Dave Rat - Roadies in the Midst

Perhaps you may be beginning to notice a distinct connection between being a roadie and spending a considerable amount of time subjected to being transported around the world? Today was no exception. Not unlike the plight of Guilligan and his isle, often something intended to be a short story can evolve into a meandering novel of epic proportions. The original delayed flight was of little consequence but when the guy in the work-suit carried the boxy thing with wires hanging from it out of the airplane cockpit, our roadie intuition kicked in and we collectively agreed that there is a high probability that is not dandy. Then add in the fact that there were free tequila shots between the airport bars at various locations peppering our path on our way to board the earlier plane in Mexico combined with the "arrive two hours early, plus a spare hour, plus a spare spare 1/2 hour, when traveling with large roadie herds," and you end up with a pack of 50 well tuned roadies with a lot of momentum and no where to go except the bar of course.

That is the part where the fun begins. Roadies are funny, usually unless they are whining and bitching in which case they are annoying, unless they are really good at whining and bitching and that if done right can be funny again. Well, being the well rounded crew that we are, we have all bases covered. Roadies are also very curious so naturally when they took the that little thing out of the plane, I headed straight over to see what was going on. Look! they actually let me into the cockpit to take a picture of me posing below the place where they took out that boxy thing with wires.

It turned out that the plane was not really that broken and the only problem was just a small issue with engines being overly stubborn and refusing to start up. Unfortunately though, without their windy thrust, we were locked into a top speed of zero miles per hour, so they decided to fix it with half of our roadies sitting on the tiny jet plane. So they shut down the power and impressed everyone by by showing off how quickly a sealed tube of humans reaches a high level of swelter. While many roadies puzzlingly endured the thermal bummout, the highlight was when roadie Scott came dashing out covered in sweat as if being chased by a critter with claws. Here we can see Scotty after he has has located a cooling breeze.

Finally after much waiting they cleared the plane and instructed us o return in half an hour, so Scott and I wander off seeking food only to get a text message 20 minutes later, mid meal that the plane was fully boarded and they are fitting to leave without us. At that point Scott and I decided it was a wonderful time to get some excessive and demonstrate our synchronized wind sprinting skills to 'da plane, da plane!'

It is time for another comic

**** Scott the Lampi Comic #4 ****

**** End Scott the Lampi Comic #4 ****

Oklahoma City tomorrow. Last show of the official US tour. Yep, there may be some scattered state-side dates and usually is if history is an indicator but no real gigs on the books other than Coachella, that I know of. At least we have a little break coming up and when I say little, I mean little. Monday OK City, tues fly home, wednesday is relax, holiday, vacation day and most of the crew flies to Japan on thursday. Fortunately, the backline techs and I are not needed yet so we get twice as long at home and leave on the following day, this Friday.

Now, it is time for me curiosity myself into some other direction and offer farewell till tomorrow or the next day or some day soon to come, but most likely tomorrow.

Dave Rat

Wow! The fans were crazy loud! So cool and ouch, my ears. Being surrounded by so much energy is an instant thrill that flows excitement through everyone fortunate enough to be immersed. The band can feel it and reacts with their music, the crowd reacts to the band's spinning of the wheel with more energy and round and round it goes into a spiraling frenzy. Meanwhile, I am wedged firmly in the middle amongst and amidst the masses with the auditory blast of the band at my finger tips. Oh my, what is one to do when the audience's exuberance begins to drown out the band? Well, I turn it up of course, and so I did and so it was and so that spinning wheel spun even faster. Fun show!! Loud show! and just as in last blog I laid focus on the grumpy, greeders and other human feeders of Texas, today I would like to highlight the other side of the natural balance shared a glimpse of the amazing and magical energy of experiencing a massive clustering of humans on an adventure of smiles. Which the Texians do quite impressively well. Oh, did I mention that I do love Texas?

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**** Dear Ratty ****

Hey Dave, I've finished reading through the log from day one until now and its been both interesting and fun. Thanks for doing something like this.

I have two questions though, and I apologize if you've already answered them already. I hear about rehearsals, and I think you mentioned them at one point. What are rehearsals for a live tour? Is it just the band rehearsing the songs they'll play, or do you set up a PA and get things tweaked?

The second thing I've been wondering about is the opening acts. Do they set their console up behind yours, and are they simply patched into your desk before they hit the PA? Also, do they share the lighting rig and snake?

Thanks,
Joe

Hello Joe,

Ok, rehearsals come in several flavors. With the Peppers, which do not perhaps follow the norm, there are the few month of pre album rehearsals with just the band in a small space where they do song writing and the band writes the music.

Then they record the album. Then they do pre tour rehearsals for a month or so pretty much all by themselves where they get up to speed rocking the tunes to start the tour. Then there are a few weeks of pre-production rehearsals with the monitor rig.

Next and overlapping and separately is a week or so of production rehearsals where the sound lights and video all set up in an arena and make sure all the sound, lights, video and staging gear interfaces and works together.

Finally there is usually a "production day" or two where the band and all the gear rock in unison preceding the first "real" show.

As far as my interaction, I increasingly "visit" as the tour approaches and listen and learn the new songs by hanging out. I spend a good amount of time at pre-production rehearsals and this last time, that is where we got the new Pro Tools recording rig all dialed in. I then move over to the tail end of production rehearsals, mess with the sound system a bit and off to tour, bye bye!

More typically, many large bands where theatrics are integral, will set up for an extended period of time in a large venue to get it all dialed with the band and production, but with the Peppers since it is truly and quite purely music oriented, with the production merely highlighting and drawing focus to the somewhat free form and constantly changing set list, we setup up cool gear, the band comes and rocks and there is not the weeks or more of choreography.

As far as support acts, you you pretty much hit the nail on the head. They either use a board that Rat supplies (Mike Watt) or quite often, as is the case with Gnarls and Mars, they bring in all their own FOH and monitor gear and patch into the the main PA system. Something of note is: Peppers/Myself always give support acts full control without restrictions or limitations over the sound system. It is truly a level playing field plus, support acts are given a sound check every show day and Peppers sound check perhaps once every six to nine months, if that. Though the Peppers backline techs do test the gear and play a song or two.

DR

**** End Dear Ratty ****

---

For all y'all that are curious about the keyboard setup that Chris Warren, the drum tech, plays behind the guitar rig, here it is:

The controller on the left is hooked up to a Mac laptop and does the sound for snow. The one on the right is for the vocoder sound on Anthony's vocal on By the Way. Anthony sings and while he is singing, Chris plays the vocoder that creates an altered real time effect on his voice that shows up as an extra input to me. I then have to remember to turn it on and follow the level by hand and mute afterwards. Easy stuff, as long as everyone never forgets to do their part.

Okey dokey, off to sleep my way to Houston,

Dave Rat

Some times life can be a blur and while sliding back and forth in bits of time as we take a look out the window of a jet landing in San Antonio through the eye of an open shutter camera, proof of that blurry life concept is confirmed.

Texas is a proud state that is not only large but there are also a lot of cows and steers. I have a theory that it is the generational teachings of ranching which involves the corralling of fairly dim witted animals by scaring them a little bit with dogs and cowboys with hats on horses and then putting some food in a fenced area that is equally effective for turning four legged critters into dinner as it is for corralling votes from the idiot American public that makes up a high percentage of our country. Hence, the only logical reason we could possibly have babbling corrupt lying dumb ass running our country.

Anyway, Texas is proud and big and was home of Davey Crocket and Jim Bowie (the knife) and past famous wars. Hey, the Alamo!

Remember the Alamo!

Hmmm, actually I don't have any recollection of it. But I do remember Texas police setting up drug inspection checkpoints and randomly searching vehicles for degenerates carrying "The Pot" as they crossed over the boarder (from Louisiana to Texas) into the lovely overheated terrain of of oil, ego, greed and red necks. Fortunately, I was not a partaker in "The Pot" but my heart and compassion goes out to those unfortunate enough to be on the wrong side of twisted mind with a gun or a badge. That was back in '86 though when I had an immature illusion that Americans actually had some sort of privacy rights, you know, that whole freedom silliness that is supposed to make us proud Americans. Since then and well over a million miles traveled about and around this ball we live called Earth, I have found my way to seeing things a bit more clearly, perhaps. Texas pride, American Pride, Shit kicker pride. Perhaps we are truly only as great as we are willing to be humble.

Anyway, don't get me wrong, every city, state and country has it's fair share of assholes and I don't really mind them too much as we need them around to keep the friendly humans from getting lazy. Oh, and the Mexican food here is all good, as are many of the people I know here and speaking of Mexican food the 24 hour place to eat here is called Mi Tierra

And this big friendly guy has rooster. Continuing the wander I yesterday head down to the sexily named AT&T Center where Peppers will play in a few days

to visit another Rat Sound tour called Taste of Chaos

Eight bands, rotating stage and six Rat crew on the road with another V-Dosc rig. It is desire and duty to visit fellow Rats whenever the opportunity permits. Greg, Steve, Tony, Taka, Baby Food and crew chief Tommy LBC are out there running the sound and boy that tour moves fast and hard. Five in a row shows, covering ground so fast it makes peppers tour look like it's barely moving. Basically it is the closest thing to a roadie boot camp you can find on larger yearly full production scale, possibly second only the grand daddy of gruel, The Warped Tour. It is a love hate thing and the people that tour and enjoy the travels of Taste and Warped are a special breed indeed and it where we find out what the crews are really made of with it being a starting point for many a successful sound career, oh and quite a few crash and burns as well.

This tour bus with trailer setup is not uncommon on higher density tours. It is pretty cool for bands that travel relatively light to be self contained, often with band, crew and all the backline gear as a single traveling unit.

For a show like this with 5 minute set changes, dual digital consoles is pretty much the way to go. All the bands' sound engineers store their settings and at the press of a button are ready to rock. Yes, digi boards are not my favorite but neither is the sound of an MP3 player, the issue is, sometimes it is just too inconvenient to carry a live band in my pocket. This tour is running a pair of Yamaha PM5D's both out front and on stage.

The rotating stage has an "A" side and "B" side and the is a console pair for each. While one band plays, the next is setting up behind and spinny spinny poof, there is the next band when the time comes to rock. Speaking of rock, here is a shot of 30 Seconds to Mars

Followed by The Used

Cool to watch and cool to see my fellow soundies in cities afar. Finally, look at that! How cute, the Texans have put cowboy hats on the bathroom signs, awwww

Ok, I will see y'all tomorrow and hey, how about we head right back over to the AT&T Center for a change, wheeee!

Dave Rat

The delays were delayed. We were told that our flight was delayed but when it was time to board, it turns out that the delayed boarding was delayed as well. Right before heading out on towards the runway, the pilot informed us that there is a bit of a delay so he shut the engines back down and we stayed parked for 1/2 hour before being delayed 15 minutes more and heading out. Other than the further delay in getting a take off slot, we took to the skies without further delay. Landing only two hours late, it turns out that there was delay getting into the gate because of another aircraft parked there. Unfortunately the "alley" where our gate was is only wide enough for one plane at a time and we are at the end of a line of planes with the same plan as us, no problem, it will just be a minor delay.

So we land, the backline three

and I, gather our luggage and then push it around in circles as none of us have clear info on what to do now. If it was not for a few text messages from Scott the Lampi who just went through the same confusion, we would have not known anything. Turns out that we are to take the hotel shuttle to the Airport Hyatt, a lame square temporary human habitat plopped in the middle of a flight path. The video ad in the shuttle bus on the way over, much to our glee, informed us that the "The Hyatt O'Hare is currently going through a major renovation which will soon make it a new and exciting business epicenter." Interpretation - Expect to try and sleep in a hotel under construction. And with that,

Welcome to the glamour of doing a rock tour!!!

First stop, Chicago-ish Illinois for a rock show. We were here with Lollapalooza but now it is time for proper full Peppers gig, kind of near the windy city. Good morning, it's coffee time and soon it will be time to head in to the office for a work day in an arena filled with loud music.

Come on, lets go turn up the giant stereo!

Dave Rat

Boeing 747 - 400 seat 18N Aisle, Business Class, British Airways. Comfy chair, crap food. Hey good news! I am proud to announce that I am relatively confident that I made it through this tour without losing a single item that I intended on keeping! Life is good, my days of losing things may be over forever, hurray hurray! Now all I need to do is just apply this same functional lossless life living pattern to tours longer than four days and I will be all set.

The Peppers did not win the award they were up for but no condolences desired. All good and you all already know the deep love and appreciation hold for award shows and as much as winning is an artificial thrill tossed in from the peanut gallery, to lose is an affirmation that one has not fully achieved Mcdonalds mass appeal generic status. My priorities and focuses lay elsewhere and from the reports I have received thus far, the sound aspects of the gig were a success.

**** Welcome to the Awards Show ****

A few people have asked me what doing these awards shows is like and about details of my involvement so here goes -

Peppers almost always bring in the backline and monitor rig like we did for the Grammy's but for Brit awards there was no time to ship the gear. That means we go to plan B and we used a mirror image setup of the backline gear that was assembled for situations like this. Daniel, the monitor engineer and Manny, the monitor tech hand carry over the mics and ear molds and we used a combo of locally rented and supplied monitor gear. Formy world at front of house and for the TV audio broadcast, it was purely supplied gear and house PA system.

Typically for live TV stuff everything is slow, very slow. As a rule of thumb, if you need to broadcast on thursday, you would figure out how long it takes to set up, let's say 4 hours, so add 2 hours as a buffer and then double it. Now add an extra day, just to be safe. So that means that if we have a 3 minute performance starting at 8 pm, optimally load in would be at 8 am on wednesday but only if we have wild and crazy TV people, normal TV people would double it again and then add a week if they could.

Day 1. At some point after load-in the techs set up all the gear which is immediately followed by the most important part of the day, which in professional circles is referred to as 'waiting around.' Usually the best place to do this waiting is around something familiar like wherever they rolled the risers that all the backline gear resides upon. Then at some arbitrary point in the day completely unrelated to the schedule we were handed, the waiting is abruptly interrupted by 20 local stage hands who grab all the gear and roll it on to the stage, at which point we switch to the other mode of operation called 'rushing stressfully.' This is where they try to make it all work, which takes an awkwardly long time and the backline techs rock out for a while and TV people wander around with headsets looking at things. Then, as quickly as it came, rushing stressfully is gone and we perform my personal favorite called 'leaving as fast as we can.'

Day 2 Show Day. Since everything is already set up, tested and ready to go and the dress rehearsal with the band wont occur till 2 PM, call time for the crew can be set a bit later today, so cutting it tight and allotting 2 hours to walk in and turn on the power switches before waiting around should suffice. So double it and then add a 1/2 hour if your particular TV people can be persuaded to allow such a dangerously tight schedule. So on it goes, wait around, the band rocks out for dress rehearsal. The Peppers always jam for awhile which then sends all the TV people into a tail spin saying "Is this the song? This isn't the song? Are they going to play the song? What are they doing? Why aren't they playing the song?" I smile and calmly tell them "Settle down, It's ok, they will play the song, they are warming up."

My adventure at the Brit awards.

TV is almost always 'hands off.' for touring engineers. That means that both in the broadcast truck and in the venue, the TV humans supply a sound engineer and I get to 'use my words' to mix. So I first head out to the broadcast truck and go over a basic a run down with Toby make sure the recording is coming straight off the mics with no alteration pre-tape and go over basic panning and any compressor or gate patching. I then head over to chat with Chris at the FOH sound board and do the same thing. After waiting around for a while, when we switch to rushing mode, I hang out at FOH and help get the PA and sounds all dialed in with the techs playing.

The following day I go back out to the truck and inform them that I will be hanging at FOH for the dress rehearsal and arrange a time after rehearsal where I can come in and dial up the TV mix utilizing a multi track recording of the rehearsal as a source. The band rocks rehearsal and I give a mini crash course of 'mix the Peppers' to the house sound engineer and inform him that I will be in the truck during the live broadcast and wish him luck, rock on. Then back to the truck and with the convenience I of a rewind button, I use my words to get the TV mix dialed in and then they save the settings. After returning to waiting around for a while show time finally arrives and back out to the truck I head and bingo, the band's live music shows up and mixy mixy, 4 minutes of pure joy and thank you, thank you, bye bye. Back to FOH, to see how it went, thank you, thank you, bye bye. At this point my cell phone lights up red and text messages from remote locations to inform me that the TV sound was good and I return to waiting around while gear is packed, get in van bye bye.

So now you all are fully trained and can cover for me next time!

Here is a photo of the stage. Hmmm, is it just me or does this look a heck of a lot like the tongue in cheek rock mockery of a stage set in the Guitar Hero video game? Coincedence or ?

Okey dokey, gonna put these burning eyes to rest,

Dave Rat

Today I set my alarm four roadie shifts early and headed into the venue to investigate what goes on in the wee hours and stumbled into a cool adventure. My curiosity ended me up in an elevator with a bunch of local up-riggers headed for the high steel. Soon after I was traversing a maze of Cat walks in the roof with heart shuddering views and riggers clipped off

over death defying heights, dropping ropes and pulling chains.

Fun scary stuff, just don't look down:

The black dots are humans, the red squares are chain motor cases and the white chalk marks are where the motor points will hang.

**** Meet a Roadie Campaign Episode 8 Continues ****

Here it is, the last and final installment of this years Meet a Roadie Campaign and teary eyed end to Roadie Awareness Week. None caught the math error including myself but the 8 days of R.A.W. is now hearby revised to end whenever is does. In fact, lets just make it roadie awareness year, every year.

Excerpt from Day 89:

Bus and truck drivers have even earlier call times as they drive all night and sleep all day, these nocturnal roadies like riggers, hold our roadie lives and the safely of our beloved wires in the grip of a steering wheel. An interesting side note is that bus drivers typically get carted off to a hotel during the day, while truck drivers sleep in the micro hotel room located in the cab of their truck. Bus drivers drive straight through to deliver their roadie cargo while truck drivers do showers at truck stops that are setup for exactly that, along the way.

An official definition of 'Roadie':

The road crew (or roadies) are the technicians who travel on tour with musicians who handle every part of the production except actually playing the music. This catch-all term covers Tour and Production Managers, Stage Managers, Front Of House Engineers, Monitor Engineers, Guitar Techs, Bass Techs, Drum Techs, Keyboard Techs, Security/Bodyguards, Lighting Techs, and pyrotechnics technicians, among others. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadie

From the above description it is clear that truck drivers and bus drivers are not actually true roadies but a clearly a related breed, possibly similar to the koala bear not being a true bear but actually being a marsupial. Regardless these cross country haulers of gear and humans are absolutely critical to our world, so I dub them all honorary roadies. Many of these guys, and we got ourselves one gal as well, are surprisingly specialized and tend to haul almost exclusively musical production. In no particular order and I apologize for the ones I could not capture on film, please say hello to our truck drivers and band bus drivers:

Bobby (Flea Bus), Doug (Crew Bus 1), Kurt (AK Bus) and Bobby Lee (Dimmers and Grid truck)

Now this cool shot with Roger (Sound/Subwoofers truck), Doug (Lights 2) and Nick (Wardrobe truck) standing next to the fuel dude. Why do we have a fuel dude? Well, we converted all the busses and trucks to Bio Diesel in Albany and so now a truck full of Bio fuel comes and fills 'em up at the gigs. How cool is that!

And look! John's bus driver, Eddie is an especially friendly bus driver and can be seen here offering us some food.

Security Dave practicing on our lead driver Scott (Rigging truck) and about to take a head slap is truck driver Vic (Backline truck).

Not shown but no less important and appreciated are Jack (Lighting truck 1), Nancy (Versa Wall truck), Bobby (versa Spines truck), Luc (PA truck), Chris (Truss truck) and Jason (Video truck).

Ok, gasp and wow, this was a much more challenging project than I anticipated but I have to say it has been an incredible learning experience, not only about the roadies but also about the tour. While doing my research and interviews I actually have a solid grasp of what the heck they all really do. Best of all, after five months on the road, the head nods of crossing paths are now hello's with names attached and that rules!

**** End Meet a Roadie Campaign ****

Stayed tuned for the Halloween Special Feature!

Dave Rat

GBMLMHH!

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!

**** Begin Ebay Roadie Auction Update ****

With our backs currently valued at a whopping $ over $300.00 Scott and I are near speechless in excitement.

I have good news! As the auction rounds the bend into the second to last day, Lampi Scott and I began to concern ourselves with the the wonder of what the band's reaction will be. Could they, would they, should they shut us down? Are we bad roadies over stepping our bounds and crosseing the line of acceptable roadie behavior? Then with a few moments of thought I realize that the only relevant question is "Do ya think they will be pissed off if it ends before they know about it?" With our new biggest concern now being trying to figure out a way to leak it to the band, we go undercover and devise an intricate plan. Shhhh, here it is: First under the cover of stealth, Scotty will sneak into the production office and with shifty eyes, print the ad and then scurry off before anyone realizes what he is up to. Next, Scotty will belly crawl into the dressing room and inconspicuously lay the printed eBay ad out in full view as if it mysteriously appeared from nowhere. Finally, Scott and I will impatiently await the outcome, and see what happens. Shhhhh.....

Everything went according plan except we had to abandon the belly crawl when Lyssa became suspicious and told Scott to get off the floor.

**** End Ebay Auction Update ****

The show, well I am running out of things to write! Ha ha, just kidding. Here we can see a cool shot of a Synchro light in action. Those that have been to the show will most likely remember this part as you can see it here dissolving the audience

**** Begin Meet a Roadie Campaign Episode 4****

From Day 89:

Sound Techs - A bit later call times than the lighting, the sound techs get to do a lot of waiting and then have a bit of a crunch to get set. The sequence of events during load in is usually rigging, lights, video, sound and then backline, with overlaps of course. The state of the art sound systems that we use today are a far cry from the old "hang a pile o boxes here" mentality of 5 or 10 years ago. Currently, every room is measured with laser range finders to determine the dimensions. The data is input into 3D sonic prediction software that calculates optimum coverage, potential volume levels and determines the precise angle of every speaker box. To learn this, the techs go through a training course and are certified as such.

Ladies and gentleman, it is my honor and pleasure today to introduce to you the cream of the audio roadie crop, the flying Blue Angels of sound, like cashews hand picked from a can of mixed nuts this crack team of stellar audio technicians may not be the best of the best but at least they are good enough. This is the group o roadies that make my job possible on a daily basis and without them or with a lesser caliber of crew, there would be no way we could make the sound happen as it does. Not to mention the fact that we are carrying non-standard audio configurations. Just looking at them I feel like I know them. From left to right, the usual suspects are:

The story begins when five men are rounded up for a line-up, and grilled about their involvement in setting up sound systems (the usual suspects)consisting of three sound techs and two engineer assists which also are techs.

First in the line up we have Manny as monitor assist and his job is to take care of Daniel's monitor world. Typically on larger tours, each engineer, FOH and monitors have a somewhat dedicated tech. During the rock show, with the engineers virtually trapped behind their console, the 'assist' can deal with any issues that may arise. Manny actually started the tour as a system tech and graduated sideways to monitor assist, because Daniel thinks he is cute.

Next we have our sound hombre Neal. In the pecking order he is currently tech number two and I think he does stage right PA flying and teardown. Also he is a skilled tequila drinker and has many stories that help entertain the roadies.

Viewing just the head part of the next roadie named Jamie, and from the angle of the shot you may not initially notice that Jamie is indeed a super roadie. This is an enhanced breed with super roadie strength. One major downfall of working with a super roadie is that it really hurts if they step on your foot. Jamie just joined us from Pearl Jam tour and is currently sound tech level 3.

And since Manny got left out of the fixing sound owie photo the other day and to give a true perspective of Jamie the super roadie:

Next in line needs no introduction as you all I am sure familiar with him by now. As the FOH assist, Nick the Fly, tunes my world, decorates the console with leaves and is the one who came up the idea to tour with sod in 2003.

Daniel has already been introduced but we could not persuade him out of the photo.

And that brings us to the last of the sound techs and the one ring to rule them all, meet Lee 'Keyser Soze' Vaught. Lee is our fierce and friendly sound crew chief. Wedged in the tough spot between our delicate sound roadies and the omnipotent powers of PRODUCTION, Lee is the adaptor. The interface that buffers the sound crew from spikes while pushing them to excel and get the gear in and out fast and safe on a daily basis.

Finally, me. I too could not persuade myself out of the photo. In case you were wondering, I do sound.

**** End Meet a Roadie Campaign Episode 4 ****

The wondering how I always get myself into these messes,

Dave Rat