Hey Gang - A ten day biker rally just finished up in my area which features a lot of live music. You can listen to 5-6+ bands a day without hardly moving. I always like to assess what gear these full-time working bands choose. Things have changed some over the last several years.

Gibson ( LP in particular ) are far away the most common seen. That's not a new trend but {I think} the gap is widening. And there not " shiny -new" Pauls either ... OLD Gibsons are, apparently, the guitar du jour. What I've seen change is the increased presence of PRS. All respect to Fender ( I'm sure they make/sell a lot more guitars than PRS?), they are not as well represented as they used to be. And what used to be a 80/20 mix - strats to teles- appears closer to 50/50 now. I wasn't counting, these are abstract observations made under the influence of copius amounts of alcohol. That clarified, Gibson / PRS / Fender (in that order) represented 80%+ of all the electric guitars I saw being used. Acoustic guitars are harder to identify from a distance- it's hard to read headstocks with blurred vision. :) .... ( I wonder if it's a different story at the CMF in Nashville? Would PRS outnumber Fender there? Probably not? )

Amps were a different story ... aside from the obvious heavy load of Marshall I saw every brand / set-up imaginable. I didn't hear one single set-up I'd call "weak".

Anyway... since your thread was specifically about Gibson vs. PRS I thot I'd chime-in that PRS has done a pretty effective job of clawing it's way toward the top amongst the " working crowd ". Personally, I like'm both.

Good Luck- neither would be a "mistake" .....