Be Prepared For Your Gig With This Basic List Of Essential Items

Pete Townshend Winds Up To Trash The Stage

When you’re preparing to play a gig, it’s extremely important to prepare for the unexpected. Murphy’s law seems to always rear it’s ugly head at a gig. Here are a few basic essentials every live musician can do to prepare for equipment problems and breakdowns at a gig.

Make sure you bring some basic tools. At the very minimum you should have a Leatherman Multi-Tool and a flashlight. It’s a really good idea to have a soldering iron as well. You can fill out your toolkit with the following:

Super Glue
Electrical Tape
Duct Tape
Cable Tester or Multi-Meter
Battery Tester or Multi-Meter
Allen Wrenches
Wire Cutters

You’ll also want to have some extra basic equipment accessories such as:

Guitar Strap
Towel
Strings
Earplugs
9V, AA and AAA batteries
Universal Power Adapter with various tips.
Spare Tuner
Picks
Extra Cables
Gender Benders for Mic Cables
Plug Adapters for 1/4″, XLR and RCA
Plug Bars and Power Extension Cords
Grounded outlet adapters
Ballpoint Pen and a Sharpie Marker

You’ll want to prepare for major equipment breakdowns such as a guitar amp dying or your effects rack going out. You should have the following:

Backup effect unit like the Korg Pandora PX5D which you can use in place of your guitar amp.
A backup laptop if you use a computer
An extra guitar
Extra Microphones
Spare Mic Stand
Drum Key

You should also have promo material to hand out at your shows, such as:

Demo CD’s
Business Cards
Blank Contracts if you want to sign for a future show at the same venue
Live Performance DVD’s

You may find yourself needing some of the following personal items:

Spare change of clothes
Painkillers such as ibuprofen or Tylenol
Condoms
Deodorant
Kaopectate for those nasty stomach cramps!

Finally, don’t forget copies of the setlist for every member of the band. I know I’ve probably forgotten a few things but this is a good basic list that will help you deal with a lot of the problems that you’ll encounter when playing a gig.