Charity cash set to fly in for Red Bull guitar
Dave Pearce with his masterpiece 'Red Bull' guitar. INPT23-990.
IF Red Bull - according to the slogan - ‘gives you wings’, then it’s only but fitting that a magnificent guitar created by Portadown man Dave Pearce should raise cash for the ‘Wings For Life’ charity, which supports people with spinal injuries.
Dave from Knocknamuckley, a guitar maker extraordinaire, has spent six months making the superb instrument (which sounds as good as it looks) and it will be auctioned next May, along with its artistic case, at a heavy rock concert in England.
But not before it is autographed by the likes of ‘Black Sabbath’, ‘Prodigy’ and ‘Mettallica’ from the heavy rock scene, as well as Formula One (F1) driving champions like Germany’s Sebastian Vettel and Australia’s Mark Webber.
It will be a centrepiece this weekend at the ‘Download’ heavy rock festival concert at Donington Park where a plethora of bands - including the aforementioned three - will play and sign, and after that, it will feature at F1 meeting for the great driver to append their signatures.
The guitar - in the shape of the rampant Red Bull logo - has delighted the founders of ‘Wings For Life’, which was established by Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz and by his friend Heinz Kinigadner, whose son Hannes (then 19) was paralysed as the result of a motocross accident and has been tetraplegic ever since. Thus was formed Wings For Life Spinal Cord Research Foundation.
Red Bull, of course, are giants in the F1 world. Dave is a self-confessed F1 fan, he went to see their open day in Milton Keynes recently, found out about ‘Wings For Life’ and thus started in to make the guitar which should raise thousands of pounds for the charity.
He’s a recognised genius in making guitars - he works as production manager and senior craftsman with George Lowden Guitars of Downpatrick - and does the full range of acoustics and electrics, as well as other stringed instruments like mandolins and banjos.
Dave has been helped in the project by the art and website work of friends and colleagues Marshall Amps, EGE Web Designs (John Egerton) and Pippen McGrath, with the case a masterpiece in itself.
As he packed up the six-stringed instrument this week to send it off for promotion and next year’s auction, he said, “Frankly, I’m sad to see it go. It’s almost like giving up a child for adoption, I’ve become so attached to it. With all my experience of making guitars, I can’t actually play one!
“But I know the sight and sound of a winner when I see and hear one, and my guitar-playing friend tell me this one is tops. They say it has a super sound, and the art work back and front are superb. I hope it raises a vast amount for such a great charity. Certainly the Red Bull people and the musical world are really taken by it.”
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Friday 24 May 2013
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