As Peter Green once most fabulously said, “Gorgonzola is a mug’s cheese.” Similarly, if you’re a semi-pro musician, cheap equipment is, ultimately, mug’s equipment. The best equipment depreciates less if you have to sell it on or upgrade it – and because of these eventualities, keeping it in decent nick will also recoup more cash in the long run.

Perhaps the most important equipment your function band has is your transport. If it’s unreliable, it’s certainly more of a threat to the gig than, say, a squeaky treadle on your Slash Signature wah pedal. Since we’re talking about money here, it’s easy to overlook the cost of wear and tear and fuel for your car as part of the band’s outlay, but it is.

Ask whether your investment on luxury musical equipment wouldn’t be better spent on easy-win, performance-enhancing lighting, PA, subs, and foldback – as galling as it may be to admit it, 99 percent of audiences are more impressed with flashing lights than vintage-wound neck pickups.

Golden rule:

”While there’s great enjoyment in obsessing about gear the only thing that matters in that gig is putting the performance across. There’s a ratio between the amount you get paid and the number of musicians in the audience. The fewer musicians there are in the audience, the more you’re getting paid for that gig. You’re not playing for musos, you’re playing for people. And, if you want to play in a function band, you’ve got to play songs that women like, not songs that men like.” Mick Taylor, Editor, Guitarist