David Gilmour´s '57 Reissue in Candy Apple Red was the successor to the Black Strat he had been using mainly since the 1970.

in 1984, Gilmour and Phil Taylor was invited to Fender's storage house in Middlesex UK to check out the new reissue and demo other guitars. After a disastrous last years of CBS guitars not meeting demands, Fender found new ownership and had just released their first Vintage Reissue, bringing back the Stratocaster model to the way they was made during Leo´s time. These are the first series AVRI Reissue models from Fender made under Bill Schultz and Dan Smith era. David played several models of this guitar, and he walked out of there with three of the reissues and a Black Fender Elite. The three '57s were a Blonde/Cream, a Sunburst and the Candy Apple Red.

Pink Floyd's stage rig had by now grown so large that they sought out new ways to keep interference away of the guitars. They got in touch with EMG who supplied a few pickup sets of active SA-pickups. Back then, Active pickups was a relative new thing. All three guitars were equipped with them (the Sunburst also got Roland Synthesizer system) and the Sunburst was first out to be played and made its debut when Gilmour guest appeared with Roxy Music's Bryan Ferry for a concert. The Sunburst failed and stopped working mid-solo and was swapped to the red one.

From then on, the '57 Candy Apple Red became his main guitar for the next two decades and was used on both Delicate Sound of Thunder and the Division Bell tours.

In 1988 during their Australian leg of the tour, the guitar had nut & fret maintenance repair, and the pickup cavities was routed deeper allowing the EMGs to go lower.

The year 2005, saw Pink Floyd reunite for the last time with all original members for a one-off show at the live-8 event. Originally the Red was to be used that evening, But Phil Taylor, his guitar tech, brought out the renovated Black Strat he used prior the Red one, and handed it to him to try it out.

After he strapped it on, it was like Gilmour had found an old friend again and subsequently put the Red aside and the show was done with the black one. He permanently retired the red one for a new chapter with the old Black one.

Post-Waters era saw Pink Floyd became more bigger "mainstream" that drew new listeners. This guitar became many peoples favorite. I for one have more connection with the red than the black Strat.

Since then, the Red has been pulled out from the dust for a couple of gigs. This one video was from the year before the Live 8.

The guitar was auctioned off along with the other two '57 guitars in 2019 for $615.000 dollars.

It is still in England somewhere with a unknown collector. Far as i know, still being played.

It should be noted that Gilmour eventually acquired a second guitar of the same model sometime in the 80's.

A recent photo in 2024 surfaced with the 2nd Red Strat strapped on.

INFO: Gilmourish