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How many basses do you bring to a gig?

#62
two fingers said:
Two. Period. Always. Dual gig bag makes it stupid simple to do. There are zero good reasons for not having a backup. Zero. You can buy a gig worthy bass for a hunnerd bucks. Sticking it in the vehicle and then in the corner of the stage takes little to no effort. Anything can happen.

It's super quick and easy to go back and edit your post to add a poll question. That will give you a quick (more accurate) snapshot of the data.
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Good advice. But while I often bring 2 I don't always. I don't tour. All my gigs are local and I'm the only one handling my bass. Even though most of my instruments are "vintage" I take good care of them and make sure they're working great before the show.
 
#63
Dkerwood said:
I'm starting a 7-week contract this summer, playing between 3-4 half hour sets a night six nights a week. I'm planning to bring two basses - one primary and one backup. Am I being overly cautious? I know several do gigs like this on a regular basis. How many basses do you bring to the gig?
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Seven weeks of contracted work? I wouldn't bring less than two. That's pro work you're doing, you can't afford to be out of a bass if **** HTF.

Congratulations, by the way. :)

(Coming from a one-bass-per-gig player)
 
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#64
Two for me as well. In over 40 years of gigging I've only ever needed a backup once; on a boat gig in Boston harbour. It was one of those nights. The wind whipped up and blew the PA columns over. And the electronics in my bass died.

Unfortunately that particular night was one of the few times I had only brought one bass :oops:

Fortunately there was a bassist in the audience who had an instrument I could borrow :thumbsup:

/rick
 
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#65
Dkerwood said:
I'm starting a 7-week contract this summer, playing between 3-4 half hour sets a night six nights a week. I'm planning to bring two basses - one primary and one backup. Am I being overly cautious? I know several do gigs like this on a regular basis. How many basses do you bring to the gig?
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I play in an originals band and we haven't gigged in a while. Based on our current setlist, however, I expect to bring two basses to our next gig - a 4 string and a 5 string.
 
#66
Currently own 2 basses (and a project bass I'm restoring, but I still need a few parts to get it playable). They're different enough in looks and design that they aren't necessarily a back up for one another (5 string passive electric and 4 string acoustic/electric resonator), but if one went down on a gig I could finish our set list with the other.
 
#68
Depends on how long.
I normally take only 1 to a small gig
And 2 to a larger gig that has a few sessions.

Dkerwood said:
I'm starting a 7-week contract this summer, playing between 3-4 half hour sets a night six nights a week. I'm planning to bring two basses - one primary and one backup. Am I being overly cautious? I know several do gigs like this on a regular basis. How many basses do you bring to the gig?
Click to expand...
 
#69
I don't always bring 2. Some of our gigs are plug and play and it's just too darn easy to bring my Hofner on the train and leave the car (and the Ric) at home. But most gigs it's the Hofner and the Rickenbacker since our 60's set sounds best when I switch off to the Ric for some tunes. It does always nag at me when I have only one bass with me. I now also bring a DI mixer with me so I can easily switch between basses AND have something to plug into the board if my amp dies.
IMG_20190429_003504.jpg
 
#74
two fingers said:
Two. Period. Always. Dual gig bag makes it stupid simple to do. There are zero good reasons for not having a backup. Zero. You can buy a gig worthy bass for a hunnerd bucks. Sticking it in the vehicle and then in the corner of the stage takes little to no effort. Anything can happen.

It's super quick and easy to go back and edit your post to add a poll question. That will give you a quick (more accurate) snapshot of the data.
Click to expand...
I have no data to support this, but I’m still confident that in a given ten-year gigging period there’s a much greater chance that the extra bass in the corner gets stolen than that the player has a catastrophic failure of the only bass he brought to the gig.
 
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#75
two fingers said:
Two. Period. Always. Dual gig bag makes it stupid simple to do. There are zero good reasons for not having a backup. Zero. You can buy a gig worthy bass for a hunnerd bucks. Sticking it in the vehicle and then in the corner of the stage takes little to no effort. Anything can happen.

It's super quick and easy to go back and edit your post to add a poll question. That will give you a quick (more accurate) snapshot of the data.
Click to expand...

^^This. My backup resides in the multi-guitar rack the guitarist and I share, tuned up and ready to go. Have only actually needed the backup once, but it totally saved my kiester that night, and what a smooth transition it was to grab the already-tuned backup and jump back in the game with hardly a missed beat! AND it was actually fun to play the backup (pawnshop Jaguar that punches way above its weight and pay grade).
 
#79
Frankie Fender said:
For what you describe, two. It's a no brainer. And not in the truck, that does you no good. Have it within reach. By the time you go out and get the bass, you've killed the half-hour set.
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I've seen this exact scenario play out. It was on a big stage too. Bass cuts out, the bass player putzed around with the bass, eventually figured out that he should grab back up bass, he runs behind the stage, brings new bass back, messes around with the new bass to get it going. It took what seemed like forever for this whole situation to be resolved when he could've just grabbed a bass next to him in 1/4 of the time. But to each his own.
 

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