Dave Rat - Roadies in the Midst

Have you ever clapped your hands in a tiled bathroom? You know that "Kshhheeee" sound? Or what the sound inside of a racquet ball court where even though you are only 5 feet away, it is still hard to understand what your partner is saying? Oh, and what about an indoor swimming pool? Can you picture in you mind the way all those places sound? That hard swirly bouncy sound where any noise made swims in circles around you, trapped and scattering into smaller and smaller pieces? There is a name for that effect in the audio world, it is called reverberant. Decay time is the amount of time it takes for the sound to get bored of bouncing around a room and rest in silence.

Welcome to the legendary Earl's Court, what is lacks in sonic perfection it makes up for in ambiance and historical significance in the rock world. Zeppelin, Floyd and many other memorable events of rock history happened here in this huge rectangular hard surfaced chasm womb of a room. Right now for me though, it is just a giant monstrosity of a locker room built to bathe a thousand goliaths.

That being said, I remind myself that good sound is just an opinion just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some situations make tilting the opinions in the positive direction more difficult than others and many of my most magical sonic experiences occurred in the least likely of places. And I also remind myself that no matter what the situation is, I am ultimately responsible for the quality of the sound presented. So with a pocketful of positive thoughts, a pile of past experience and a posse of premium sound techs, we will soon see what we can do with this big beast of a room.

But in the mean time, !!! is utilizing the very effective bucket brigade technique of unloading their equipment, I must admit I was quite impressed!

We carry two really cool little sound systems dedicated to cover the VIP risers on either side of stage, here is one of them still in the road case:

An amendment to "FOH gift rule" that was last invoked on Day 19 has been made. The deal where "if Scott or I get a wearable gift, we must wear it during the show" has been amended to apply only to gift givers that are unaware of the rule. Fortunately though, the amendment was not RATified until after I received these attractive and comfy mixing shorts:

And hey look! It's the Red Hot Chili Peppers, I love that band and there they are again!

The lights look cool shining on the humans:

This is the very interesting back of my head during the show:

One down and 3 to go!

Dave Rat

**** Roadies on the Prowl ****

Roadies do not forage. They are by nature, fierce predators roaming the tundra and acutely aware of the slightest nuances drawing them to their prey. Today we hope to track a Roadie on its quest for food. In the following sequence I was very fortunate to stealthily track a roadie on its hunt for food. The primal skills that every roadie possesses allows them to pick up on even the most subtle of details leading them to the the feeding grounds. Undetected, I spot Roadie Chris splitting off from the herd, he is clearly stalking prey or possibly has to go #1 or #2.

Notice the focus and stride which this motivated roadie exhibits as he venture into the cave ahead:

Exactly how roadies are able to locate the unsuspecting meal, remains mysterious. What environmental clues could it be following? Does it posses the sense of smell of a hound dog? The hearing of a bat? Sonar? The eyesight of a mole?

Quick, its getting away:

Ascending these precarious cliffs, the mighty beast is relentless in its pursuit, easily circumventing the dangers evident:

I have been spotted! It takes all of my will power not to "run away," Fortunately I was able pass without being eaten:

Unable to keep up, I became lost in the maze of unforgiving terrain:

And without any indication of which way to go, I give up:

Suddenly, I come face to face with the fierce hunter roadies, I turn to run, to escape:

When I see the hunt was successful and roadies feeding on their prey:

With the danger of the day behind me, I reflect on the events of the day.

Dave Rat

ICNWTICMYTHGITWA!

Good morning and boy am I hungry! I think I will dive into some room service and catch up on some internet time today!

Let's see,

two eggs, bacon, mushrooms, baked beans and hash browns for only 18 English pounds! Since an English Pound costs around a $1.90 US or so, cool! Only $35 bucks for a couple o eggs. A small cup of weak coffee can't cost much more than $8, add in the 20% gratuity/delivery charge and I can easily score eggs and beans feast for under $60 if I skip the OJ, of course, awesome!

On second thought, a 20 oz Starbucks coffee and one of those very berry scones may be the way to go and across the street I head. We have stayed at this hotel the last few times here. Crossing the street to where the food and coffee shops are is a bit of a challenge with the cars speeding by and complicated by the whole 'drive on the left' thing they do here. Have you ever played Frogger?

Now for the Internet, lets take a look:

$38 a day, wow, another bargain! Got to love the strength of the mighty American dollar! No easy way around this one though, aaargh, I don't mind sharing the love, generously in the form of cash but when I feel gouged, it brings out the punker side of me. Well, I have a plan that will have to wait for some hardware, but soon, soon......

Till tomorrow,

The sometimes angry Dave Rat.

ICNWTRMAOY!

July 12- Manchester Show #2

Day 50-

Oh, I stayed up too late, ouch and damn, where's my phone, what time is it, uh oh! noon already? Lobby call is, where is that magic sheet that shows up under my door, oh, hey, lobby call is also noon. Hmmm, I wonder what the odds are that I will make it downstairs in zero seconds? Slim, very slim. Well, gig is close, nothing pending to be dealt with, just going to miss out on a free lunch. I send a PIN message to Dave Lee - "Dave Rat, be in later," just so I won't feel bad if the thought crosses their mind to wait for me.

It takes me about a hour at a moderate hazy pace to shower and pack and I move with solid momentum as I slip my watch on and head out the door, bags in tow. I will just grab a cab and it's 9 am now, hey wait a minute. Damn, it's 9 am! Shit. When I charged my phone from my computer it resets to the time on my laptop, aaaargh, LA time.

Wow, well once I got done feeling like an idiot, I had a nice breakfast, a huge Starbucks coffee while walking to the store and did what anyone with three free hours to spare would do, bought some hair bleach, of course:

Bleaching my hair is a very important natural camouflage to help me blend in with my surroundings and ward of any potential predators.

**** Roadies in Action ****

As far back as anyone can remember, roadies have carried an infamous reputation. Years ago I saw a joke written on the wall of some punk rock club that so accurately encompassed the roadie mind set that I never forgot those words and it went something like:

Roadie's Load Out Credo:

If it's wet, drink it

If it burns, smoke it

If it moves f*ck it

Otherwise, throw it in the truck.

In order to live up to this gritty reputation, roadies spend considerable time refining their ruthlessness. I slipped into the "crew room" and was fortunate to capture the true essence of these tough road dogs and their alpha male rituals, and please, the faint hearted may find this offensive and want to skip this next picture:

**** End Roadies in Action ****

Do you want to see something cool? Check this out! Here is a shot of the inner sanctum of one of Pepper's dressing rooms as the band would see it:

Minus the Dave Lee computing on the couch and my roll-away bag, of course.

And here is what it looks like when the magic is removed and it is back inthe state it was in when we arrived:

Say hello to Roadie Joni (assist) and Roadie Lyssa (backstage coordinator) whom are the architects of comfort and visual bliss that transform these cold ugly spaces into welcoming functional works of art on a daily basis.

And just so we do not forget that the reason we are all here is to 'rock,' here is a photo of tonights show:

Dave R

WTTIRIWTYUAFYTYS!

Fact or Fiction, Do Roadies truly love wires?

I am sure you have all heard that Roadies adore wires, not unlike the way a monkey loves bananas. Is this true? Is this just another stereotype like the one about Roadies loving stickers? Join me for a behind the scenes look at "The mystery of Roadies and their Wires."

Silently and graciously I glide out of sight, wrapped in a cloak of fear I pursue my dangerous quest to unravel mythical secrets. Stumbling across what I believe to be a Roadie Wire Shrine, I bask in awe of the discovery, yet not a single Roadie in sight. Could this be a naturally occurring phenomenon or were roadies toiling here in the not so distant past? We may never know the answer to this and many other quandaries of the ages:

But wait, notice the coffee cup, possibly a sign that roadies do indeed inhabit this region of the rock forest.

As I move deeper into the underbrush, disappointingly I spot yet another even more intricate but abandoned wire temple. Not unlike the mysteries of the great pyramids, little is known about what motivates them to build these elaborate creations. Have I unearthed a sacred prayer ground? Did aliens assist them in the construction? Is this some sort of roadie nest used to attract a mate? How many roadies does it take to screw in a light bulb? The mystery deepens.

My heart stops as I freeze in my tracks! Avoiding the risk of being seen and the roadies scurry off, I hold my breath, ever so slowly raising my camera to capture the moment. Modern science once again takes a great step forward as these roadies are documented constructing a shrine. Notice how they work together as a group. Their admiration for wires is seemingly endless:

This roadie Tracy displays a sense of elation, he clearly enjoys this wire and can not hold back his joy:

Some roadies take their wires more seriously than others, Roadie Nick the Fly admires his wires with reverence:

One thing I have now learned is that a roadie can never be close enough to wires, Roadie Lee "wire hugging":

A very unusual discovery. Spotted here are Roadies Manny and Neil enjoying something other than wires. They appear to be involved in some sort of construction.

Dare I ponder that roadies may have built the great pyramids? Stonehenge? The Moon? Stay tuned for next week's "Roadies and the Other Things They Like Besides Wires, A special feature."

This is Dave Rat, on the scene capturing all the details like a net with relatively small holes, stay tuned.

MILRAIWNTSYOAFYGS!

The grueling part of the tour is done. We have done nothing but virgin stadiums and "throw and go" festivals so far. Now we have two load ins and two load outs left. Two days here in Manchester and four shows over 5 days in London and then home.

When I was a kid, I loved stereos. I loved speakers. Big speakers and power amps! I remember going with my dad to buy a receiver at Pacific Stereo and we picked on out that had 100 watts per channel, I could not wait to get home an turn it up, feel the power, push every button, feel the detents on the huge volume knob. It was not long before a slight difference of opinion regarding the preferred listening material and volume manifested itself. On one hand he favored a barely a audible duet of a flute and cello while I on the other hand felt Black Sabbath's War Pigs at full volume was more appropriate dinner music. Even the seemingly overly fair compromise of offering the soothing flute sounds of Jethro Tull's Aqualung played at 3/4 volume was rejected. We reached an insurmountable impasse and clearly his prejudicial stance left me with no other alternative than to silently rebel by huddling in the corner with headphones feeling connected and justified listening to CSNY's 4 Way Street album attempting to pick out all four guitar parts in Southern Man.

Well, I still have those headphones and 100 watts per channel, well, that is kind of like having lollipop in my pocket vs owning a candy store.

**** Start SoundNerdSpeak ****

Today c'mon, lets go look at power amps! We will start with subs. Here we have Stage left sub amps consisting of 6 Crest 7001's that each power 4 double 18" cabs. These amps develop over 2000 watts each in the configuration we run them. 12,000 watts and this is stage left and there is another 12K over on stage right.

Next in line is the power for the main system. Eighteen Crown MA5002VZ power amps that push around 5000 watts or so each, so figure 90,000 watts here plus the 4 MA3600's in the foreground driving another 12,000 watts and we can round that off to 100K in mains power on this side of stage.

And finally, the side wrap systems and center cluster is powered by Lab Gruppen 6400 amps on this tour and we see eight of those sitting next to the 6 XTA 428's acting as system processors. At around 4000 watts each the way we run them, lets toss in another 30,000 watts per side.

All in all, I am seeing around a 1/4 million watts laying around here. Ha ha, that would be roughly equal to twelve hundred and fifty of those Pacific Stereo receivers and if you stacked them all up it would be a tower over 500 feet high.

And now me and 20,000 of my closest friends gather together on a regular basis to listen to one of my all time favorite bands on big huge speakers!

And the rock show:

Pre rock stage shot:

And the other way

Scott the Lampi

And one of the perks of this whole rock things is the cool people I get to meet. Glen Hughes (Deep Purple Singer) is not only a rock legend, he is incredible down to earth, cool and an all around great person, a true honor. Glen recorded his latest CD at Chad's house and I went down and mixed one his shows a while back at House of Blues in Hollywood.

Dave Rat

MLTMGMMHFFA!

Today we say goodbye to our bus. Since we only have one more rive, it makes more financial and logistical sense to drop the busses and bring in some short haul buses to do our last drive from Manchester to London. Jans Sven, or German bus driver has been truly amazing. Having 9 to 11 Roadies on board of his land ship, is a tough gig and he was not only a pleasure to hang with but kept us laughing as well. going to miss you Jans!

Here you can see sheep and also the reflection of Jans to the left.

I found something interesting on my camera, a picture that indicates that there may be a correlation between the recent lack of ventilation in my bunk, over the last few days, and the picture of what looks like Scott's hand removing paper towels stuffed in my bunk vent. Hmmmm.

And today I rest and relax and will be back tomorrow.

DR

6 or 7 or 8 am. Eyes burn, nauseous boat dull rumble sway. Good news is the ferry is much nicer than the last time I went top side. I can't remember exactly what year that was but maybe 4 years or maybe 6?

**** Roadie Research Notes ****

Here you can observe a multitude of roadies clustering in the travel position. Roadie are know to enjoy waking up early for boat rides. Clearly these Roadies are involved in some sort of celebration ritual involving festivities.

Also notice that in the background there is a TeeVee, much to these Roadies delight.

**** End Roadie Research Notes ****

Ferry Riding Rule #7 - Never get off the bus when riding a Ferry in the wee hours of the morning on a show day.

Exception - If significant amounts of water gets inside the boat, promptly exit the bus, find the ferry exit and swim hastily in an upwards direction.

Here we can the front of the boat at a less than optimum angle opening as we head to dock so the cars and busses can escape the belly. There are other doors that keep the water from getting in. I feel much happiness that the doors are currently closed.

The colony of fans, often referred to as "Punters":

and some show pics:

 

Ratman