Patience was definitely a Virtue!!
Will
Hi All
Kind of an inverse to the recent Bournemouth Gig fracas story.......
As part of a UK tour did a gig last week in Oxford, (small club PA)
and during the setup a serious crackling appeared from one side of the
PA, intermittently, which is the worst kind of problem!
The House Engineer assigned to our gig was doing his best, the other
House Engineers (there was a larger gig upstairs) all came down at one
point or another to try and resolve the problem, and as time ran out
it became a "What do you want to do?" situation.
I said "Either replace the offending gear (if it was findable), a
different PA (if it was findable too) or pull the gig". Fair enough,
they said.
Band obviously doesn't want to pull the gig, Promoter is expecting us
all to go into Tourettes Mode any second ("F***ing S**t F***ing
clubs", etc.) but everybody stays calm and waits, the band not wanting
to take the decision to pull.
Suddenly it's "We've sorted the PA problem", everybody sighs in
relief, band rush through half a song (that was the soundcheck, I'd
done a line check on cans and kinda EQ'ed the monitors). Phew!
Band and me go off to eat, come back - BOTTLE OF CHAMPAGNE in the
dressing room as a "Thank You" from the promoter for not "Losing It".
So patience does pay off in some situations!
Check out the band, they're pretty good :
www.actual-size.co.uk
PS. After the gig, the House guy (sorry I can't thank you by name, the
memory is not.....err......umm....) admitted that during the support
slot the crackle had reappeared momentarily, but wisely waited until
afterwards to tell me!
Cheers to all
Will
Shaun
> As part of a UK tour did a gig last week in Oxford, (small club PA)
> and during the setup a serious crackling appeared from one side of the
> PA, intermittently, which is the worst kind of problem!
>
> The House Engineer assigned to our gig was doing his best, the other
> House Engineers (there was a larger gig upstairs) all came down at one
> point or another to try and resolve the problem, and as time ran out
> it became a "What do you want to do?" situation. <snip>
>
> Band obviously doesn't want to pull the gig, Promoter is expecting us
> all to go into Tourettes Mode any second ("F***ing S**t F***ing
> clubs", etc.) but everybody stays calm and waits, the band not wanting
> to take the decision to pull.
>
> Suddenly it's "We've sorted the PA problem", everybody sighs in
> relief, band rush through half a song (that was the soundcheck, I'd
> done a line check on cans and kinda EQ'ed the monitors). Phew!
>
> Band and me go off to eat, come back - BOTTLE OF CHAMPAGNE in the
> dressing room as a "Thank You" from the promoter for not "Losing It".
Feels good to get problems resolved "in time". Not much I hate worse than
running over schedule, trying to soundcheck after doors open. Much stress.
Having time to eat between soundcheck & show means you were successful. It
could have been much worse; the problem jumps up during the show, or appears
after soundcheck is over (ie come back from dinner; find that the PA died).
--
Shaun Wexler,
Hellsgate Sound
http://www.hellsgate-sound.com
mailto:sh...@hellsgate-sound.com
Tim Scott
"Will" <wi...@willsworks.spambin.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:3q12fu89rsg4en4jj...@4ax.com...
>
> Hi All
>
> Kind of an inverse to the recent Bournemouth Gig fracas story.......
>
> As part of a UK tour did a gig last week in Oxford, (small club PA)
Zodiac?
Phildo
"Will" <wi...@willsworks.spambin.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:3q12fu89rsg4en4jj...@4ax.com...
> Band and me go off to eat, come back - BOTTLE OF CHAMPAGNE in the
> dressing room as a "Thank You" from the promoter for not "Losing It".
>
> So patience does pay off in some situations!
Nice story. It always pays off to be nice to people on the road, at
least until the situation demands something stronger. If you work
together things get done and problems get solved. As soon as one person
starts freaking out that's all lost. I've never understood tour managers
that are assholes from the word go. I remember one Norwegian band who
pulled shows on their US tour for silly reasons such as the promoter not
supplying the 16 pairs of new black socks at the gig. Their tour manager
is a well-known dickhead though (sadly he's at a gig I'm doing next
week).
Phildo
Will
"Tim Scott" <tim....@NOSPAMPLEASEIAMBRITISHorange.net> amazed us
with:
Well spotted!
Hubert Barth
>As part of a UK tour did a gig last week in Oxford, (small club PA)
>and during the setup a serious crackling appeared from one side of the
>PA, intermittently, which is the worst kind of problem!
We once had a similar problem when we played in Switzerland.
As soon as the Band reached a certain volume level @ soundcheck the
whole PA went to a very loud hum.
After switching the amps off and on we started the next attempt only
to find the same thing happen again and again. The guys who had
provided the PA could not fix it.
We finally found an alternative to pulling the show by just running
vocals and keys at low volume, in addition to that we moved the whole
band down from stage right into the middle of the audience to reduce
the distance (horn section unamplified).
Turned out to be one of the most pleasant gigs of the tour, with happy
punters dancing around the band.
--
Hubert Barth
Cologne/Germany
http://www.bigbands.de