LeftyBassist.com

I was thinking recently that I have always owned some old school basses and was considering adding a modern 5er to my arsenal. Watching the grammy's there was not too much love for the modern stuff. Mostly PBasses, one Jazz Bass one Epiphone JC...
I know there is a similar thread on TB but I think we are a much more knowledgeable group on this forum.
Any thought on this?

That is an intersting observation, I only caught Sir Paul last night but my girlfriend was telling me the same thing, but from seeing who the performers were (foo fighters, Adelle, Bruno Mars,) it was mostly Old School type music the bass players played basses that would fit the music, and I guess the bass that fit was a P. Just my 2 cents, who knows Fender could have payed for all those basses to be on stage.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Mostly vocal forward music there except for Foo Fighters and even Dave has his vocals out further than other modern rock or alternative music. Bass in this genre of music asks of the bass roll to be mostly supportive. How bass sits in the mix I would imagine must be high on the priority list as well playing in that venue to those professional ears.

You never know what’s under the hood though. Could be all beefed with preamps and updated pickups what have you. Although one of the most memorable incredible bass tones I ever heard live in my life oddly enough was all the equipment I would never buy in a million years. I played in an empty movie theater in NYC in some BS band thing for industry people although looking back it was a total scam. This guy who played right after us and they were heavy melodic rock played a 70’s beat up 4 string Fender P with old flat wounds he said they were at least 5 years old playing thought an Ampeg SVT tube head into a 4/10 Ampeg cab and both head and cab had seen better days. Out in the crowd the bass was just amazing I can’t even describe it. Just so thick and full of tone you could have just cried.

Even as a self-admitted fair weather Fender fan I don’t think there is any bass that could sit in the mix as well as a couple jazz basses and some P action. They have it perfected in the most simplistic of ways and this most times is the best. Plus I wasn’t playing…

Thumb, I can't agree more but I am surprised to hear that from you, Mr. I-don't-get-the-vintage-thing...what happened to you?

With their narrower bandwith and punchy mids the Fender P's and J's are well suited for TV broadcast anyway since not everyone is listening with a fancy home theater system going down to 40 Hz.

I am not sure what bass Taylor Swift's bass player was using but it sounded pretty awesome too.

There was actually some really good performances and some utterly aweful ones (how about this Rapper chick with the exorcist insired show? WTF was that?). I thought there was less of the Modern R'n'B/Rap than the previous year and more real bands playing.

I think there is a big trend to play a "vintage" axe or to show it off at least because it looks cool. Were they playing live for real? That is the question because as a session player and a tv player I have to perform a lot of different styles of music and I should admit that my sense of arranging bass parts to get a full impact musically has to do with my use of the register of the bass including the low B. When I bring a 4strings to the gig, my musical director is missing the low end as much as I do too even if he likes the tone of my vintage axes. I'm playing the same custom 5 strings bass from an unknown builder for the past 24 years and I stood behind my choice without a doubt because I believed in it and was competing with synth bass also. It was very new to the business and not always accepted by the purists but I kept using it because I believed in it no matter what other musicians thought of it. One of the secret imo is to get a good volume balance between the strings. Too often bass players using low B are boosting to much the low end making an uneven balance that make the sound engineer equ'ing the bass or putting it far in the mix.

So my feeling is either the music played there didn't call for for it even if I think that the use of the notes on the low B are always welcome if played at the right place and at the right moment. So my feeling is that it is a trend more then anything else.

I agree, at least from a fashion standpoint, if you're going for a throwback/classic look i.e. Motown you don't want a guy up there playing an Ibanez Destroyer. or, it's possible you've got sound guys familiar with mixing Ps and Js who can't be bothered learning or EQing some instrument they've never had to deal with before, especially if time is of the essence to keep the show moving on schedule. But if you're a Mega star like McCartney or Sting nobody's going to tell you what bass to play. So unless it's someone with a unique styling or voice largely dependent on the instrument itself, my assumption is that Ps and Js simply sound "right" and the players using them normally play them anyway.

Anybody remember when they used to do All-Star Jams at the grammies? Years ago there was one with Stanley Clarke (along with Charlie Daniels, Ricky Skaggs, Glenn Campbell, and a few others I can't remember) performing to a video of Elvis doing "Blue Suede Shoes". (I have it on VHS somewhere). Anyway, Stanley had his Alembic. That's his sound, even though I have no doubt he could smoke on any bass handed to him.

Back to the O.P., about 2/3's through the show, I commented to my wife that I had seen only two non-Fender basses at that point. This coming from a Fenderless guy.... Well, except for my 1973 Strat. But no basses.