Dave Rat - Roadies in the Midst

Five stages, each unique and each with a sound system to suit and being that this blog somehow relates to sound, I may as well cling to that for a while. The Gobi tent is the smallest yet small is a matter of perspective. And while yes, in some things bigger is better, that train of thought does not slide well into the world of music and more than saying mega masses and huge distance is better than intimate up close and connected. And so goes the Gobi tent where a mixture of our future main stage artists commingle with eternal fringe. It was hard to photo the tents but I do have grainy cool shot.

Ooooh, the huge Midas XL4 driving a ground stacked Rat Trap 5 system, for all the audio fans out there. Next in line is the Mojave tent which have a bit more of a "rock" vibe.

The tent had a flown L'Acoustics Kudo rig

and also was the where I saw my personal favorite of the bands that I had neve heard of or seen before, Gogol Bordello

Pirate gypsy music with a punk rock edge and an amazing fiddle player and a whole crazy circus vibe, oh my, how happy was I? Quite indeed, I will have to seek out a CD and see if the thrill prints to plastic. The largest of the enclosed areas is the massive Sahara Tent and it is all about DJ's and dance and bands that follow that groove. Speakers were everywhere and so many sub-woofers you could blur vision. Like a magnet for beauty and motion wonderful to watch but my motions were too widespread to let myself get wrapped up in the trance. Here is an early day shot of the back side. As you can see, speakers are criss cross firing and that repeats through out the tent creating a surround sound setup consisting of a multitude of V-Dosc and dV-Dosc and way too many subs.

The "Outdoor Theater" is the next in line and ran a nice V-Dosc rig.

And finally, the Main Stage as seen from the VIP area. If you look closely you may notice that there is the fully hung dual V-Dosc rig with two 15 deep banana's per side, plus 3 deep dV-Dosc plus 6 V-Dosc and 6 dV-Dosc per side as outer fills.

Up until today seeing the rig hang was impressive but today is special. You see, this is the first time that the Peppers touring setup of a double hung system has made is into an actual festival gig and it was no easy task. While this brings me much glee, I am also getting a bit worried. Many hoops were jumped through, many strings pulled and due to logistics, the dual rig that I so vigilantly fought for had to stay up for the entire festival. Being that Rat did not have the equipment to cover it, Rat sub hired the additional speakers at considerable cost which needed to be covered somehow and that is not even the part that worries me. Oh jees, what have I gotten myself into?

To be continued..

Dave Rat