Welcome to My Nightmare

I recently helped out a friend of mine doing FOH and tour manager duties for two weeks on a U.S. promotional tour. This was a van and trailer tour, which I found refreshing and intimate for a change. We were scheduled at a state fair, and I was saddled with only one crew guy. We pulled up to a 60-foot by 40-foot stage with a decent roof that seemed to have some "water puddle" issues. I climbed up on the deck and was overseen by a gentlemen sitting in monitor world; let's call him Chester. I introduced myself as Tommy with the band Hedley, and asked if there were stagehands. Chester said something akin to, "Don't know, don't care and unless I have heard of you, I really can't be bothered."

Our 400-seat theatre often plays host to children's theatre productions requiring lots of sound reinforcement for the child actors involved. In addition to having to try to get the kiddies to understand that they don't have to grab the lavaliere capsule and shove it into their mouths to be heard, we also have to make sure that they don't step all over any boundary microphones that we might place on the front of the stage.

The band had just finished a 7:00 p.m. setup and sound check at a really cool club in Texas. It's a large stage with huge P.A. system, monitors, stands, mics, sound guy, etc. Most of the band took off to get a little rest before the gig while the guitar player stayed back to watch their equipment and warm-up.

So picture this: The amps are off. The place is starting to get a few people. He's in the dark back corner of the club strumming away, making no sound. Suddenly, everyone hears very loud guitar tuning over the canned house music .

We were playing a street dance, and they told us there was a generator for us to use. When we got there we found that the generator's distro panel was 150 feet from the stage, and the generator was in an alley behind a fence and 12 feet below the street level. Oh, and the generator was being shared by us and all the street vendors. (Uh-oh.)

We got everything plugged in and checked the power meters on the FOH rack, and discovered that the generator was cranked up to 130 volts, so my guy had to walk around two buildings to get to the generator to turn its output down to a reasonable level. We continued with our setup and got ready to start sound check, when the GFI on the distro panel popped.

I'm part of a mid-size audio rental company, we rent for productions and will-call gear. One day a new client called and said, "I need to rent a mic." We said OK, and rented them a SM58. About two hours later the client called and asked us if we were trying to kill her husband.

Confused, I asked her, "Uh, how?" She said that they had plugged the mic in, and it shocked him.

I was back in Gibson City for a really small rock concert–only about 250–300 people in the crowd. I had a small rig complete with an old Yamaha 1604 mixer for FOH and monitor mix all in one, and let me tell you that dinosaur can do some damage. I had two Peavey Impulse 1015 speakers and subs, with an ART EQ-355 and Alesis 3630 compressors. Well, the man I purchased my Impulse speakers and subs from said that they were all 8 ohms "speakers and subs". The venue was a little bigger than what I was told on the advance so, with my QSC RMX 1450 and a 2450, we decided to bridge both to get more power.

The best disruption repair I ever saw didn't involve any human problem, but an electrical one. It was a blazing hot day at the Philly Folk Festival a while back. During an afternoon round robin at one of the side stages, among the performers was a "name" who obviously was none too happy to be playing to a bunch of hicks (comment: "If I knew I'd be doing workshops, I would have brought my knife so I could show you how to whittle.") and a fairly newly-established Susan Werner. Name brand had just finished a song, and Susan stepped up to the mic and launched into "So Heavy (When You're Holding Up the Ceiling)." About a minute into the song, something apparently shorted out in the amp, resulting in a 60Hz blast at about 120 dB. The soundman, after a brief attempt to correct the problem from the board, tore down behind the stage and pulled the plug, eliminating the noise, but leaving the stage 100% acoustic. When we could all hear again, we realized that Susan had waded out into the middle of the crowded hillside and was leading the multitudes in an a cappella chorus of "So Heavy". A minute or so later, the sound restored, she strolled back up to the stage and finished the song with amplification. She got a twominute screaming standing ovation. Name brand got polite applause and was not invited back.

I was mixing FOH for a ballet. Just as the first act started, someone backstage decided that the power amp on the rear speakers didn't need to be plugged in. So I cranked up the mains to compensate, and rushed backstage to troubleshoot. When I got back, I cranked them up to match the front. Before I knew it, I was up at 95 to 100dBs, and some old creep behind the console got up and asked me why it was so loud, so I told him what was going on. He said he'd leave if I didn't turn it down. So, I ever so slowly started to turn it down, and out of the corner of my eye, I noticed him leave. I didn't think much more would come of it.

Back in the day, Crown created a startling audio development with their pressure zone boundary microphone design. The PZM-30D was brand-new on the market. I had seen them in use at South Street Seaport–12 of them on Plexiglass plates in front of a choir standing on risers! My God, the sound was crystal clear, uncolored and beautiful! I had to have a pair for hanging on our stage. No more dangling microphones over the heads of actors! This was going to be the best!