Hi, guys! "Playing live" question

Cantable the pro version does all kinds of cool stuff. It's a little pricey but has lots of support and a good following. They have a free version you can try out. I would check that out.
 
Some here build computers on a smaller chassis and take those to the gig or buy gamer laptops. The company  that once specialized in stand alone hardware called RECEPTOR for vst playback seems to have stopped making the hardware.
 
All depends on what you aim to do. For a simple on stage setup any vst daw host will do. Mac users like Mainstage.
If I were seriously going into stage work using vsts I would probably be looking at AKAI VIP 3.1. It hosts ANY vst which can the be called up live in milliseconds. Native Instruments has Komplete Kontrol. It's designed to host NI vst. That isn't a bad thing because they have a lot to offer. That setup is probably used mainly in studios though.
 
If you want something that plays background music for you I would look into accompaniment keyboards. Yamaha and Korg have some nice ones with lots of styles to choose from.
 
Lots of things you can do. All depends on what your goal is.
 
 

Actually--whether it's a good idea or not--I was describing two guitars on ONE keyboard, with a key split such that the middle octaves were for playing the chord and the lower octaves for one guitar VST and the upper octaves for another.  Not a guitar player so...not really much choice for me if I want to play guitar music.  :-)