Not sure whether to make this a long story form note or just say the message… alright, in typical frank fashion, BOTH!
The message: Please, PLEASE, if you are going to bring in a concert, PLEASE, also find a competent sound/technical person to provide those services. In fact, a better approach would be to HIRE an actual sound company to provide sound support services. Ok, let’s say you have a $3000 budget for an event. Spend $2000 on talent and $1000 on sound support services. You DON’T have $3000 for talent. I know, you want artist “X” and they cost “x” dollars and that’s already strapping your budget, so, you try to “get by”. NO!
Here’s the story…
I went to a concert on Saturday to see lastplace and samestate, a couple of bands I’ve been talking with. Great guys. Nice music. Overall. looking to show up, hang a bit and then leave. Not that I don’t like the headliner, ArticleOne, in fact, they are really good. It’s just. well, I hadn’t planned on spending all after and evening at this event.
I walk into a mess. I was a little late to the gig. I figured I’d get there by the second song. Nope, the gig hadn’t started yet. I talk with lastplace a little, find the sound check took 4 hours and ArticleOne took all that time. So, they were just hoping it worked for the 2 opening bands. However, AO didn’t want anything to be touched as they had fined it in for them. Understand. But, there ARE 2 other bands and, well, sometimes you actually have to twist a knob…
The gig started, lots of feedback, poor overall sound. The gear was, well, what you’d expect. A conglomeration of 2 bands and the church. 3 consoles tied together. Two at FOH and the “main” one side stage. We could call it “monitor world“, except they were running the monitors directly off the main speakers. Yeah.
There was a guy sorta standing by the FOH consoles, but, he was strangely absent for much of the time. Well, of course, he’s the youth pastor in charge of the whole event (including free food, air-up jumpy things, a skate demonstrations, giveaways, etc.). I waled up to the consoles as now one was there. He walked up, I asked a few questions, he had been told that I ”knew what I was doing“ so I took it from there. No sign of him the rest of the day, except to introduce the bands. Between (and even during!) sets I was making changes to the way it was hooked up. We eliminated feedback (to a large degree), and made the sound as presentable as we could with what we had (some JBL mains, some subwoofer that I had never heard of – they looked like bass guitar cabs, and a couple of Peavey SP2’s all powered by Crown CE amps driven from a Mackie with built-in sub crossover).
After the event, the youth pastor walked up to me and said, ”you were an answer to my 3 week long prayer“. OK, I get that. And I’m happy to help, I truly am. Especially for the bands, The two openers perhaps didn’t care as much. AO was very appreciative, though I constantly apologized. So, I’m happy for that. And I do believe God was working in that situation. BUT, would it have killed you to try to figure that out in advance? Had you asked, I would have probably said ”no“ at first and then succombed to the dismay of my family. Or asked to be paid. Maybe it’s all ok, as I could ”rescue“ the event rather than being ”responsible“. It’s over. No one was harmed. We move on. Ugh.
