RAGINPIT MAGAZINE

Stephen A. - The Grumpy Old Sound Man himself

Welcome back kiddies… Have been on the road for a few and thought I’d give you a glimpse of life in HELL!!!

I was hired by a band to provide sound and lights for a gig in a rather large club in a central Cali city. (I won’t say which one so as not to piss of the owner.) I called the venue ahead of time to get the logistics for load in and I informed the manager that I had a truck load of heavy gear and needed the use of an elevator for load in. "No problem," he said.

Upon arriving at 12:00 to said venue, my lighting tech and I started unloading the fourteen foot truck full of gear near the elevator when we were stopped by the day security staff. “Whoa!” he said. The elevator was for paying customers for the lunch crowd -said lunch crowd was from 11:30 to 2:30. So I asked him how in the hell was I to get the ton of gear to the second floor. He replied that there was a stair case in the back of the venue. So loading the equipment back in the truck we proceeded to the rear of the venue. Man was I surprised. Said stairs were almost straight up and down! Now I had two large racks of dimmers, two large racks of amplifiers, eight racks of lights, five monitors wedges, a front of house rack, a mixer, mics, mic stands, lighting stands and all of the cables needed for the show. All of the gear was on wheels, but I did not have a hand dolly to drag the crap up a set of stairs. After all I was told there was an elevator (small detail left out) which I could use. So why bring a hand truck.

Sound check was at 4:00 and I needed 3 hours to load in and set up. So time being a driving factor I removed all of the dimmers and amps from the racks. Then we carried them up the stairs one at a time and then rebuilt them at the top. The speakers were another matter. We laid them on their sides and slowly slid them up the metal stairs scratching up the sides of them all to hell. The rest - road cases were left in the truck and cables removed as needed. Eight racks of lights were no fun either. To make things even worse the mixer, all 32 channels, weighed as much as the amp racks, but without the ability to carve it up and reassemble it at the top. Many four letter words later (aimed at the manager) and two gallons of sweat, we managed to push the 300 pound monster sideways up the stairs.

Now here is where it gets even better. The hallway at the top of the stairs lead straight into the kitchen!!! Now we were pissing of the cooks pushing equipment past them as they tried to do their job. I surmised at this point that we would not get any freebies from them later on this evening.

Just as it seemed that things could not get any worse, we were then informed we could not make noise or disturb the lunch crowd. Bite ME!!! More four letter words were muttered for the next two hours. 3:59 and not a second sooner we were sort of ready for the bands’ sound check. The sound system was ready, but not the lights. Waiting, waiting, waiting… The band shows up at 6:00. TWO HOURS LATE!!! Just think we could have waited until 2:30 and loaded in with the use of the elevator and not have to rebuild the whole system. Ah, the life of a road dog.

The gig went well and load out was a breeze with the use of the elevator. We drove back to the warehouse unpacked and drank beer until we could not remember ever leaving. There is never a dull moment on the road.

So remember kiddies “This” is why you never piss off the soundman!!! They might have had a baaaaad day.