One of them this year is the Lone Pine guitar.

The guitar, crafted by Andy Allen for Maton, is made from wood from the branch of the Lone Pine that stood at Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance and was afflicted by disease.

In 2005 a huge storm broke off a large branch. 

Andy is the senior luthier, or guitar maker, for the Maton Guitar company in Box Hill, Melbourne, and managed to harvest enough to build the only instrument of its kind in the world. 

He said he put more of his heart and soul into this project than anything he had done before. It is inlaid with mother-of-pearl and includes Anzac images, the immortal words of the Ode of Remembrance around the sound hole and the Southern Cross.

Andy seldom lets it out of his sight but this year entrusted it to poet and singer Jim Brown and singer-songwriter and guitarist Vince Brophy, who have teamed up to produce a concert, The Anzac on the Wall.

In Tamworth, Ted Egan will feature in the performance, which could be the Lone Pine guitar’s last journey, because Andy has donated it to Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance, where it will be on permanent display in a secure glass cabinet. Jim said the Anzac on the Wall concert used verse and song to tell the Anzac story in a uniquely moving way, with the Lone Pine guitar ringing out the songs and tales that helped forge the Anzac legend. 

“We’re not glorifying war,” he said. “We’re the only people to have this guitar, as Andy doesn’t let it out of his sight.”

Vince said the show was a “nice marriage of our intellects”.

They said they believed it would be lovely to witness the reaction the guitar got when Ted performed.

Jim, Vince and Ted Egan will be performing at 7pm today and tomorrow at the Frog and Toad.