That combination of groups must have been a travelling show, sort of. I saw Pearl Jam, RHCP, Smashing Pumpkins at the Dell West venue in Phila.
mptreb, you mentioned Les Paul knockoff, the first guitar I bought for my daughter was a perfect but used Ibanez Les Paul copy; it was beautifully made, practically a work of art IMO. She took lessons on it and played it for a while, I twanged it now and then myself, but it was not what her heros were playing and she didn't fully appreciate it ...so we traded it back in to the same place and ordered the Mustang. I have to go back to that music store, they usually have a large collection of awesome used stuff ...it's Cintinelli's in Phila. I would like to pick up a small'ish tube amp for the Mustang. Fender makes a little hybrid amp (tube front end/solid state output) that looks interesting.
Talk about sought out, many years ago when I sold my home system solid state amp to move into tubes, I had guitar players fighting and bidding it up way over what I wanted for it ...I think they liked the way it distorts when overdriven, it was a Crown D150 amp.