Dave Rat - Roadies in the Midst

Out to the desert I head for a big huge music festival. Bjork headlines the main stage on friday, Peppers headline saturday and Rage Against the Machine on sunday. Plus there are 4 more stages and it is an all day event, all three days. This event is family. It was the brainchild of GoldenVoice's Paul and Rick and though Rick has passed on, Paul continues to build the dream, a giant annual beautiful euro style multi day festival in the So Cal desert. GoldenVoice is the promoter the initially put trust in us scruffy Rat's and hired us to do sound for their punk shows. Here we are over a quarter century later and Rat Sound is providing the largest outlay of sound gear and crew ever as we provide audio for all five stages.

I arrive on friday but most of the Rat's crew have been there four days already with the best of the Rat all gathered or perhaps more accurately, all of the Rat all the available Rat's all gathered, today my job is wandering and general person of hello's, a meeter, a greeter and getting a feel for what the heck is going on. The actual orchestration of the incredible complexities from Rat's end is handled by Jon, our systems coordinator. My interaction varies from year to year but this year and last year since I was on tour, I was fairly hands off except for Peppers related stuff. I don't get too excited much about about big PA systems or shows like I used to but I must admit that pulling up to park and seeing the Main Stage of my home for the next three days was pretty exciting

And somewhere in the back of my mind I feel more apprehensive than usual. Something tells me that there is a lot going on over there and I am walking right into the middle of it. And what better way to head into the thick of it than cruising in this pimping ride?

It was the last cart left in the bone yard. My chariot. So off I head in a rickety cart that you have to pump the gas to get it to start, the brakes barely work, the shocks are shot so ever bump nearly launches you. Perfect! So I tagged it with Rat stickers and put in a request to Aimee the cart master, to assign me this cart tomorrow and sunday as well. The similarities to the old thrashed old Rat trucks we used so long ago, hey, it's like the good old times!

To be continued ....

Dave Rat