I saw him standing there

John, I would say that it has more to do with acoustics and balance. The bass is a rhythm instrument and, like drums, tend to be placed where the blending is most effective. The LSO has the same arrangement:

Letty ------------ thanks, my musical education moves onwards unabated

Somehow I don't think acoustic balance was one of Motorhead's chief concerns. And the Beatles couldn't even hear themselves.

Think about it. There are only three places the bass player can go - stage left, stage right, centre stage. Naming four prominent bands that have bass on stage right is hardly stretching the chi squared null hypothesis....

I can recall seeing John Deacon on the left of the stage as you look at it but was watching Sid and Nancy the ither day and Sid Vicious was on the right of the stage as you look at it.

Wow! This is an oldie. I was referring more to acoustic instruments as opposed to electronic instruments.

Motorhead

Do you think it might have something to do with enabling the bass player to be in visual communication with the drummer? That would seem to be important to me as the drum and bass set the pace and would need to be able to communicate the need to either slow the pace or pick it up with a nod or a look.
That might be easier to do without breaking rhythm by a simple turn of the head and without having to turn around if the bass player is to the left rather than to the right of the drummer depending on the dominant handedness of the bass player- most people are right handed.

I thought about the drummer bass eye communication stuff (being a bass player myself) - but I realised there's no difference which side of the drummer you're on or if you're left or right handed, it's still only a 90 degree turn of the hips... - but it does explain why we don't go centre stage - even when we're the lead vocalist (eg Lemmy)

Irrelevance is my middle..., sorry, last name.

Captain I. wrote:



I tried it physically, before I wrote that and I'm right handed and I consistently turned my head more instinctively and comfortably to my left every time- although this would mean that the drummer would have to turn his head to the right- although I factored in for that by assuming the drummer would more likely be at least somewhat more ambidexterous due to the skills he's developed- although guitar players are probably also somewhat more ambidexterous (as well as piano players, etc. and all musicians who use both hands to do what they do)- so that pretty much blows my theory.

Besides the fact that professional musicians are probably much more practiced and don't really worry about things like breaking concentration or rhythm by doing something as simple as moving around a stage. I was thinking from my point of view- not a professional musician's-which also makes my theory irrelevant.

On small stages with an opposite hand guitarist you would have to pick the side where your machine heads wouldn't smash.

I knew a drummer who swore he'd become a piccolo player in his next life (he hated lugging his kit around). He died maybe fifteen years ago. So if some muso hits the seen in the next five years playing killer piccolo and making off jokes about hamsters, duct tape and small boys....