I would think that a ship presents its own unique situation and issues for sound checking.
I would think that a ship presents its own unique situation and issues for sound checking.
"Alienated-so alien I go!"
Oops, I guess I forgot to answer that. We have played some clubs (Canyon Club in L.A, Joe's Sports Bar in Chicago, a few Hard Rock Cafes). Same logistical problems as anywhere else, except the stage is smaller. Like I said, there have been a couple of times when we had no soundchecks, only microphone line checks, done by our crew. Stuff started coming together a half hour into the show, but we were damn lucky there were no equipment failures besides the drummer's fiberglass baffles toppling on whichever singers were singing backup vocals at the time.
do the musicians interact with the passengers when not playing their sets?
i mean, are you gonna spot Steve Howe eating a salad on the Lido deck?
any sightings/stories/photos from those who went?
My wife was recently working a food booth at the Stevie Wonder concert and she mentioned how he went on at 8pm and left the stage after midnight.. kicker is he did a 45 minute soundcheck with full songs.. She was able to step out and listen to the soundcheck with no one around.. And of course the concert was so loud she heard every song from the vending stand she was at..
I'm not convinced that you understood it. Because I haven't been describing bands taking an extra 10 minutes, I've been describing bands that were allotted 60 minutes to perform using almost all of that time to sound check, then playing only 30 minutes, and that 30 minutes was allotted for the next band.
A few years back, at the local pit called Jaxx, I ventured out to see Oblivion Sun and Steve Morse Band.
What a line-up, right?
Jaxx was known for jamming the schedule with local pay to play bands and they did not short us that night.
A local cover band was 'supposed' to play starting at 8.
Their guitar player had some sort of malfunction so they did not get sound checked before the audience was there (!).
So what happens?
We wait till he gets his shit together, about an hour, and then they get to play their whole set of mediocre classic rock covers.
Oblivion Sun, the pros that they are, get set up in record time and start their set.
They got to play for about one half hour. Like 3 songs and were cut off.
They were pissed off.
Morse, also a pro, gets set up. Tries to make apologies and plays his whole set. He rocked.
Not sad that Jaxx is gone. One less venue, but that was just one example of a poorly run house.
One time a band forgot to show up and the audience stood around waiting till they got things sorted out. I think that was a Flower Kings or Spocks Beard show.
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
-- Aristotle
Nostalgia, you know, ain't what it used to be. Furthermore, they tells me, it never was.
“A Man Who Does Not Read Has No Appreciable Advantage Over the Man Who Cannot Read” - Mark Twain
^^ This reminds me of the one time aside from NEARfest I went to see Hawkwind at a dump called I think Coney Island High on St Mark's Place in Manhattan. There were three crappy opening bands, it was around midnight and another opening band came on. I had to bail. The place was tiny and boring as hell.
There are so many things that can go wrong in a live situation. The more specialized equipment the more chance of things going south if a good soundcheck is not done. Most prog bands have very specialized equipment compared to the average blues band that just has guitars and amps and basic gear. Even then things can go wrong.
It can be a real tightrope walk playing live .
The longest wait I ever had was UK at Nearfest. I found out later that they flew to NF directly from Japan and Jobson had to reboot all his computers, which took several hours. He had a sophisticated rig that had to be right for the show to go on. I'm not complaining, I enjoyed the show very much, but I was quite tired by the end. I understand Eddie not wanting to go on until his equipment was ready and I'm sure he didn't like making people wait, but what can you do?
In my years being involved with ProgDay we ran into more than a few sound check issues, but the one positive experience that still amazes me was the year Wishbone Ash played. Those guys were such road dogs and incredible pros when it came to setting up and sound checking. I have told this story here before, but it is always a good one.
W.A played a gig in Houston on Saturday night. After the Houston gig they drove straight to the airport, got on a plane and flew to Atlanta arriving in the wee hours of the morning. They spent what was left of the night in the Atlanta airport before catching a flight to North Carolina in the morning. They landed at Raleigh Durham in the early afternoon and headed straight to ProgDay (about a 30 minute or more drive depending on traffic). The arrived at the venue shortly before they were supposed to go on. With hardly any sleep over the past 24 or more hours, they jumped on stage, plugged in their instruments, did a very short sound check and proceeded to kick ass for the next 90 minutes. All in the pouring rain no less. Jeff and Jay could probably fill in more details from the stage crew end of it, but it was very very impressive from my perspective.
Michael Bennett had booked them as a last minute replacement and to be honest I did not even think it was logistically possible to pull off, but man did they deliver in a big way.
That Wishbone Ash show was really cool. They were one of the reasons why I went to ProgDay that year, my first actually.
See, that's what I'm talkin about!
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