Peter Buck’s Jurassic Guitar Rig

I was lucky enough to be in the pit for R.E.M.’s show at the Molson Amphitheatre in Toronto last night (#remtoronto). Nice job if you can get it; you get to stand in a narrow trough in front of the stage for the first three songs, legendary musicians sweating on you. I’m digging it.

Anyway, right before the lights go down, I noticed that Peter Buck’s guitar rig had this incredible display of dinosaur figures on it. [See photo above]

Wondering if this was a special display for this show only, I checked out some recent video footage of the band. Sure enough, the dinos can be clearly seen as the band played on The Colbert Report back in April, so this looks like more of a chronic obsession than a one shot deal for Buck. According to one site I found in my research, this is a tradition going back to the 1980s for Buck.

As I examined the photo, musing to myself if the band employed a minature dinosaur technician for the tour and wondering what the job would pay (I’d do it for free, by the way), I noticed that one of these things was not like the other. When I blew up the photo, I noticed a very familiar character perched prominantly atop the cranial crest of a particularly large Parasaurolophus - it’s Gumby, dammit! How cool is that? [See photo below]

Edit: Upon closer examination of the photo, it would appear that Gumby’s faithful sidekick, Pokey, is cradled in the arms of the T-Rex on the left hand side of the photo. I was worried Gumby might be getting lonely, but it turns out he has a touring buddy, so I guess it’s alright.

Related Links:

• R.E.M. rock out with dinos out on the Colbert Report
• Parasaurolophus Wiki
• Gumby Wiki
• Peter Buck FAQ claiming he’s been doing the dino thing for a couple of decades at least