Back Up Guitars- Do Your Guitarits Have Them?

[Chienmortbb]

This is inspired by the Back-Up bass thread but do guitarists always have a backup on stage in case a string breaks or just for different songs? We do not do any drop or non standard tuning. I have two guitarists in the band and both take a spare.

[Rayman]

lol….

 

I’ve never known a guitarist with any less than 3 guitars for gigs. Our guitarist has 4, even in small venues. 
 

[dave_bass5]

Yep, mine has a car full of the buggers 

[gjones]

Occasionally the guitarist in my band takes two to the gig but he usually only takes one. I've seen him break 3 strings on one song and carry on playing 🤣 

[Twigman]

Our guitarist never has a backup guitar on stage.

Almost all our gigs are fly aways.

Our luggage allowance means any more than one instrument each just isn't practical.

He's never broken a string during a set but has had a machine head start slipping during the gig.

[BigRedX]

We solved the problem by not having a guitarist.

[neepheid]

13 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

We solved the problem by not having a guitarist.

 

Heh, the 'Spoons do that too!

 

To answer the OP's question, in the rock covers yes the guitarist brings two guitars.  And it has been needed occasionally - potentiometer gremlins got him one time that I remember at least.

[LeftyJ]

Neither of us carry spares to gigs. We play downtuned doom metal (with one 7-string in A, one Jazzmaster in D and my headless 5-string in A).

 

The 7-string has a floating trem so a broken string would be a disaster as it would affect the tuning of the other 6 strings and the guitarist simply wouldn't be able to finish the song - plus a string change takes some time and tools and isn't easy on a darkened stage. But the guitarist only has one 7-string... We used to have a second 7-string guitarist who did bring a spare to gigs that could be used by both of them in case of emergency, but he was sacked last year 

 

The Jazzmaster trem is also set up to float so it will also detune in case of a broken string, but it has the trem lock feature (thanks Leo) that enables the user to move it to a fixed position and disable the tremolo altogether. The guitarist has a Jaguar too, but it's too twangy and the 24" scale is not very suitable for our low tuning with standard gauge strings. So no backup there either.

 

My bass is a headless with double ball strings, so string change is a breeze. I always carry spare strings and batteries to gigs and always keep them close at hand, but have never needed them during a gig. That said, I am aware I'm taking a bit of a risk here. 

[BigRedX]

40 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

We solved the problem by not having a guitarist.

 

Having said that in the bands where I have been the guitarist, my success rate for completing a gig without breaking a string is less than 50%. I'm an "enthusiastic" guitar player and even more so in front of an audience. Add to that the fact that I only have guitars with vibrato mechanisms, I would never play a gig on guitar without having a spare one on stage.

[Lozz196]

The current trend in my band seems to be no backup guitars. Might seem a tad hypocritical of me to criticise seeing as I don’t take a backup bass but the only issues we’ve had were string breakage twice at the same gig.

[Chienmortbb]

2 hours ago, Rayman said:

lol….

 

I’ve never known a guitarist with any less than 3 guitars for gigs. Our guitarist has 4, even in small venues. 
 

Small willy syndrome?

[police squad]

In my 80s duo, no. If I break a string I can normally change it during the next song

 I just pick a song with no guitar

In my 80s band, always have a spare. Exactly the same. All Brian May guitars, modded the same

[Rayman]

24 minutes ago, Chienmortbb said:

Small willy syndrome?

I’ll ask him later

[Ed_S]

One of our guitarists who most would see as the de facto band leader got so annoyed with the other guitarist constantly having to change strings on stage, he decreed that "if you don't bring a backup, you don't play". So yeah, they both bring two.

 

We have since played a gig where he managed to break strings on both, but only once.

[tauzero]

Both guitarists have two, occasionally three. One is tuned a semitone down (the other guitarist uses a pitch shifter or a Variax for that one song). Guitarist/vocalist regularly breaks a string on his Les Paul and if he's only got the downtuned guitar with him, the other guitarist lends him one.

[Woodinblack]

Ours has at least 2 for when he breaks a string, which is really quite often.

[Franticsmurf]

As an ex-guitarist, I always had a spare guitar to hand and more often than not I'd swap guitars between sets anyway. Last year I had a string of rhythm guitar deps and always had two on call.  

[uk_lefty]

Our singer/ guitarist only owns one electric guitar so he has no backup. Lead guitarist sometimes brings a spare but not often. We have had a few occasions where the singer breaks a string, borrows lead guitarists instrument, we improv a song me and the drummer have never played before while the lead guitarist sits out changing the broken string. It's stressful.

[ardi100]

The guitarist/songwriter/bandleader/brother in law never had a spare. So it was really, really funny when he broke a string at a 'festival' (shoddy gig in an old.man's pub) and borrowed on from another band. We were in the indie scene and his tele had to be replaced by a headless 80s cricket bat style guitar. Hilarious.

[casapete]

My mate in our acoustic duo always brings two electro acoustics on every gig.

He has one of those double gig bags, bulky but not that heavy to carry. He has

previous for breaking strings, although just lately seems to be on a good streak. 
From my experience strings usually break for a reason - they need replacing,

sharp bridge saddles / tuners etc , being thrashed to death or any combination

of these. 

[Desbass]

Our guitarist used to bring three guitars. One for standard tuning, one for drop tuned songs, and one spare. Since buying a Digitech Whammy pedal he's down to two (though there have been times when he has forgotten to revert back to standard tuning on the Whammy with some car crash intros to the next song!).

[Lozz196]

In the last band I played guitar in I used to take 2 identical guitars along in a Mono M80 Dual gigbag. Thinking about it, in all the bands I’ve played guitar in although I always had a backup I never needed to use one.