesa Boogie began developing a much higher gain amp, featuring a dual rectifier tube design. By 1990, productions on the first run of these amps were hand-made and because of the nature of a first-run production, they featured a host of componentry that does not match the current production models. Of the first 500 made, a different machined power transformer than the standard production model was installed in these amps, making them much more aggressive in tone and in the gain structure. Cosmetically, these Dual Rectifiers look different, featuring black silk-screened graphic logos and amp control labels on a mirrored chrome faceplate

The Fender Tone Master amps are completely hand built at the Fender Custom Shop in Corona, CA. These Tone Masters on this tour are point-to-point soldered and the 100-watts of power are driven with four 6l6 vacuum tubes. George used these for searing tone with his Fulltone pedals in-line.

Used in conjunction with the Mesa Boogies was the Peavey Classic 50. This seemingly vintage-ish looking amp, with its yellow tweed covering, is varied in tone and carries a much higher gain than most Class A amps of this type. Housed inside the chassis is two EL34 power section with three 12AX7 preamp tubes. It's a simple amp yet a monster. (George used this amp to record his solo on “People get ready” off the Jeff Beck tribute album at the power station in NYC). While these three amps carried most of the show, the Fender Twin Reverb was used for George's glassy clean tone in various songs during the set. George’s tech at the time was Alex Alvarez. Alex was also a monster tech who has worked for Los Lobos, Robin Ford and Lenny Kravitz. He’s also an amazing player who really understands how to get what a player needs out of the rig. (He’s also a short stout Mexican with a low center of gravity that had agreed to wrestle with George between shows just for fun.)

George used Fulltone pedals as he did in the studio during the recording. The same ones, "69" Pedal, Octafuzz and Dejavibe, ran in-line to the Tone Masters. The Boss DS-1 Distortion was employed much like the Ibanez Tube Screamer in past tours, as an overdrive to push the signal harder into the amp's inputs. The distortion setting is kept to a minimum while the level control equated the natural volume of the amp...pushing the amps gain a little more over the top during solos. A Boss CE-5 Chorus ensemble thickened the signal a little more and was used to split the signal.

The signal chain is as follows: From the guitar, the signal is "Y'd" at a Whirlwind A/B switcher, splitting or combining the Tone Master either alongside or separated apart from the Dual Rectifier and Peavey Classic, used in tandem. When switched to the A signal of the switcher, the guitar's signal is split at the Boss CE-5 Chorus, going in stereo to the Dual Rectifier (dry) and to the Peavey Classic (wet). Nothing could be simpler!

Lynch signature series ESP guitars were featured exclusively on this tour: "Hajji (Skulls & Snakes)," Serpent, "George Paul (the custom ESP rendition of a '59 Les Paul a la George), ESP Ultratone, two Vintage + S models (one with the Fishman Power Bridge containing piezo transducers in the saddles for the acoustic set in the show) and a Martin GT-16 (used on "Nothing Left To Say" and the intro to "The Maze"). George also used his 63 Gibson Hummingbird on tour but it was later stolen.

Random thought: Whatever happened to the concept of taking one really good guitar and plugging into one really good amp and playing your ass off?