To be honest, when FOH called me needing someone to cover Ozzfest I was pretty stoked. I had always wanted to see Ozzfest, but in this biz doing a few shows a week of my own, I have generally no desire to be around another show. I also had never been asked to "cover a show". Typically FOH just wants me to "rant"–which I'm OK with.
This time, though, it was coverage, so my wife Lisa and I drove from Vegas to San Diego Saturday for a Sunday show. We had arrangements with Ken "Pooch" Van Druten, FOH engineer for System of a Down, to get working passes for the day. When we arrived around 2 p.m., Pooch met us at the gate and took us to his bus where we had a 30-minute discussion with him and Dave Coil, monitor mixer for System of a Down. Pooch gave us a quick run-down of the logistics for the shows. Load-in time for the "B" stage was 3 a.m. with a local crew of 50 in addition to the Showco crew. First band went on between 9 and 10 a.m. and the stage ran until 5 p.m., when the main stage fired off. Main stage load-in was at 8 a.m. Pooch typically tunes up the rig between 10 and 11 a.m. and starts line checking by noon. After this conversation Dave took us to monitor world and gave us the lowdown on the 10-minute change-overs. No typo: 10 minutes, with exception of the headliners–who have 15! As the bands went off I timed it, and the stage crew averaged eight minutes!
They did it by using a lot of set carts and mass pin snakes. The first three bands on the main stage are "stacked," meaning layered, so as each of the bands finish, their backline is stripped off the stage and the next is set and ready. Each layer is already miked, so a quick change on the mass pin snakes and off they go. Once it got down to the final headliners each band was loaded-on completely, and built from the ground up. The crew was given five minutes for the extra work.
Later, David Coil took us to FOH to meet system engineer Paul Jump from Showco. This being his fifth Ozzfest, he had a lot of input about the logistics of a festival of this size. He also gave us a nice tour of the rig. "With a Prism system four columns eight deep, the outside two rows are controlled separately," he explained. "The down blowers and frontfills are all controlled separately as well. All go through their own Clair I/O. We're using all Crown MA 3600 power amps, all the way up." There's only a few pieces of outboard gear, not enough to even mention, just a couple of tube compressors and a couple extra reverbs. Most engineers used the onboard processing exclusively. Greg Price (Ozzy) and Pooch shared a tube compressor for their main vocals.
5 p.m. Dragonforce
Band Engineer Laura Burton stepped up for her set. The sun was shining right on the 5D screen, and she was having trouble trying to read it, but she pulled through a good mix anyway. The sets seem to average about 30 minutes so you really need to pull it together quick.
5:30 p.m. Lacuna Coil
This metal three-piece band from Italy was all excited about just winning the Cup! FOH Mick Boccalone had a great mix out of the gate with a male and female lead and some tracks. So, two bands down, no mis-patches and no visible stress. Seemed to be another day at the office for all.
6:00 p.m. Hatebreed
FOH Bruce Reiter has been with the band for… well, this was his third show! His mix sounded like he'd been with them for a year, though. I'm unsure what he did before, but he knew his way around the 5D, and seemed to have a good rapport with Pooch and Paul Jump. I know Hatebreed's old FOH guy, and know what they are supposed to sound like (having worked with them several times in the past), so I can say that Bruce really had it going on, and was also a fun guy to hang out with.
6:30 p.m. Avenged SevenFold
The first of the headliners had a pretty big set and light show. FOH Ted Keedick had a strong mix, lots of double guitar solos, without a lot of that 4K shrill some guys tend to get with a heavy guitar band.
7:30 p.m. Disturbed
FOH Scott "Skitch" Canady has been with the band a long time and has done five Ozzfests "As a sound guy I have grown up in this biz from being an opener, I got used to early on not to expect much as an opener, whatever is left over. But now I get all of this, it's very cool," he says. And he knows what to do with it now that he's got it–his mix was killer! Big Ball sound! And still no drama or mispatches.
FINALLY System of a Down
Finally, System of a Down took the stage. Pooch jammed behind the console. He got a nice volume level for a rock show, and a smooth mix.
And that was it, because Ozzy had the night off. So much goes on at a show like this we could have done a whole story on any one engineer or piece of gear. I don't think we even scratched the surface of "Behind the Scenes of Ozzfest." We only spent a few minutes on the "B" stage where as the "real combat audio," as Dave Coil calls it, happens. There's another story there, so maybe we'll cover that the next time FOH sends me out to cover a show again, which'll probably be another year.
Pictured, L-R: Ken "Pooch" Van Druten, Scott "Skich" Canady, Ted Keedick, Bruce Reiter and Paul Jump.
