Backline usually refers to amps, speaker cabinets, and drums, and nowadays it simply isn’t cost effective for many artists to tote these items around the country, so “fly-out dates” have become the norm. It’s a viable, cost-effective option to play nationally without having to rent vehicles and hire road crews. Guitarists and bass players can now travel with a chosen instrument and travel rig, usually a modeling amp or pedal, which fits neatly into a gig bag. They then request that the venue or promoter supply the necessary sonic accoutrements. '
Premier Guitar recently caught up with several artists adept at fly-out dates to find out what they bring, what they request, and what they’ve experienced as the touring industry continues to evolve around them.
Joshua Crumbly
Acclaimed bassist Joshua Crumbly (Terence Blanchard, Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah) asks for three different choices for amps on fly-out dates. He provides three options because he wants to give himself the best chance that a backline company or music festival will be able to provide at least one of his preferences or mix and match based on his choices. His first choice is an Ampeg SVT-PRO CL or Ampeg SVT-PRO VR amplifier with an Ampeg SVT 4x10 cabinet. “This is actually my first choice for upright bass tour dates as well,” he adds. His second choice is a Fender Super Bassman amplifier with a Fender 410 Pro cab, and his third choice is a Markbass Little Tube 800 with a Markbass 410 cab.
“I used to travel with my own DI but typically do not anymore,” Crumbly explains. “I now ask for a Rupert Neve RND1 or a Radial DI and for a mic on the cabinet, like an EV-RE20 or something comparable.” Crumbly’s upright bass specs are a ¾-size fully carved or hybrid double bass equipped with a Fishman Full Circle or David Gage Realist pickup (no exceptions about pickup choices) and Thomastik Spirocore Weich bass strings or D’Addario Orchestral Medium tension strings.
A few months ago, Crumbly was out on tour with trumpeter Riley Mulherkar. One of the dates was in Madison, Wisconsin, and he was told ahead of time that there would be one show where the club did not have a bass amp, but a local bassist, named John Christensen, would let him borrow one, and that he’d bring it by before soundcheck. Turns out Christensen brought a powered speaker and a Grace Design FELiX preamp DI—not what Crumbly was expecting. “I had heard some rumblings about it being really good for upright bass, so was not really excited and had suppressed expectations for it in the electric setting I was in,” he recalls. “But it ended up working so great, I remember feeling like it was the first time on the whole tour where I could really hear myself, along with all of the nuance of the instrument.”
One of Crumbly’s goals for this year is to learn how to adjust action and intonation and learn how to make truss rod adjustments. “Traveling, especially long flights, can be very hard on instruments,” he attests. “The action on one of my main basses has been fluctuating a lot, and not every gig has a budget for techs, so as my mentor, Reggie Hamilton, would so eloquently say, ‘Learn all of the skills you can.’”
Lindsay Ell
Photo by Hannah Gray Hall
Pop-country singer-songwriter Lindsay Ell loves mixing dirty and clean amps in stereo whenever she can, so her rider includes two reissue Fender ’65 Deluxe Reverbs and one Vox AC30, or two VOX AC30s and one Matchless DC-30. “I also usually get a backup Deluxe because I know if any one of the amps go down, I can always just rock with a Deluxe Reverb,” she explains. “I’ve had so many gigs where we get to the venue and one of the speakers is blown on one of the amps or the power supply doesn’t work. So, I always feel better getting at least one extra.” The condition of the equipment is a topic that will reverberate throughout this article. Many artists have grown accustomed to requesting more than they need simply because they know gear maintenance can sometimes be questionable, especially outside of primary markets.
To that point, Ell says her craziest backline memory is from a gig in Texas, where her drummer got on a kit only to find it was completely falling apart. “He had to steady the snare between his knees because the stand wasn’t stable,” she recalls. “And the toms were falling apart as soundcheck went along. All the heads were so old, the kick head broke during soundcheck.” They later found out that the backline company had double-booked a bunch of gear, so some guy ended up bringing his personal kit to the gig. “It was in need of a lot of TLC, and we had to duct-tape most of it together to get through the show, but we made it.”
Earl Slick
David Bowie guitar legend Earl Slick usually orders more amps than he needs because he knows from experience the condition might be questionable upon arrival. “When the roadies call in, I have them specifically ask questions about the shape of the amps, and of course they are always great until you get them,” he chuckles. One time, while on tour in the U.K. with Glen Matlock (Sex Pistols), he got an amp that started cutting in and out after the first song. “I don’t know where they were getting the rentals from, and I don’t even remember the amp they brought me,” he recalls. “But it wasn’t even remotely what I asked for.” He eventually kicked the amp off the stage into the back wall. But because he was with Matlock, playing Sex Pistols tunes, the audience loved it. “They thought it was part of the show,” he recalls. “But I was basically having a complete fucking meltdown.”
When Slick did the Double Fantasy (John Lennon and Yoko Ono) show with Tony Levin and Andy Newmark at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, he ordered two VOX AC30s and two Marshall plexi half stacks. “We’d never done this stuff live before, and I didn’t want to take any chances, so the amps start showing up, and the sound man is shitting his pants, and I’m like, ‘Don’t worry dude, it’s only going to be one amp—whichever one works [laughter].’”
Nili Brosh
Israeli-American guitarist Nili Brosh is able to get her Mesa/Boogie Triple Crown 100 rig most of the time, partly because she’s endorsed by the brand, but also many of her tours start in Los Angeles, where she relies on Center Staging to deliver the goods. However, even such a seemingly bulletproof situation isn’t without obstacles when you’re working multiple gigs simultaneously.
“If I’m going on tour, it’s easy to start from L.A.,” she proclaims. “Last year I was doing a couple of gigs at the exact same time and all of my rigs were coming from Center Staging. And a lot of the time they’ll provide a backup as well. So, I flew in from a Dethklok tour to make a Danny Elfman rehearsal, and cartage was like, ‘Here’s your rig.’ And there was one Triple Crown and one other Mesa head, a Mark Series or something, and I was like, ‘Hmmm … I know they know me, and they know what rig I prefer, so why would they send me a Mark-series backup?’ Then I realized, ‘I think I am using all the Triple Crowns they have right now, that’s why they sent this one [laughter].’” She ran into a tech a few months later who confirmed that she was in fact using all of Center Staging’s Triple Crowns. “The good thing about Mesa is that if the Triple Crown isn’t available, usually what I do see is a Triple Rectifier. It’s not really my kind of amp, but I’ve definitely made it work. It’s nice to have a 3-channel tube amp show up at a fly date.”
Brosh does have a backup travel modeling rig, which is Headrush MX5. “It’s tiny and fits in a backpack,” she says. “I usually carry it in my suitcase anyway because it’s a great little rig to do some quick recording or even if I just go DI.”
In the end, Brosh says it’s all about how you manage expectations and that savvy players should be able to make just about any situation work. “Whether you get what you ask for or not, there are so many solutions, and there are a lot more fallback options to put in your suitcase than there’s ever been before.”
Rudy Sarzo
Photo by Coffman Rock Shots
Quiet Riot bassist Rudy Sarzo was playing Ampeg before he started using backline rentals. So, when the band transitioned from traditional road tours to fly dates, after witnessing how Blue Öyster Cult was doing it, Sarzo was able to transition seamlessly. “I could always find an Ampeg, even in places like Bulgaria or Russia,” he attests. “Aguilar is very popular, too.”
Nowadays, Quiet Riot does any combination of casinos, festivals, package tours, and clubs, so Sarzo knows his way around rental gear and what to expect. “Using rental gear, the preamp tubes take the most abuse,” he explains. “Now, I ask for an SVT 4-PRO. It has a master volume. It’s the only Ampeg that backline companies seem to have plenty of, and if you go power amp in with your own preamp, you can use the master to control the volume and bypass a potentially bad preamp tube.”
Sarzo admits he’s always adjusting to improve these kinds of situations, and trying, as much as possible, to get his bass tone out of the hands of the front-of-house sound guys. “A lot of times we’re on bills with multiple bands and there just isn’t enough time for me to sit down with them and explain what I need,” he says. To that effect, he’s recently returned to Ultimate Ears in-ear monitors (IEM) and a Neve DI that goes in between the amp and the speaker cab. “You can go XLR out from the Neve, so I get the Ampeg tone in my in-ears instead of a dry DI tone.”
Jennifer Batten
Some artists have adjusted to this new touring paradigm by becoming completely self-contained and foregoing the need to request or utilize any backline. Former Michael Jackson guitarist Jennifer Batten, for example, no longer requires backline support when she hits the road. “I go direct and everything I need is in my carry-on,” she explains.
Aside from her guitar, Batten travels with a BluGuitar Amp1 and either the BluGuitar Nanocab or Fatcab, along with a Line 6 HX Stomp XL Multi-effects Floor Processor. “When I show up, they give me a left and right XLR output and a wireless in-ear mix pack, and I’m done. I’m also usually capable of doing my own mix from an iPad that I bring if the engineer is set up with a router to send the tracks to me.”
Marcus Nand
Photo by ShotZ Fired Performance Photography
Marcus Nand, guitarist for Mike Tramp’s White Lion, is another musician who has utilized technology to scale back his touring needs. “Adapting to various conditions while maintaining consistency is a challenge when on tour,” he explains. “For the last few tours, I’ve used a Kemper, and we premixed the show using only IEM monitoring and no sound on stage. We even used digital drums to eliminate the unpredictability of the occasional inebriated soundman on club tours.”
Even though he describes his travel rig as a great and consistent setup, Nand admits it can be a little sterile. “Something shifted recently after playing a show with the Dead Daisies through good old tube amps. I thought, ‘Man that was fun!’ I realized I missed the tactile, dynamic magic and the raw feel of speakers pushing air, the unpredictable nuances, the connection between player and amp that makes things come alive, so we’ve reverted back to amps on stage and an acoustic drum kit.”
For this, Nand is now also using a BluGuitar Amp1. “It weighs about two pounds, delivers up to 100 watts of Marshall-like tone, and fits right into my carry-on.” All he now needs from the backline supplier is a decent Marshall 4x12 speaker cabinet. “There are so many great products on the market—for me, consistency in sound, reliability, and portability when traveling are the determining factors.”
Farees
At the 2022 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival with Leo Nocentelli’s debut show presenting his acclaimed record Another Side, Tuareg guitarist Farees borrowed one of Nocentelli’s parlor acoustic guitars for the show. “Likely a D’Angelico, if I remember right,” he recalls. “It wasn’t my usual type of instrument, but adapting is essential. I changed the strings, adjusted it for better playability—which is crucial for this kind of music—but its built-in amplification system was very basic and prone to feedback, with no equalization or piezo option.”
When he hit the stage, he realized he’d been wrongly given a large electric guitar amp—placed directly behind him. “It was probably a Fender Twin Reverb, and for an acoustic guitar like that, with no piezo or alternative amplification, this setup would’ve been a feedback nightmare and could’ve ruined the sound for the entire show.” But Farees stayed calm and acted quickly. “I asked the stage engineer to move the amp far behind me, set it to a low, clean volume, slightly boost the bass, and cut the high and mid frequencies. I also asked him to mic the amp and find something to cover the guitar’s soundhole to minimize feedback.”
Farees says that performance taught him a lot about staying adaptable under pressure and making the best of unpredictable circumstances. “On a big stage, it’s not just about playing your part—it’s about working with what you’re given, solving problems quickly, and keeping the energy high so the music and the moment shine—not for yourself, but for everyone involved, both within and beyond the band.”
Every level of player uses backlines, from the smallest stages to the biggest. Here, SIR Chicago sets up a backline for Bettye LaVette before she opened for the Rolling Stones at Soldier Field.
At some point in your gigging life, you can likely expect to run into a situation where you’ll be plugging into a pre-arranged backline. A backline, as defined by the production pros we spoke with for this article, is essentially all the equipment that you, as a band, need to play a show. It’s usually either provided by the promoter that has hired you to play, or you’ve provided a backline supplier with a rider that lays out exactly what your band needs to execute your set just the way you want. But that latter situation is usually reserved for bands that are already operating with quite a bit of success. If you’re just starting out and you don’t have the dough behind you to have a supplier set you up for every gig, it’s more likely that the first time you run into questions about backline will be in the context of a festival or showcase.
Case Jumper, the live events manager of backline supply company and rehearsal studio Soundcheck Nashville, lays out the way things go down for the Country Music Association’s summer extravaganza, CMA Fest.
“We do five small stages of backline, then we do the River Stage, which is a larger package, and then we do Nissan Stadium,” Jumper says. “So, on the smallest stages, CMA says, ‘Look, we need something where bands can come up, play, get off, and get the next band on in 30 minutes.’ It has to be a very quick turnaround, and that means that it has to be things that people are going to play and use. So for something like CMA Fest, on the small stages, you’re probably going to get a Nord keyboard. There’s going to be a Fender Twin, there’s going to be a Vox AC30, there’s going to be a [Fender] Deluxe [Reverb], and then there’s going to be probably a Gallien-Krueger bass rig, and then an assorted drum kit with cymbals. I give them those specs, and then they use that in their advance with bands. With something like the River Stage, which is still that same format of ‘quick-on, quick-off,’ but it’s a little bit larger scale, we up it. There are multiple key rigs but also a Hammond B3 and Leslie, and a pretty giant drum set. Sometimes we do a grand piano, and then the amp range goes more. So there’re Peavey Nashville 400s, there’s a Marshall JCM900 rig. There are Voxes, Twins, maybe some Deluxes, probably a Roland KC-550 keyboard amp. It just becomes a larger thing. For the stadium, we basically build it out per band. Then we get into specifics of riders, where we’re doing exactly what they’re asking for.”Here are some of the most common pieces you’ll see on backlines in Nashville. Do you know how your guitar and effects rig sounds through them?
Vox AC30
Fender Twin Reverb
Fender Deluxe Reverb
Marshall JCM900
Gallien-Krueger bass amp
Peavey Nashville 400
Nord keyboards
Hammond B3 organ
“For the stadium, we basically build it out per band. Then we get into specifics of riders, where we’re doing exactly what they’re asking for,” says Soundcheck Nashville’s Case Jumper.
Photo by Case Jumper
The equipment provided in a backline changes in every situation, but generally a band can expect that, onstage, they’ll be provided amplifiers, drums, and microphones. Depending on your needs, you might also have a keyboard and keyboard amp, and some stands. Generally it’s up to your band to bring your guitars, basses, pedals, and your drummer’s breakables, plus snare drum. But because the situation differs with every gig, it’s best to have an in-depth conversation with whoever is providing backline so that no one is left high and dry without the gear they need to get through the show. Some things get overlooked more than others. When we asked Jumper to tell us the most important thing for guitarists and bassists to remember about dealing with backlines, he immediately provided a pro tip: “Bring your cables!” And capos, he adds.
When it comes to the specific amp brands and models that one might expect from a typical backline which has been put together without artist input, Jumper notes a few common examples. In Nashville, AC30s, Twins, and Deluxe Reverbs are nearly ubiquitous. In Los Angeles, players might be more likely to find Marshall and Mesa/Boogie rigs. “Depending on what the sound of the area is, I think that dictates which amps you’re going to use,” says Jumper. “Bass rigs are another prime example. Ampeg SVT rigs may be more prevalent in Nashville, where Aguilar might be more prevalent in New York and L.A. And maybe Gallien-Krueger and some of the more funk rigs are more prevalent in Atlanta. Then Texas is its own market. It’s such a mix.”
It’s a good idea to figure out how your rig interacts with Fender Twin Reverbs, because you’ll encounter plenty of them on backline gigs.
Photo courtesy of Fender
Vox AC30s come up often in Jumper’s responses, for good reason. He notes that they’re incredibly versatile, which makes them great for many situations.
"You can go very clean, but very loud, still [with an AC30],” he says. “And then it works well, because most players are coming in with a pedalboard system. So while some old-school, L.A.-type players might still use the gain structures from a Marshall head or a Mesa head, most of the people are doing that all internally now.”
On that note, Jumper has noticed that in Nashville many players have been moving away from guitar amps altogether and opting instead for modelers and profilers like Kempers and Fractals.
“It’s a unit, much like a keyboard, where you say, ‘I’m looking for this particular sound,’ and you can plug in and it’ll get you very close to that sound,” says Jumper. “So maybe you’re a touring guy, and you’re having to do lots of flights—instead of trying to work with a backline company to make sure they have all your exact amps in every city, you might invest in a Kemper, and outfit the Kemper to sound exactly like you want. That way you’re just rolling into every venue with an SKB case instead of wondering what you’re gonna get.”
If you’re a backlinin’ bass player, you should probably know your way around Gallien-Krueger amps, like these Legacy 800 heads.
Photo by J.B. Stuart, SIR Phoenix
It’s worth pointing out, too, that every company is different, and some backline providers don’t necessarily advise clients about what they should use in specific situations, or build one-size-fits-all sort of packages. Some companies, like Studio Instrument Rentals [SIR] in New York, work pretty much strictly with equipment riders provided by bands or promoters, putting together their preferences exactly. So it’s also best to know exactly what you might need to ask for if you know you’ll be in a situation where backline rentals will make up a large part of your on-stage gear.
The best way to get that in order is by writing out an equipment rider. Jumper notes that it’s important to keep that rider constantly updated in order to avoid unnecessary confusion come gig day, pointing out that plenty of artists just forget to update riders after they’ve made changes in their sound.
An equipment rider is exactly what it sounds like—a document that very clearly lays out all the gear you’ll need to play a show. It will certainly contain the number of pieces per gear you’ll need (e.g. two guitar amps, one bass amp, etc.), but it should also note preferred brands and models, as well as brands and models that will work if your preferred amps are not available; wattage and power specifications; sizes of speakers; drums and drum sizes; and microphone preferences, if you have them. Essentially, you want to get down to the nitty-gritty of what must be on stage to pull off a great show. With a detailed equipment rider, backline pros can solve problems more quickly, giving them the tools they need to improvise when your preferred amp or mic isn’t available locally.
Do you have an equipment rider and stage plot for your band? Those are the first steps to getting ready for pulling together your own backline.
Photo by William O’Leary, SIR New York
Another document that works either alone or in tandem with a detailed equipment rider is the stage plot. As noted above, it’s not necessarily common that you’ll run into a situation where you’re able to simply ask for everything you want. But you will definitely wind up in situations where a stage manager needs to know how to set everything up. The stage plot is a visual document that indicates how gear should be arranged. This should include the placement for microphones, amps, drums, keyboards, and any other instruments, helping a stage manager quickly discern where band members will be standing or sitting.
If you’ve got any worries about your potential backline situation, or communication with the promoter leaves you with more questions than answers, it might help to generally expect workhorse gear. As Jumper says, in this part of show business, reliability is key—the aforementioned AC30s and Fender Twins are reliable, as are solid-state bass rigs. So it’s likely that you’ll encounter this gear on the regular. It could be a good idea to get familiar with these pieces and how your specific rig interacts with them.
And, of course, if you do get the privilege of working directly with a backline supplier, clear and friendly communication goes a long way to making sure your big gig goes off without a hitch.
“When people are coming to Soundcheck, I want them to ask how I can help them make their event, whether it be a festival or one-off, run as smoothly as possible from a backline perspective,” Jumper says. “I obviously can’t run it all, but I can make it so our gear is not faulty, you know—we’re not the chain that breaks. That allows artists to focus on whatever else they’re having to worry about. They know that Soundcheck is always going to provide top quality equipment, and they’re always going to provide people to make sure it works right.”
