Slimmed My Gear Down Last Night

I had a busy day yesterday, I knew that the gig we were doing that night didn't have the greatest of load ins, and in addition to it all I was in one of those moods where I wanted to keep things simple.
SO, instead of taking 3 crash cymbals I took 2, I didn't bother with my splash cymbal, I didn't bother with my spare snare drum and I didn't bother with the woodblock that I use on only one song. I spent a short time emptying my cymbal and hardware bags to make sure that I was only taking what I needed (during which I found some multi clamps in another bag that I'm going to sell on now ) and loaded the car up. Considering how little I was leaving out I was surprised at how much more easily it all went in the car and how much lighter my two bags were. An added bonus was that some of the "odds and ends" and my stool top that usually need their own trip to carry, fitted in the slightly more slimline hardware bags now. And my load in for a 4 piece kit was 3 trips, and those trips were comfortable and not back breaking effort of carrying far too much gear to make a point.
As it happened I actually got parked right outside the pub for a change, but we had to wait for half an hour while some customers (rudely IMO) kept playing pool at the table in what was the designated stage area even though they knew we were waiting, and the area itself was so small that knowing my kit footprint was totally within the area of my mat was a great help too.
As for playing the gig a couple of cymbals short, I genuinely ran into no problems whatsoever. The temptation now of course is to buy a bigger cymbal so that the two I take out have an even bigger separation than my 16" and 18".....which will lead to me wondering how a 4 cymbal set up will sound. But I'm not going there

Congrats on a successful gig! It's amazing what can happen when a drum set is scaled down. Forces you to be a little more creative with what you have. I had to play once for a professor's concert with a bass, snare, hats, and a single cymbal. One of my favorite gigs to date. I personally think there should should be more drummers like you who take the time to experiment with less. Out of curiosity what cymbals did you use?

Jhostetler said:

Congrats on a successful gig! It's amazing what can happen when a drum set is scaled down. Forces you to be a little more creative with what you have. I had to play once for a professor's concert with a bass, snare, hats, and a single cymbal. One of my favorite gigs to date. I personally think there should should be more drummers like you who take the time to experiment with less. Out of curiosity what cymbals did you use?

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I used Paiste PST8 hats, Paiste Alpha Pro 16" and 18" Rock Crash and a Meinl Raker 20" Heavy Ride.
I left out a 17" Rock Crash and a 12" Metal Splash.
If I can find a 20" crash cymbal that's also genuinely rideable I might even go so far as to downsize to two cymbals in total as opposed to 3

Welcome to the club dude!
I have slowly been scaling down what I play. Currently at a 4 piece with hats 20 inch crash and a crashable ride and an 18 inch china. If I didn't need at least two toms for some tom beats, I would ditch the rack tom, though it's mounted to the kick so it's an easy set up. Probably don't even need my China. I only use it as an accent once in a while...

That sounds familiar. For the past six months or so I've been occasionally subbing for someone in a pub cover band. Some of the stages are really small and the parking situation is often bad so my kit got gradually smaller as the gigs went by. My normal set is a 4-piece, hats, ride and 2 crashes. By the last gig I was down to kick, snare, rack tom, hat, crash clamped from hat, ride on kick. So basically no cymbal stands, no floor tom. I was trying desperately to trim down my hardware bag weight and trips to/from the car.

I was comfortable enough playing the material and it was fun in a way to have less than I was used to. On one stage there was no room for a floor tom even if I wanted to. But the next gig where I knew there was enough room I didn't even bother bringing it.

The funny thing is the guy I was subbing for doesn't even use toms at all so I was still outdoing him!