We've all been there. We would all love replica's of his entire setup. But the good news is, there are lots of ways to get those songs with minimal permanent financial harm. LOL.
I've seen some tributes play whole shows with Axe FX's, some with smaller facsimile's of Edge's rack, some Line 6 M13's or HD 500's.
You don't HAVE to have every guitar he has. It's great when one can do it but
The only reason the guitarist, with the tribute I used to work with, used as many guitars as he did in the sets is that 1/3 or more were mine on any given night AND he had me there to help setup, tune etc.
You don't have to have 12+ guitars to cover U2 convincingly. You can get the tones with 2-3 guitars. Les Paul, Strat and Tele. Or Les Paul, Strat and Casino would be a good trio option.
Casion would cover the Casino and Gretsch songs, Strat for the Strat and Tele songs (Edge usually only uses the bridge pickup on the Teles it seems, so the bridge on a Strat could cover it) and the LP would cover LP and Explorer songs.
Learn to alter the tones a bit with your volume and tone knobs. I see so many that don't seem to get that; that they can get a great variety with the knobs the guitar comes with. Don't just turn the tone and volume knobs to 10.
Any who… Just a couple of thoughts.
Oh yeah, and check
Ten Rules For Upgrading Tone (
article). At ToneReport.com
Worth a read.
Happy St. Patty's Day to one and all.
Tone Report