not Cereal Posted February 5, 2001 Share Posted February 5, 2001 OH MAN. last night, sheesh. one of the bands i run sound for had a gig in georgetown MN (population 3). it was a five hour gig (5 45min sets with announcement etc inbetween) well, we got set up, did a line check, i dialed the 31band for the hall, later a sound check and began the show on time (8pm) it took about 3 songs to get a decent sound (even after soundcheck- no one EVER soundchecks like they play) the FOH console was in an odd place as the hall is an odd shape, but i dont mind the "run and change an check and run and change and check" method so much. at about 8:30pm it started to sound pretty dang good i thought, full enough to be loud, but not hurting my ears and you can still talk to people. everything was going great; until...... about 9:15 the whole system went down for a split second. i dont know what happened. the house lites went with it. everything shut down for a split second (not just the band curcuit- the whole building) when it came back up, the guitar players effects were wrong, the keyboard had the wrong patch, all my foh gear was blinking and needed reset. well, we didnt stop, we just re-adjusted while they were playing, being cool and adverse, not missing a beat. the lighting system took about fifteen minutes to re-boot and fire up again, and it did. the foh and band settings took the rest of the song to reset. nothing to serious yet, just annoying. then about 9:45 i heard this POP and then the mix was MUFFLED and DEAD. UH OH. i instantly knew what happened: the high amp went out. we run an old skool 3way crossover (uugg) into 3 amps. not a whole lot of power, only about 2000watts. enough for a club. as i ran up to stage to recommend a break to fix emminent doom (hey, why have we been playing for almost two hours with no break...?) i got up there and the also had no monitors. the monitor amp had gone out too. (i also play monitor man at foh) we took a break, very quickly decided to unbridge the low amp and use half for lows/half for highs as well as unbridge the mid amp and use half for mid/half for monitors. **SIGH*** now i am down to less than half power, running a potentialy dangerous system (impedance? really? oh what could happen...) and all it will do is sound dead and feedback. i ended up dumping bass guitar, upper drum kit, and most everything except kick,snare and vox just so i could run it at all. this is with THREE HOURS left. this was not a fun gig for me, otr the band. the show went on, without a stop, and the audience danced until the end. it didnt sound as good as it has for the last seven months but noone really seemed to notice that much. hell, we can just say 'the hall sounded bad' yeah, thats it. when we packed it up, someone had spilled beer all over the snake (yuck) and we loaded into the MACK in about 50mph blowing snow. did i mention it was a blizzard? yep, i was telling myself it couldnt get much worse. until i noticed flashing red lites in my rear-view. (how much DID i drink?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 5, 2001 Share Posted February 5, 2001 I didn't know they had internet access in the pokey!!! http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/eek.gif This message has been edited by Khan Noonian Singh on 02-04-2001 at 07:24 PM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tedster Posted February 5, 2001 Share Posted February 5, 2001 (Rod Serling voice): Meet a man nicknamed Coaster, hapless sound tech, just returning from his most recent gig, in...The Twilight Zone...(music fade)... "Cisco Kid, was a friend of mine" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BP3 Posted February 5, 2001 Share Posted February 5, 2001 Hope, at leat, that there were some CDs sold. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gif Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chip McDonald Posted February 5, 2001 Share Posted February 5, 2001 Originally posted by coaster: and we loaded into the MACK in about 50mph blowing snow. did i mention it was a blizzard? I HATE loading gear in the cold. My mind gets in such a foul and black state in such conditions - I really pity those of you who live up north, I don't know if I could hack it. HAVING SAID THAT...... Back when I was 17 or so two students of mine)bass player and a guitar player) had a HS cover band that I sort of "coached". They were really popular; local sheriff's department always tried to shut them down because they actually drew from local clubs when they played. One particular night there was this kegger in this football field-sized backyard of this rick kid's house. This was back in the day when kids actually cooperated and organized such things: this guy's entire yard would be filled with underage kids, maybe 1,000+ some nights... The bands would set up in front of this horse stable where they built a stage. I found myself running sound for these guys one december night at an outdoor kegger... The day started out cold to begin with; as in about 40 degrees..... "Good learning experience for them" I thought. Long story short: they cut the fingers out of some gloves so they could play. As night came, it rapidly fell towards 0 as midnight approached. There was a crowd of about 500 there; a few bonfires had been lit, people were having a good time IN FREEZING WEATHER. I was running the board behind the drummer, sitting on the tailgate of a pickup they pulled up behind the stage. I FROZE TO THE TRUCK! Thinking back on that, I can't believe I did that - I *HATE* the cold. But the crowd was into it, fires burning here and there across this guy's yard - it was like U2's "Live at Red Rocks" concert done cheap.... (They played a lot of U2 since it was easy and the "cool" thing to be into back in the day when "alternative music" was still "underground"... Man, it's still weird to think about that... http://www.mp3.com/chipmcdonald Guitar Lessons in Augusta Georgia: www.chipmcdonald.com Eccentric blog: https://chipmcdonaldblog.blogspot.com/ / "big ass windbag" - Bruce Swedien Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dansouth Posted February 5, 2001 Share Posted February 5, 2001 My heart goes out to ya. It sounds like a really crappy experience. But there will be more gigs - great gigs - in the future. Have you ever considered a small UPS or two for critical gear, like the effects that had to be reset? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Botch. Posted February 5, 2001 Share Posted February 5, 2001 This'll be a fun thread! Sometimes a bad gig has a silver lining. I was playing years ago in a small town in SD (again, winter, just across the border from MN) and an older couple out dancing, she slipped, fell, and broke her hip. Everyone stopped dancing to help her, we stopped playing, and waited for the ambulance. Well, in small towns in SD an ambulance is Big News, and most of the townfolk followed the stretcher into the club, and we played to a packed house the rest of the night. The club owner was scheming behind the bar, "Hey, $75 for an ambulance call, >$1,000 extra profit, hmmm..." Botch "Eccentric language often is symptomatic of peculiar thinking" - George Will www.puddlestone.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Botch. Posted February 5, 2001 Share Posted February 5, 2001 This'll be a fun thread! Sometimes a bad gig has a silver lining. I was playing years ago in a small town in SD (again, winter, just across the border from MN) and an older couple out dancing, she slipped, fell, and broke her hip. Everyone stopped dancing to help her, we stopped playing, and waited for the ambulance. Well, in small towns in SD an ambulance is Big News, and most of the townfolk followed the stretcher into the club, and we played to a packed house the rest of the night. The club owner was scheming behind the bar, "Hey, $75 for an ambulance call, >$1,000 extra profit, hmmm..." Botch "Eccentric language often is symptomatic of peculiar thinking" - George Will www.puddlestone.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Aikin Posted February 6, 2001 Share Posted February 6, 2001 Haven't gigged much in recent years, and I don't have any major horror stories, but I still remember playing at a Saturday morning frat party one time. We were set up out on the front porch of the frat house, and one of the frat guys decided it would be fun to fill his mouth with lighter fluid and then light it while spitting it out **while jumping off of the porch.** Singed his eyebrows off, as I recall. We played "Light My Fire." What choice did we have? --Jim Aikin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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