The tone generator trick is a cool one, but requires a tricky setup and eats an extra channel, not to mention the tone generator. If your not understanding what is meant by the tone generator side chain trick, I will give you a quick and dirty run down. The kick channel is set to be the trigger for the gate of another channel which has the tone generator routed to it. The tone generator is set for a frequency of 50-60hz. The kick drum will open the gate allowing the tone to be heard and then of course as the gate closes it will cut the tone. It is a cool way to get the kick drum to have the same basic sound all the time. You can even place a high pass filter on the kick channel so that you only get the boom from the gated tone channel and the click from the actual kick channel.
In terms of using the side chain stuff in the more conventional manor,it is really dependent upon the quality of the engineer. I personally don't like to gate things if I don't have to. I don't often have the same group through the same PA everyday either. Gating is usually not ideal for festival settings where things change a lot. You can generally get it close pretty quick, but it takes more time to lock it in real tight.
Another thing to be sure of is when in the signal path is the sidechain being effected? Pre/post EQ or HPF? I have also found that if the bassist and drummer are that far off to begin with, sidechain gating one or the other won't help much. If you have a bassist and drummer that are really tight, the effect can really make the mix pop, but I feel that it is best done on a per song basis. Your not generally going to find a one size fits all setting.