All good advice here but also don't forget that in a live situation (I mean the Dog & Duck, not a symphony orchestra) you will often get away wiht poorer intonation than you would in a recording studio. Relax.
Good covers need to be either pretty close to the original, at least in feel but better in actual notes and arrangement.
Or the band needs to successfully rearrange the whole song into a completely new and musically interesting version.
Either way, talent and playing for the song not for oneself are required.
IMHO of course.
Last Thursday, Mulatu Astatke, the Godfather of Ethio-Jazz, at 24 Kitchen Street in Liverpool - only UK gig on European tour. Very great night.
Here's a video from 2019.
If you are going to change the strings, then many people here will volunteer to take the old ones off your hands.
But the usual advice from flatwound users is don't change them.
Definitely persevere.
And realise that lots of things that happen at gigs, including bumnotes, missing the bridge, etc, and weak intonation, sound much worse when you listen back to a recording than they did in the live situation.
The only signatutre bass I have had was a Tony Franklin fretless Precision. I still haven't got much clue about Tony Franklin but it was a very nice bass.
I do come across many guitarists with a Les Paul signature guitar, even though they don't know who he was or how to pronounce his name.