Steve had three guitars with him on the Pyromania tour but was mostly found playing a Gibson Les Paul Standard or a Gibson Les Paul XR-1.
The third one was his Gibson Les Paul Deluxe. He also used an Alvarez Dreadnought electro-acoustic guitar (with single cutaway body) for parts of his live set.
The Les Paul XR-1 was introduced by Gibson in 1981 and discontinued in 1983.
The XR-1 has a mahogany body with a carved maple top and no binding. The pick-ups are two exposed black/white (zebra) coil Dirty Fingers humbucker pickups with individual volume and tone controls. It has the usual 3 way toggle switch for pickup selection and also features a coil tap switch located near the volume/tone controls which splits the pickups to a single coil tonal option.
The neck is a three-piece maple construction with a rosewood fretboard featuring pearl dot inlays and is also non-bound. The XR-1 features chrome hardware and machine heads.
Steve’s Les Paul Standard is a standard factory issue guitar except for the chrome Grover tuners fitted; therefore it is assumed that this guitar would have Gibson PAF humbucker pick-ups installed. However, Japan’s Young Guitar magazine makes reference to this guitar having possibly high output pick-ups fitted so it’s possible that Steve may have had a Dirty Fingers or similar powerful pick-up installed. Finished in tobacco sunburst this Les Paul Standard features trapezoid inlays on the rosewood fretboard. Steve used this Les Paul Standard on the High ‘n’ Dry tour as well.
Steve’s amplification equipment/backline and effects on the Pyromania tour consisted of Marshall JCM heads driving 4×12 cabinets. The cabinets had been modified slightly so that the speakers were placed at slight angles. In the photo of Steve’s rack in the gallery below, the four Marshall heads on the left from top to bottom are: 1 = JMP, 2 = JMP, 3 = JCM800, 4 = JMP.
And the three effects Steve used on this tour were a Boss Chorus, Boss Delay and a Morley Pre-amp Booster.