Being in a band is everyone’s life dream. It looks so cool it draws attention, fame and most importantly, women dig for the members of the band.
Being in a band brings a lot of responsibility though. You are responsible to your members, to your music to your crowd and most importantly you are responsible for every gig going the way it is supposed to. Getting a place that will take you in and let you play is a feat by itself, not to mention all the other things you need to prepare for it to be good. You need all your things, instruments, and all your band members well and rested, you need cables, sound, and a bunch of replacements for everything because you never know when things may go south.
As you may assume, we are talking about smaller and less famous bands, those that are up and coming and that have to do a lot of the band logistics by themselves. There are plenty of things that got forgotten in these preparations and some of them are annoying. Today we will focus on guitar players and what they tend to forget every gig. You would be amazed at how much certain things they use, and still somehow manage to forget them.
If you are a guitarist yourself and if you need guitar supplies and accessories then the really good place to look is montysguitars.com. Now, read on to what you need to look for there because these are some of the things you always forget.
1. Strings
The number one spot always falls to the item that is the most needed. Guitar strings are what you need to play the guitar. If you don’t have these you have a piece of wood that you can use to swing around and look cool, or maybe not. Believe it or not when you get your first major gig you tend to panic and focus on other things like if you get all the chords if you remember all the riffs and notes if you remember all the lyrics and important spots in the song and so much more. Thanks to this type of panic guitarists usually tend to forget the only item that makes music, besides their fingers. If they weren’t attached to their hands, they would forget these as well. Not to bash on guitarists, but you have to know, if you don’t already, that guitar strings are usually in small packages that are easy to misplace or lose in transport, so even if you remember to bring them, they may fall into million off nooks and crannies and get lost in transport.
2. String winders
Another tool that is very easy to misplace or forget and that can make difference between life or eternal shame right on the stage. In the flow of a moment or a delirium you may hit a string a bit harder than usual, it breaks and you have about a minute to change it before the manager starts giving you the looks and starts making deductions. Check for it and always have it with you.
3. Cables
Now, whenever you are going to a gig you need to think about cables and electricity. The good thing you can do is always have some spares just in case. The club or a place where you got your gig may have everything you need or they may not have anything and you have to bring it yourself. Sometimes managers of the clubs forget to tell you certain things and before you know it you have an issue. This is why you need to bring your cables, extension cords and other stuff like this just in case.
4. Tuner
Now most talented guitar players have their ears perfectly tuned and they can hear whenever a guitar, especially theirs, is out of tune. They can do it on the spot without programs or other gizmos and within minutes. All they need is some peace and quiet and the guitar is like new. For those that still don’t have enough practice with this, you need portable tuners that will be useful for guitar tuning. If you don’t want to sound strange and if you don’t want your public to boo you off the stage your strings have to be perfectly tight and everything needs to be tuned to perfection so your sound and music are right where they need to be.
5. Swiss army knife or any other multi-tool
Being on a gig far away from home, far away from your transportation or anyone that can help means you have your handyman for everything. Things happen, things break or need some TLC and if you are in a situation where you can’t handle this yourself you got a big problem. This is why a swiss army knife or any other all-purpose tool that can fit in your pocket, boot or on your belt is a lifesaver for any issue that might come to surprise you.
6. Batteries
This is one of those things that are as forgotten as the strings. Believe it or not, in the age of everything being electric and wireless as well as rechargeable, we somehow tend to run out of battery all the time. Things that can be recharged are OK if you remember to bring a charge port. Things that are running on a one-off battery or that run out of juice mid-concert or right before one are a real threat. You always need to have boxes of batteries that are there to be a replacement for any that might unexpectedly die. Think about your instruments like effect pedals, wireless systems, tuners, acoustic-electric guitars and plenty others are all on batteries and you have to have spares all the time.
This is just a short list of some of the most important things every band needs for a decent gig. As you can see some of the most important things are constantly forgotten which is the reason they are on the list. There are others as well but this is something that you really can’t have a gig without.
As we already mentioned we focused on small bands that don’t have people thinking about these things like the road crew who will worry about everything from strings, tools, electricity and wiring to the way the lighting and mics are set up.
