Harman Buyout Dead - FOH Online

Illustrations by
Tom Gleeson
Back in the day (1982), I was the electronics
tech for a sound company
out on a major tour. More than 210
dates were booked, including a Euro tour
leg, and I was a happy camper. Living on
the bus was tight as there were 13 of us
crammed into the Eagle 10, and seating
accommodations rivaled that of the “Hot
Bunk” approach used by the Navy — you
get up from your seat, and the threesecond
rule applies: Three seconds later,
someone else has your seat.
When we get to Denver, sound’s loaded
in at the usual 10 a.m. Rigging had
gotten there at 6:00 a.m., and the lighting
guys at 8:00 a.m.; everything’s on schedule
for a 12:00 noon band load-in. Our buddy
Murphy is watching from up on a catwalk,
deciding how he can have the most fun at
our expense. Murphy has a very warped
sense of humor.
The load-in time for the band also coincides
with lunch for the rest of us. Dutifully
heading down to hospitality, I meet with
the caterer who’s supposed to be providing
a number of vegetarian meals for certain
crew members that day, as the lunch is
36
Welcome To My Nightmare
Nightmare on Murphy Street
— Denver Edition.
An improperly grounded
and filterless scoreboard
has just removed several
pieces of equipment from
the show’s inventory.
I bite down hard on a seed
that the caterer missed,
and now I am without three
teeth. Two are broken off
below the gum line, and the
third is torn in half.
“something special.” For those of you who
have not been on the road, “something
special” generally hits about show time in
the form of unscheduled and urgent trips
to the restroom. Not wanting to give my
old friend Murphy the upper hand, I opt
— along with six others on the crew — to
pass on the special and go with something
plain and ordinary. Cheese sandwiches
would be fine. Murphy takes note.
The caterer tells
me that he won’t make
anything other than
the special, and that I
could have that or go.
As I leave the caterer, I
run into the road manager
who takes an immediate
affront to the
caterer’s approach and
leads me back into hospitality.
A few terse words later — mostly
dealing with the financial aspect of the situation
— and a substitute is agreed upon.
(Go figure this one: The caterer didn’t want
to make the six meals at all, but now he’s
doing eggplant parmesan.)
OCTOBER 2007 www.fohonline.com
“Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”
— Murphy’s Law
Off I go to mic the drums while the
meal’s being prepared. Murphy winks as
the fun’s about to start.
Now, given that I am an electronics
type, and being one of the only two on
the tour (my boss being the other one), I
get called to the stage as the power supply
in the artist’s pre-amp has given up the
ghost. A couple of 15-volt regulators later,
the bass rig is back in business, and I am
on my way to catering to eat the eggplant.
Murphy rubs his hands in delight.
The caterer tells me that he put the
eggplant on the table. I check the room
to find the empty dish — someone has already
eaten it. I am told that it is my tough
luck and now, two hours after my scheduled
lunch, I can “deal with it.”
About this time, the now-infamous
road manager approaches and asks me
how lunch was, right in front of the caterer.
As I start to speak, the caterer interrupts,
reaming the road manager about
me not sitting around waiting for him to
serve the meal, and he figures “someone
else got it.” Not being new to the rodeo
biz, the road manager tells him to fix another,
or he won’t get
paid at all.
I have a couple
more “duty calls,” and
then I get to sit down
to what appears to be
wonderfully prepared
eggplant parmesan. I
am starving and in a
hurry since soundcheck
is now less that
an hour away, and
I still haven’t miked
the drums. I didn’t even notice that the
seeds hadn’t been completely removed
from the eggplant the way the road manager
instructed. (FYI — They grow 1/4-inch
nuts in eggplants.) I bite down hard on a
seed that the caterer missed, and now I
am without three teeth. Two are broken
off below the gum line, and the third is
torn in half. The caterer is fired on the spot,
as the road manager had walked back into
hospitality just as I let out the scream signaling
the end of my pain-free day. Murphy
snickers.
After dismissing the caterer, the road
manager finds a dentist (actually an oral
surgeon) who can extract the remains of
the two teeth and temporarily cap the
third, but the appointment isn’t until 8:15
that evening. The opening act goes on at
7:00 p.m., they’re done at 7:35 p.m., with
the headliner starting at 8:00 p.m. It is 10
minutes to the dentist’s office, and the
runner is standing by to take me there.
The plan is set. Murphy begins to chuckle.
The VIP Club of the arena is now providing
catering for the dinner meal, and a
mixture of ground-up stuff is given to me
to drink. Not very filling, and even harder
to swallow given the circumstances, but
relief is in sight as the opening act starts.
Now 7:35 p.m. approaches, and I am
standing by to remove the mics, pull the
mic cables and get the headliner onstage
before I depart for the dentist. A couple
minutes into the break-down, everything
goes silent. I look out to FOH to see why
the preprogrammed music has stopped,
only to see mushroom clouds rising from
both the FOH and lighting positions.
Screams can be heard now as the monitor
engineer has just lost the intercom. He’s
talking to the FOH engineer, and I am redirected
away from the mic cables toward
the more immediate problem of finding
out what just happened.
Murphy starts laughing.
An improperly grounded and filterless
scoreboard has just removed several pieces
of equipment from the show’s inventory.
A digital reverberator, several lighting
controllers, some insignificant items and
all five keyboards are the casualties. So
much for the dentist.
In the ensuing minutes, soldering stations
are set up in two areas. My boss is
doing what he can to get the equipment
fixed at the FOH and lighting positions,
as the band’s lead tech and I are running
triage on the keyboards. Two of them