Dave Rat - Roadies in the Midst

Day 160 - Oct 30- Columbus Ohio

First order of business today, shopping for Halloween costumes. Scott came up with a plan and I think it is a good one. We originally started with the idea the four FOH roadies dressing up as the band we work for, but soon that sideways-evolved into us being The Village People. After reaching irreconcilable differences about who gets to be the Indian, we had to scrap that and we decided to..... (you will find out tomorrow)

Here you can see runner Dave, Scott and I begin our quest for the perfect costume:

Given the items we were shopping for, it was a fun and funny adventure that I think runner Dave will not soon forget, we had a blast!

**** Begin Meet a Roadie Campaign Episode 8 ****

Like any large campaign, the end run blitz of the final days requires long hours and hard work. Here at R.A.W. (Roadie Awareness Week) headquarters, currently located in my hotel bed, our industrious team of one still has high hopes for a successfully completed project. As we round the final turn toward the Day 8 finish line, I have the Dressing Room Duo, The Video Six, The Band Driver Trio and a Truck Driver's Dozen left in the barrel.

Long overdue and the ones who build beauty on a daily basis, our next contestants are the orchestrators of ambiance, the queens of comfort, and damsels of dressing room design. Up first is our punk rock princess from back in the day, a multiple and a fierce competitor in the 'who has the most road cases' competition big hugs and kisses for our very own Lyssa B. She is the interface between the band party and the venue. Creating the illusion that a rock venue is actually a comfortable place to hang out doing such a good job that she is practically turning the band into gig huggers. At Lyssa B's side doing what may be the most opposite imaginable of an easy gig, we have our Cleveland thorn-less dressing room assist, Rose. May I present the tree hugging ladies of bus number 2:

It is now time to tip your hats to the bringers of delicious visual delights. After they set up this monolith contraption, some of these busy bee roadies have the added excitement of interacting with the performance and getting those cool band shots for all to see. Additionally and almost as importantly, these beautiful screens are a virtual playground for humiliating roadie photos to reside earlier on in the day.

I will start out with the Camera op's. Dressed in black and nearly invisible unless you look at them, the camera operator roadies set up gear during the day and track their respective band member during the show. So let's break it down and we have:

Roadie Dane gets to play with wires all day and sets up camp down stage left to keep the camera eye locked on the amazing John Fruciante. Each of the camera op's are like little autopilot roadies cruising around and filming their band human. When you see that blazing guitar solo zoom in to J.F.'s flying fingers, that is Dane's work. When John dashes out on the runway and you still see the spot where John was standing pre-dash, well that would be Dane's work as well. So here he is, one of the closest thing we get on a road crew to a chick magnet, roadie Dane:

With the job many women would die for, she is actually paid to watch Anthony. Zooming in for intimate close ups and following his every move with her fluid camera work she performs her day job at night and her office is located dead center between the barricade and the band. It is with deep pleasure that I introduce our only female roadie 'gig side' of the production office, perfect angel roadie Kim:

Ok, so you are watching the show, there is the band rocking out and hey! Wait a minute. Who is that guy? Look, there is a guy crawling around the drum riser. I see him, there he is:

Number three in the list of Camera op's is the king of crouch, dedicated to capturing Chad every move even if it means taking a virtual shower in sweat, the only non-backline roadie up on stage during the rock show and Chris Warren's drum riser roommate, roadie Scott,

Our fourth camera operator you have already met, fast enough to track Flea and a long time friend, I will give you one hint and you try and guess his name. It starts with a "D" and ends with and "irty Walt." Let me know if you need more clues and I will write the answer upside down in the next issue.

So now that we have captured all our band humans into the video ether world, where do the images go? And which one is the one to show when, during the show? The dynamics of video decision are handled by Cheech and Chong's long lost third member, George. He sits backstage behind what looks like a video gamers wet dream and provides what is termed 'video content' that will eventually make it to the big screens, meet roadie George our video director:

Since George actually controls something in real time having to do with the show, he gets to have a roadie of his own and filling those shoes currently is roadie Bill. An ex soundman and veteran of many corporate gigs, his workload encompassing a wiring nightmare of complexity that rivals the trash can of a spaghetti factory, meet roadie Bill:

The last stage of the video stream before our eyes is the final control point at FOH. Handling these duties is Lampi Scott and our friendly foliage roadie Leif:

As the brainiac roadie that actually understands how all that stuff works, he is Scott the Lampi's Nick the Fly. Leif keeps the mechanics of the FOH side of the presentation in operation and most importantly has a big yellow track ball that he rolls around to control that Synchro light sweeping around before the band returns for the encore. And though we are near done with video, there is on crucial aspect forgotten. How in the heck are we going to see the montage that has been created? How about four large high resolution moving video walls? How about four huge 4000 pound hi resolution video screens, that can move both vertically and horizontally to form various video scenes? To handle the task of keeping those huge puppies operating and showing our musical friends we have the Uruguayan wonder, a man who will take on the football vs. soccer argument to the point of tears and holds the honor of hardest to understand on the tour, please say hello to roadie Rodrigo

To be continued ...

ROARK!