Day 46- Show Day - T in the Park Festival, Scotland, UK

Posted by Dave Rat on Saturday, July 8. 2006

Oh the joys of the Scotish summer! It rained, it winded, it colded and it mudded us all. The crowd was great, the weather was poo. Though nowhere near the coldest gig I have ever mixed. That was the Foo Fighters playing the winter Olympics awards ceremony. I was in a tower about 16 feet up that was sealed except for the sub zero wind blasting in sound listening opening directly in front of me. I had read stripes down my fingers from blood seeping from frozen cracks in my fingers. Bad aim that kept me banging sore fingers accross the console knobs.

The wettest gig I mixed I believe was Peppers at the first Mount Fuji festival in Japan. There was word of a typhoon coming in and so I go to confirm with one of the locals, I ask about a Typhoon and he replies in a Japanese accent and a level of emotion that cracks me up "No, Super Typhoon!" I remember Dave Navarro leaning at nearly a 45 degree angle over the audience that was standing in 2 feet of water and sideways rain. People were panicing but Peppers played on. Electricity and water is bad for humans but aparently not bad for Peppers that night. The show the next day cancelled due to sunken stage.

Compared to those shows, T in the Park was warm and wonderful.

Here you can clearly see the wind, well, maybe not but Kaiser Cheifs were awesome! Not big in the US but really cool to see.

Sound wise, it was another two banana system at a windy site. Another giant Leslie. (For those not familiar witha a Leslie, it is a speaker where parts spin around and create a wobbly loud/soft sound plus doppler effect that is often used with keyboards). At least it was V-Dosc. The goal for me is not perfection, that is the job of the studio engineers. The goal for me is to play my part in creating the the most memorable experience possible with the tools at my disposal and in that, I was happy.

One of the things that makes this all worth while is the energy and excitement of the fans. I can not help but smile when so many people are unified in a comon happiness!