At the start of 1975 Gene made an effort to abide the Gibson deal and for most of the shows he chose the Grabber as seen in the photos below. But here we have to discuss an odd little wrinkle. Everyone has seen the bootleg video from Winterland which means that everyone has seen Gene play a natural Gibson Grabber. It is exceedingly odd that that particular instrument does not appear in any photos. Not a single one, not even photos from that date. (Gene brings out the metal flake Grabber for 100,000 years at Winterland—one can see the sparkling of the finish during his blood-spitting routine—and as seen below we have photos of that bass.) Apart from that video it's as if the natural Grabber simply didn't exist.
Throughout the comparatively few shows in February and March, when they were spending the majority of their time in Electric Lady recording Dressed To Kill, Gene was still mainly relying on the Grabber. (See the 1975 section on the LoBue for a nice exception.) But apparently something about the Grabber wasn't quite to Gene's liking. Around this time, after the taping of the Midnight Special TV appearance, is when Gene's search for something very specific seems to start. No matter what Gene may say in interviews, the various instruments he's tried and modified over the years all point to the same thing: he wants a simple, no-frills instrument.
Some time in mid-April Gene had his first real modification done, removing the tone knob and having just a single volume knob. Initially this was done by leaving the output jack in place and moving the volume to where the tone knob originally was. The change looks probable to have happened by April 19 but it is undeniable on April 22. In the photo below we can even see the hole where the volume knob was originally. I've included the photo from April 24 since it's the last photo I have that (seem to) shows the output jack is in its original place.
But things apparently weren't to Gene's liking. Perhaps the output jack was to close to the bridge, perhaps the location of the volume knob didn't feel right, we don't know. Whatever the reason both the output jack and the volume knob were moved. The output jack ended up where the tone knob had originally been and the volume knob migrated back to its original place.
This version of the Gibson Grabber—just a volume control and the moved output jack—was used for three of the four shows that were recorded for Alive!. (The custom LoBue and the Gibson Ripper were also used for some of the recordings.)
After July 20 there were relatively few shows booked as the band needed to spend time in Electric Lady for overdubs and mixing of the live album. As far as we know the Gibson Ripper was the bass of choice for the handful of shows during the first half of August. The Grabber wasn't discarded though, it stayed on as a backup and was used intermittently for quite some time. It also shows up, although it is rare, standing in wait on Gene's side of the stage as seen below.
Below are a handful of occasions when The Grabber actually made it on stage during the fall of 1975, the only ones known to me.
Early 1976 saw Gene relying even more on his custom LoBue and there appeared another backup. The Grabber gamely hung on but once the Les Paul Triumph showed up the Grabber's days were numbered—it probably didn't make sense to travel with three backup basses. The Grabber can be seen backstage, standing on Gene's side, and then making one final appearance on stage in the first months of 1976. It disappears after March 20 and is never seen again.
