…from EQ Magazine (10/96) basically some junk I came up with to try to plug our tour and funky rig. In retrospect the rig was way-cool….
JP Armstrong
DAY 1; WALLINGFORD, CONNECTICUT / July 12, 1996
“There is absolutely no way that we’ll get any rain tonight.” John Boy smiled wide and looked suspiciously confident. “The weather channel says this stuff here is a separate system and Bertha won’t get here ‘til tomorrow morning.” As stage manager it’s his job to help me believe that fantasy.
“No worries, Mr. Chapman,” I said. We’d been running ahead of this hurricane since we left Nashville, and everybody was already set before this particular round of showers hit.
The RARoth crew made plastic booties for truss spots and the ever-present wiggly-lights they’d flown. Their trussing was left in the truck as they were augmenting the three truss rig that was already there. There wasn’t anywhere to hang their mid-stage drape however, so we knew that morning we’d be scratching the acoustic set.
There was a local vendor’s racks and stacks ready with tarps piled behind them, some kind of Martin system. We didn’t have an opener that day and we had some time we could squeeze out of the bands. Travis’ house guy, Jon Suskin, said the rig sounded okay. The monitor rig was the Clair system we carry with us so we decided to relax and wait out the rain for a half hour.
The tent we’d requested for monitor world turned out to be a lean-to-type tarp stretched through the scaffolding that supported the roof over the stage. We crammed the two Yamaha pm-4000m’s we use between the scaffolds, but that tarp was more for shade than shelter. Usually those outdoor dates find me and Marty’s monitor guy Brent Carpenter mixing under a tent we’ve prepped with plastic walls. It just isn’t practical in scaffolding. We had to cover all the monitor gear with separate pieces of plastic sheeting.
We chain the console mutes and VCA’s together so we can set up scenes and send signals back and forth when Marty and Travis guest in each other’s sets. The 4000m’s are great with their linking and routing capabilities, but it takes a bunch-o’plastic to cover two of them, not to mention the processing racks and the At-Ear equipment. Clair’s crew chief Joe Ravich had the FOH pair of 4000’s similarly wrapped.
At about 4:30 the sun came out and John Boy declared the rain over. We carefully uncovered everything and went about our abbreviated soundchecks. By 6pm we’d covered all the gear again and gone for dinner. I ate mine on a road case while watching the sunset into a massive cloudbank.
The bank rolled in while the show started and everyone knew it was coming. Marty’s rockabilly riot went well with the wind picking up and darkness falling quickly, and the crowd was rowdy and in the hooting mode that is usual for that point in the show.
The acoustic set normally starts as soon as Marty’s Rock-n-Roll Cowboys stop the vamp that ends their set. The missing mid-stage drape would hide the set change while Marty, Travis, and Jon Bonnett and Wendell Cox (From Travis’ Country Club Band) play downstage. Instead there was a 15 minute set change while we set Travis’ stage. (The acoustic set is 15 minutes long so the set change is a snap when they don’t have to do it quietly in the dark.)
Fifteen minutes was also just enough time for the clouds to brew into a full storm. Clair’s other stage guy, Mark Gould was scooting one of the Clair P-2’s we use for sidefills when a kid in the audience asked, “What happens if it rains?”
“You get wet.” he said.
And wet they did get. Ten minutes into the set the rain was dumping on the crowd so hard they gave up on staying dry. There was concern for everyone’s well being, but SOP dictates we play until we see lightning.
Travis was getting wet as well. Production manager (and tour rigger) Ralph Perkins asked, “Is he okay out there?”
“He’s as safe as any of us on this gigantic lightining rod,” I said pointing to the scaffolding, “if not more so. None of his stuff will explode.”
Travis uses wireless FutureSonics AEM’s and the groovy new Shure UHF wireless for vocals (which kept working even though it was drenched with rain). Bud Phillips uses NADY 950gs wirelesses for all of Travis’ guitars. Travis was totally wire-free and the band was staying (mostly) dry – so they played right on through the downpour. The rain let up and let loose several times before the first lightning was spotted miles away. Travis got the high-sign and gave the band the last song signal they’d been expecting.
The set was a little over an hour, 50 minutes of continuous rain, and the only casualty we suffered was the drum sampler getting a bath, but that happened late during load-out. It had a nice long, full life anyway.
DAY 2 – FAIR DATE / COLUMBUS, OH / August 7, 1996
I was standing on top of my toolbox lid so I could see downstage. This room was odd – a long hall with the stage on a side, and the stage was easily seven feet tall. It was quite unexpected but welcome for us to find an arena on this run. The previous few shows had been bearable, but the local vendor PA’s were sufficient at best. Both Suskin and Marty’s FOH guy Les Banks were wresting every usable decibel they could from the systems they got. This day promised to be more of the same.
Brent and I have different banks of eq presets in the TC system to handle the monitor changes from indoors to out – one button and you’re roughed in. Unfortunately one can’t really prepare for the way the stage sounds when the PA gets to running volume without a soundcheck, especially if you’ve not been inside lately. Guesswork aside, the sound crew was anxious to make noise.
The 60′ traveler track the drape is hung on was rigged and the acoustic set was green-lighted. We set about soundchecks as usual with marty’s set in place – an 95 input line check, Country Club band followed by Marty and the Cowboys.
The only real gremlin we had was a buzz in the video feed to George’s drum rack (George follows a track to sync the band to video during the Travis set). We eventually realized the video rack was normally ac ground-lifted at its home on stage right. The hall couldn’t accommodate the video trussing however, so Tritt video tech Chris Hobbs set up on stage left near the house video gear he was feeding instead. Five minutes and a 49-cent AC adaptor later we were eating dinner.
The show that night went fairly well. What the audience didn’t hear was the mush we got on stage during the acoustic set. Jon and Wendell needed more volume than usual, and their live wedges began to wash out Travis’ and Marty’s ear-monitor mix. While the set change in the dark behind the drape was a little slow, nobody seemed to notice.
DAY 3 – SMALL THEATRE / MERRILLVILLE, IN / August 24, 1996
Finally, another chance to do this acoustic set. We’d done a string of shows without the acoustic set, in fact, this particular run of shows we’d left the rigging truck in Georgia, and the drape with it. Theatres however are historically known to have drapes in them; this one didn’t disappoint.
The local lighting rig went in at 8am. Soundchecks were set for 2:30 and our load-in was slated for 9 o’clock, but the venue had only a one truck dock and no storage to speak of, so everyone emptied boxes and packed them away tight.
Space was tight on stage as well, so much that Tritt carpenter Tony Downs had to build his 4-ton hydraulic stage only two-feet from the upstage wall of the theatre. The set change normally starts with the drape closing and the set rising to its ten-foot maximum. Marty’s drum riser rolls underneath the Travis set and behind it where it can be dismantled out of the way. Marty’s stage left guitar/bass riser and stage right risers then switch sides of the stage (to where they’ll be used during the Travis set and the finale). The stage then lowers to its 6 foot ‘show’ position, all the lights and band gear are visually checked and the band members take places.
We set up the Travis set like the finale and walked the local crew backwards through the set change (they looked funny walking backwards), giving them the advantage they needed to strike Marty’s drums quickly. Then we checked the acoustic set, with some changes.
We checked with Jon and Wendell upstage, and with Marty guitarist Brad Davis playing mandolin upstage as well. This change solved two problems, namely getting those live wedges out of the downstage picture and saving Jon and Wendell from scrambling to their risers after the set.
We also closed the drape during the check. This tiny detail had somehow been ignored until Tritt backline tech Gary McMurray pointed out problems always occurred after it was closed.
That night the sets went seamlessly one into another. Shows since have been similarly smooth. Now we check the acoustic bit religiously, drape closed and PA running.
It seems what we had to do was to fall back on the basic rules of live audio, the first of which is: “Start at one end and work to the other. It works with signal and soundchecks.” I guess the trick is knowing which end.
Copyright © 1996 JPArmstrong