Musicians, What Do You Carry in Your Gig Bag?

by Brian Casel | May 26, 2009 | 10 Comments

photo by IntangibleArts

You’ve been rehearsing your songs, promoting your gig, and chose the perfect t-shirt to wear on stage tonight. Now it’s time to pack your gear for the gig. This is a crucial step in the process because one forgotten item could potentially turn a great gig into a nightmare.

Open Question to Musicians

In this open question post, I ask you to list the must-have items that you bring with you to every gig – aside from your primary instrument. Also how do you carry everything? Can you fit everything in your instrument case, or do you have additional baggage such as a backpack, suitcase, or flight cases?

My Gig Bag Checklist

I am primarily a guitarist who occasionally sings. When playing in a band situation, I mostly play the electric (strat). Sometimes I play solo acoustic guitar gigs using my Martin. I will qualify some items on this list if they apply to only one of these set ups.

On with my gig bag checklist:

Tuner - No brainer. This is a must have for any guitar player. In my electric rig, I use the Boss chromatic tuner stompbox. When playing acoustic, I bring a cheap but reliable Korg tuner which I plug into right before my set.
Extra strings – Remember when I said that missing something on your packing list can turn a good gig can quickly turn into a nightmare? Guitarist’s break strings. It happens. You must be ready to jump off-stage and throw on a replacement in minutes or else your gig is through.
Guitar strap – It’s a must-have piece for any musician who plays their instrument standing up. I have forgotten this item on more than one occasion and it’s not fun. You either have to ask another band if you can borrow a strap, or you have to play your show awkwardly sitting on a bar stool.
Extra cables – If you play an electric instrument, it’s important to bring enough patch chords to fire up your rig plus an extra cable or two. Cables can crap out on you – even if it’s your lucky cable you’ve been touring with years.
Extension chord – This one applies for my electric guitar gigs. Most stages have outlets nearby where you can plug in your effects rig, but some only have them near the back of the stage or off to the side. That works for pluggin in amps, but what about your pedal board up at the front of the stage? I carry an extension chord to use in these situations.
SM57 Microphone – It’s very rare that a venue won’t have several quality vocal / instrument mics on hand, but every now and then, things happen. Mics are lost, stolen, broken. I like to carry my SM57 with me to every rehearsal and every gig, so that I know the vocals are covered.
Pen and Paper – This can be used to write up a setlist if you haven’t done so before hand. Or it can be used to write down email addresses for your mailing list. Or you may meet an important industry contact and need to jot down their contact info. Having a pen and paper handy at every gig is a simple task that can go a long way to advancing your career.
CD’s, Promo Cards, Merch – Perhaps you have someone in charge of packing and selling your band’s merchandise. But many of us are solo giggers and it’s up to us to pack all of the goods ourselves. If you’re handing out free promo CD’s or promo cards, be sure to grab enough of them. It’s better to bring too many, than to run out of CD’s and send potential fans home empty handed.

Over to You

Share you gig bag checklists in the comments section!

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The Stage

10 Comments:

05/26/2009
10:34 am

Matt Rod

(1) tubes !!! terrible when a tube goes on you…
and (2) picks…. horrible playing with a pick you don’t like!
(3) earplugs.
(4) an adaptor with a ground…. you can get ‘em cheap at radio shack, gets rid of that hum some venues have.

sweet.

twitter @mattrodmusic
05/26/2009
10:38 am

Brian Casel

Wow. I can’t believe I forgot to list PICKS! I always pack 2 extras in my pocket for quick access during a gig plus a full pack of new ones in my gig bag.
05/26/2009
4:21 pm

Chuck Bergeron

Everything mentioned above, aside from strings. It’s pretty rare that a bass string will break, and I usually restring before gigs.

Effect pedals. Gotta have my Bass Chorus, Delay and Woolly Mammoth Fuzz.

A Nintendo DS w/ Korg’s DS-10 software. A nice lil’ drum machine/sequencer that mimics the MS-10. Also, an 8th” to 1/4″ converter cable for it.

One of those baby blue kids Glockenspiels, a Casiotone, egg shakers, a slide for the guitar. Oh, and the set list.

I use either my messenger bag or a super old suitcase to lug everything around.
05/26/2009
4:38 pm

Alicia

That pretty much sounds like mine – minus of course the stuff an instrumentalist needs. I also have girly stuff – tissues, makeup, 2 or 3 alternative gigwear. Also setlists.

I carry it all in this great AKG suitcase my friend got me.
05/26/2009
5:12 pm

Richard Jeffries

I do sound for a band. In addition to your list, I pack the following:

* Flashlights
* Tool kit (screw driver, pliers, wrench, soldering iron, multi meter, outlet tester)
* EXTRA BATTERIES for wireless and pedals
* Cable tester
* Extra tuner, picks and strings for bass and guitar
* Diet Pepsi, Cigarettes, ear plugs and cloths. Thats for me, not the band!
05/28/2009
12:33 pm

Nate Trier

If you use a stand for your instrument, small pliers are a must-have – sometimes the bolt gets too tight for a mere mortal to remove (when I was playing keyboards in a rock band I found that pounding on the piano kept winding the bolt on my keyboard stand tighter and tighter).

I bring a *long* extension cord (60 ft!) in addition to a regular-length cord. There’s always one poor band member who ends up far away from any power sources (usually the last one to arrive to the gig

Also, power strips! Daisy-chaining these is of course not the brightest thing in the world, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
06/11/2009
9:27 pm

Shannon

A sharpie! I like to sign cds for my fans because it’s a very personal touch. Anyone who buys my music deserves a special inscription
09/3/2009
6:56 am

Woodgoat

Nobody has mentioned the most obvious principle, bring spare everything!

A spare guitar, tuned up on a stand on stage, separates the pro from the would-be
A spare amp, powered up and switched on is also advisable, even if it’s a 5 watt practice amp, it’s miles better than a dead amp

Anyone who has to “take a short break” because a string breaks or an amp dies is just not serious

A bag of spare picks and leads won’t stop you looking like a goose if you have an equipment failure and the blown show will be down to you
09/16/2009
7:50 pm

AADEN

i usually carry around a LOT of stuff with me i’m a pianist i usually carry this list:

1) everything i could possably need incase something goes wrong *dont feel like listing everything*
2) things for our guitarist because he forgets everything
3) diabeties emergency kit
4) usually like a lot of water
5) extra sharpies
6) change of clothes
7) everything i would need incase i cant return to my hotel like shampoo soap my personaly things such as jewlery (braceltes rings necklaces ct)
9) my sepcialized rubics cube
10) family pictures
11) extra shoes

thats about it and mostly all of it is in a suitcase i lug around but i carry a bcakpack with extras of numbers 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 but i also carry 8, 9, 10, 11 in my backpack incase someone loses my luggage bag
07/15/2010
11:36 pm

Dan Hylton

A different tack – As a solo guitarist, I pre-prepared my own checklist sheet with columns and a list of items under each: Guitar & Accessories, Amp & Accessories, Mic & Accessories, Other Accessories (extension cord, Leatherman, etc.), and Promo (biz cards, sign up list, CDs & the like). Happy to send the document along to anyone who’d like it: email me at dan@danhylton.com.