Last Saturday, I was again running sound for The Elms. Side note- they released a new record recently, and I highly recommend it. Funny enough, they have a song titled, “County Fair.” The show last Saturday was at the Dekalb County Fair, just north of Fort Wayne, IN. I’ll get to the audio production portion, but let me show you what it’s like to be on the road. Our Friday night show ended and we rolled out at about 1:00am and instead of getting a hotel, we drove 4 hours across the state in a van and trailer, which goes slower than in your car. When we arrived at the hotel at 5:00am, they of course couldn’t find our reservation! Don’t worry. Happens all the time. We’re used to it.

They found our rooms, which walked in to, then had to exchange since there were 2 of us per room, but they gave us single king beds. Again, we’re used to it. By noon I was up and at the Starbucks watching the radar and the inevitable rain on the radar. Of course I was also watching the football scores.

Our scheduled load in was at 4:30, and we arrived a few minutes early. That’s professional. The headliner who was supposed to be done with sound check by 5:00 was just loading onto the stage. The rain was coming down steady so we found a dressing room with wifi and waited. And waited. And waited.

The sound company was afraid to power up with all the rain, and to their credit, the water was blowing onto the stage. However, to their uncredit, they could have and should have at least been running cables and hooking up inputs. Instead, the headliner walked around on stage for 2 hours noodling on their guitars and staring at their feet.

Of course the opening band takes a full sound check while we wait some more, but when it’s our turn to get the stage, we get pushed along. No sweat though. We are pro. We get our stuff on stage, get it miked up, and knock out a sound check quickly.

I ran in-ears from FOH just because I know what everyone likes to hear and can dial it in quickly. The console was an M7 and the house boxes were the Adamson line array. The inputs all sounded great. There was a lot of separation and I could hear everything so clearly! In fact, I used the hat and overhead mics for this show, which I NEVER do. It all sounded great.

My only complaint about the M7 console was that my vocals were on the upper level (of 2 sets of faders). I hated having to reach over my band inputs to get to my vocal channels. I could have assigned them to VCAs or re-routed them I’m sure, but I just don’t get a ton of time on the digital boards to play around, and I like to keep it simple (which you know if you’ve read more than 1 of my blog entries). The tech wasn’t around for me to ask, so I just left it alone.

The house speakers were surprisingly good. I didn’t have to fight them at all, and the subs were moving some serious air! My kick and bass guitar sounded so full, but the definition in the high end was great. Like every outdoor show, I got frustrated having to mix under a tent, but especially with the rain, it was a ncecessity. You’d be surprised how much extra low end gets trapped under there and how the top end gets lost. When I walked out from under it though, it was great.

Unfortunately, the rain kept some people away, otherwise it would have been a stellar show. I was also looking forward to a more formal sound check, but sometimes, well, everytime, you have to just roll with the punches. Can you relate??