I'm still pondering things, and without any particular sense of urgency. No one piece of my current gig-rig is prohibitively heavy. The heaviest cabinet is the coaxial Bag End, at about 35 lbs, the other is even less, I could probably get by with one, easily on most gigs. My amp is a Mesa D-800, weighs a negligible amount, maybe 3 lbs. Bag of cables and etc ain't nothing either. But then there's my bass, a backup, my chair, and a stand... next thing you know, I've made 8 trips to the car. It's just too much work.
Trouble is, I'm wearing myself out setting up stuff. My energy level being what it is, and with what's left of my upper-spine, that isn't going to work anymore. Simplify. Plug in direct, and play; that's the goal. I think we're going to give it a try soon, and just see how it sounds with our current monitors. Our soundguy thinks if he can keep the low frequency stuff in my wedge away from a couple live mics, we'll be okay. (from his perspective) Those frequencies he tells me, are more troublesome because they are much less directional. There are going to be compromises here... I don't expect it to sound like it used to. Just hoping I can find a way to make it work.