Monday, September 05, 2005

End of the night in Mexico City day 1

End of the first night.
The second night of 2 at this venue has been canceled due to the floor deflecting an uncomfortable amount. I kid you not. The floor in this place was moving more than any floor I have stood on. I had 3 guys holding the desk down as it bounced all over the ez tilt which was bouncing all over the floor. Tim was holding down his laptop which was sitting on top of the D2 and 737 in a rack. I turned around and saw Lucas who was on a 2 foot high riser and saw a tech holding onto his Hog 3 for dear life. I could not accurately move faders or knobs at times. Lucas had the same problem.
The TM, PM and some venue officials made multiplied trips out to FOH and felt it first hand. Later the PM said to me "I have known you for 15 years and never saw the look of fear on your face like I did tonight." This was only the second show in this venue. A concrete, cinder block box with a corrugated steel roof. A multi purpose room that was not designed for live music. No room treatment of any kind with the exception of light weight curtain covering a third of 1 wall. 100 - 200hz was just all over the place. It calmed down somewhat with 6 thousand bodies. The PA did an adequate job. 4 DV subs flown next to the 12 DVdosc hangs would have made my day. But it didn't work out that way. We wound up with12 flown DVdosc a side and 3 Meyer DS2P stacked on top of 8 CD218. Somehow Tim got it to sound ok. Which doesn't totally surprise me because I have seen him take piles of crap(literally)and get it together. That is part of the fun, joy, challenge, call it whatever you want, of renting racks and stacks each night. I feel like I should charge bands more for situations where they are not carrying full production. I know I am going to have long, difficult days trying to make sense of what many sound companies provide. But I look at it as a learning experience. Getting to use some boxes that I might not have considered. Next week is a Nexo Geo T rig. On the few occasion I have used the box I had some complaints about it. Like the lack of a 15" driver. That and the fact that it looks like missing parts of the death star. Tim brought up the idea of using Geo T with CD12 subs to augment the low end. Maybe we will get to try it.
Craziness.

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