There is something to be said for the idea of family. When the band Sister Hazel and their management, Sixthman decided to have a convention for the band and do it on a cruise ship, they called on the services of a company and crew they had used before, Atlanta Sound and Lights and head crew dude Sean Henry. Now, six years later, that little convention idea has grown into the Rock Boat — more than 20 bands, 2000+ fans and one big boat. Oh, and 11 sound guys. You read that right. Eleven guys to cover six stages and shows that start by noon and go until very late every night, with acts ranging from unknown songwriters (Honor by August won a BMI competition for their slot) to budding rock stars (Atlanta's Five Star Iris and Austin's Wideawake stood out) to established acts including Collective Soul, Better Than Ezra, Cowboy Mouth and "hosts" Sister Hazel. But, ASL and Sean — along with cohead- of-audio Steve "Dublin" Stapleton are still sailing every January. This year they went from one cruise to three as Sixthman added a Lynyrd Skynyrd cruise ("Gimme Three Days") and something called Ship and Dip featuring Barenaked Ladies and Guster. FOH got Sean to sit down for a few minutes before the last big show in the main room on the Carnival Legend to explain how you do fullblown rock concerts on a ship designed for lounge and variety acts. "Last year we hit 20 foot seas," he says. "Bend down to pick up a cable on stage left and you end up on stage right, and you don't know how you got there."
FOH: How much of ASL is sound, and how much of it is lighting?
Sean Henry: It's basically half and half. We try to keep it as half and half as we can.
So, you have the same number of guys in sound and lighting?
There are actually more lighting guys… Because it takes more.
Yeah, they're pains in the ass. Okay, how many bands are on the ship? It seems like a thousand…
I think it's between 30 to 40. Between, you know, the headliners, all the way down to Francisco Vidal, who's like a speaker on sticks. Six stages altogether.
And that ranges from speakers on a stick up to these. What are these?
The EV XLDs. We've had 'em about a year, year and a half. We had one of the first rigs of XLD, and I love 'em. We have 24 of them at the shop — for the size of them and the weight of them, they're great. They're great.
You guys are definitely a big EV house.
Scott Waterbury's [one of ASL's owners – ed.] been EV for 30 years, ever since he started, he's been EV.
So you guys are working your asses off.
Yeah, and it's basically for three weeks. We got on the Skynyrd boat and we had nine guys for the Lynyrd Skynyrd cruise, and I brought three more for this, and then it's cutting down to five for the Barenaked Ladies. Same boat, but it's smaller — it's just Barenaked Ladies and Guster, and not as many support bands.
Somebody told me last night that you guys are trying to figure out how to bring in Barenaked Ladies' monitor board because it won't fit in any of the elevators.
We figured that out this morning. It was a challenge with big H3. We had to take the top lid off, put it on a deck cart and roll it around. Cruise ships — many challenges. And the biggest thing is, and people don't realize it, that all of our stuff lives on wheels. And the stage's moving every angle, so you have to have two locking wheels, or check it both ways. I remember last year, I forgot to check my wheels, and my monitor rig shifted on me one night.
It looks like everyone's drunk. I know they're not, but …
When I hire guys, I'm like, "Do you get seasick?" There were a few performers with buckets last year. We had a tally sheet on our stage. "Yeah, here's another one." I think it went to seven or eight or something just on my stage.
Overall, how much gear did you guys bring in?
We brought a tractor-trailer full of stuff. All the electronics. We have 16 XLDs on this stage, eight MT2s, altogether, we have 14 MT2s onboard, on the Lido deck. This stage is 16 XLDs, eight MT2s, a pair of PM5Ds.
What's the biggest lesson you've learned about doing cruise ships?
That the elevator's always the biggest issue. I don't know how many times we've come in and, like, "Oh yeah, it'll fit," and all of a sudden, you get there. We did a site survey on this ship twice, me and Rodney, 'cause we did it six months out, and completely forgot what we looked at, and then came back about a month before and just did a day thing, because you can get on and get right back off on the same day, and did that. Basically, it's the elevators. There's no freight elevators on cruise ships. They don't need them, so they don't have them. Everything, all the supplies and stuff, gets forklifted in the hold and gets broken up there. They have big doors in the hull of the ship where they forklift stuff in and out, but that's as far as it goes. It doesn't need to come up.
I've listened to every stage. Your guys' mixes have sounded great.
Oh, thank you! I love all my guys. Coming up with bands, we all played the completely crappy bars, so I just came up that way, and whatever crappy bar I'm in or crappy rig I'm in, I have to make it sound good. That's all my guys' attitudes. Especially with stuff like this or the big festivals we do, when I hire guys, freelance guys, I hire mixers that can tech, I don't hire techs that can mix. You see what I'm saying? When I have a band that shows up without a guy, "Yeah, we'll take care of you, no problem," and do that. I know all my guys can mix. I got the monitor guy for LL Cool J here, monitor guy for Kansas here, front-of-house guy for North Mississippi All-Stars, guys who are working all the time. In January, when they're off, I tell them "come on and play with me on a cruise ship!"
Any other issues?
Power is always a huge issue. I remember the first time I came on. I was basically a late-night engineer, and I get on, it's like, "Oh, here's our tails." Nobody even considered that power's weird on boats, essentially it's a big generator with no ground. So we've worked with Carnival — Tim Kabrow — over the past couple of years, and Carnival's actually bought three transformers basically for us. And even with the transformer, last year, we had a huge issue in the main room where it was clean until the motor started, and then we got this obnoxious hum, a buzz that you couldn't get rid of anywhere. We lifted everything, you know, even pulled the ground and, nothing. It was still there. And this trip, we've gotten lucky because all the rooms have been clean, but yeah, power is just…
That's one I didn't even think about.
Yeah. They don't care if, like, we can't go into their audio power because it's hard-wired somewhere down in the depths of the ship, so they bring up this huge cable with the Hubbell connector on it, and Hubbells it into the transformer, and I don't know where they pull power from, and I don't care, to tell you the truth. I look at Tim. I go, "Take care of it," and the transformers help immensely. I remember the first year, I mean, things were shutting off, guitar amps and organs weren't powered up because they could not get enough power. It was that close to a disaster, but we pulled it together right at showtime. Turn an elevator off or something, things like that. But…
Starting March 15, the complete interview, an interview with Andy Levine of Sixthman and a chat with backline provider Bobby Carrol plus some cool footage of what happens onboard can be found on FOH TV, online at www.fohonline.com. –ed.
Sixthman's Andy Levine
FOH: Okay, talk to me first about Sixthman. How did you guys get started, how long have you been around, give me the rundown.
AL: So, Sixthman started in 2001. Todd Almore, my partner and I, started the company officially Sixthman. We had been working together for four to five years doing artist management, offering independent radio promotion, grassroots marketing services, those types of things. Distribution services for albums. And managing the band Sister Hazel. In managing Sister Hazel and building their street team and their fanbase, they requested a convention and our response was a cruise. We got hold of a travel agent, said, "Could we get some people on a cruise?" She said, "That would be great." And so we did. We did 400 people on a cruise with just Sister Hazel and one other band, and we were on a ship like this, so we were just a small group on the ship, and we had one concert, and we had so much fun that we knew we had to figure out a way to get the entire ship. So we got off the ship and we decided we were going to find other bands that we knew had fanbases. If we could all pull our fanbases together, we could get one ship. And that would allow us to do what we're doing–programming, doing the shows whenever we want, wherever. So we went to Pat McGee Band and Edwin Mc- Cain and Tonic and Cowboy Mouth, and between all of us, we were able to get 1,800 people on a full ship the first year. And since then…
So in the second year, you guys filled a ship?
In the second year, yeah. We found a couple guys that were willing to put up the money to guarantee the ship with Carnival, and it went great. We made some mistakes, but overall, everyone had a great time and we've been doing it ever since.
You see it growing?
I see the opportunity growing tremendously. I feel like every month, we get a new call from a big band and we're really excited. And sometimes, they decide to do it and sometimes, they don't, but either way, it's on their mind. They're starting to see the value all the way around by having an annual festival that they can use to keep it live.
How did you guys hook up with Atlanta Sound & Light?
Rodney Stamill handles all of our production, and he and I came in on Sister Hazel for years, so we know each other very well, and Sean, we've always liked Sean. We've worked with him for different things. He's tour managed for bands we've worked with, and he was at Atlanta Sound & Light, and we felt he would deliver the service and care for our production, so it's worked out great.
Somebody said when you get off the boat, you'll be half sold out for next year.
Yeah. I mean, they'll get an e-mail tomorrow or Tuesday that will just say, "Hey, how did we do?" A survey. From there, in the next two weeks, we'll have everything laid out for next year, and they'll have a whole month to pick their cabin at a preferred price, and then, whatever's left, we roll out to the public. And that's usually not much.
And this is a bigger boat than what you've used before, right?
Yes, we're going to move up to a little bit bigger boat, and it really wasn't so much that we were looking for a bigger boat. We were looking for a boat that had different amenities. The thing I'm excited about for next year's boat is that it has an outdoor amphitheatre stage on the deck that will accommodate every single guest, and we should be able to crane in the stage line on there, and have our headline shows outside, and use the main lounge as a backup, as a weather backup. Do daytime shows there, matinee things, so I'm really excited about it. And I'm anxious to see if we can pull that off, because there's nothing better than being outside watching music. There's nothing better, when the weather cooperates. So that's it; we're excited, we feel very fortunate, and we feel really lucky and we're just hanging on for dear life.
(Parts of this interview and others and some cool footage of what goes on onboard can be found on FOH TV.)
