It’s taken me a lot of panicky moments of having gear break right before a show or realizing I don’t know a song as well as I thought to learn exactly what I need to be prepared for a show. In this blog, I wanted to share what’s in my guitar gig bag with you and walk you through exactly how I prep for shows so if you are starting to gig a lot and want to be a more professional guitarist, you don’t make the same mistakes I did!
A few months ago I was playing out with a band and literally a minute before we went on (the host was introducing the artist), I pressed my tuner pedal on and the button just sprang right out of the tuner! I hadn’t brought a clip-on tuner because I thought I didn’t need one and the bass player’s (who happened to be my hubby :D ) tuner wouldn’t pick up the frequencies of my guitar. I could feel a wave of anxiety coming over me as I I tried to tune by ear. !t was really hard to hear in the venue without turning up too loud though, and I also wanted to be in tune with the bass. AHH!
Here’s my fav new favorite picks from Ernie ball
I’ve shared before that sometimes performing can make me nervous, but I was actually starting to get more comfortable and confident. This whole tuner situation made me nervous all over again though because I didn’t feel in control of my sound or confident that my guitar would sound good. Thankfully I was using my most reliable guitar that doesn’t really have issues going out of tune, but this could have been really bad and unprofessional!
That being said, I have developed more ways since then to make sure I am prepared for any little equipment mishaps that might go wrong with my gear. Since not all of us are at the point of having a guitar tech (one day though right?!), it’s really important to have a good handle on gear problem solving in case something breaks on ya!
I wanted to share what’s in my gig bag with you here and give you this handy little packing list!
You can just pick your favorite color, click, and save to your computer if you want to keep one of these on hand!
Here are some of my gig bag essentials!
To learn more watch my video on gig prep and what I keep in my gig bag:
Last thing- I’m so thankful you found my blog and we can connect! Please say hi to me on Instagram @haleypowersmusic or leave a comment below. I always love getting to hear from you!
