My friend Abby, who is Cyndi Lauper's tour manager, called me the other day and asked if I would like to do a one-night stand minding the monitors for Ms. Lauper and her band. The show was to be at the new Time Warner Center in New York City, and we were to play The Rose Theater as part of the Pride Week celebration. Ms. Lauper and her band were to close the show with three songs after a variety of acts from Broadway singers to dancers, all backed by a small orchestra. Rose Hall, which holds the theatre, is a brilliant architectural structure that can supposedly shape-shift and transform into the perfect venue for any style of gig. I think the intention was that it could morph into a larger or smaller jazz venue, and not necessarily a rock 'n' roll venue. I was informed that on the day of the show there would only be about an hour to do a soundcheck, but that the technical crew could get into the theater the day before to set everything up in advance. In the past, I had been involved with other Cyndi Lauper shows and was aware that, while she performs well, she tends to be a tad excitable at times. Throwing all caution to the wind, as I am wont to do, I accepted the chance to spice up my normally boring life by assuming the monitor position.
Masque Audio provided the audio equipment at Rose Hall, and Luis Lojo was the system tech overseeing the care and well-being of the gear. The provided console was a Soundcraft MH4, and onstage, I had five mixes of PMs, a pair of JBLTT129 wedges downstage center for Ms. Lauper, a JBL wedge for the guitarist, JBL6215 sidefills run in stereo and a JBLTT149 drumfill. Because none of the band members could make it to the theatre for the setup, I dialed in my drum sound while the drum tech played. I rang out the wedges and fills, and dialed in a phantom mix for everyone based on how I imagined they might sound. Satisfied that all necessary lines and busses were operative, I left the theatre with full certainty that on the following day, all would be revealed.
The next day, when I was introduced to Ms. Lauper as her monitor engineer du jour, she bypassed the formality stage and went right for the familiar. In her signature voice, she stated as a matter of fact: "Remember, there's no crying in monitors!" Anyone familiar with the great Tom Hanks baseball movie A League of their Own will remember the scene where his character, the frustrated manager of an all-female baseball team, yells at one of his players: "Are you crying? There's no crying in baseball! There's no crying in baseball!" Being a sucker for anything baseball, I related immediately to Ms. Lauper's forewarning as she and the band started pitching me curve balls.
Anybody who has assumed the position behind a monitor desk should be aware that the title of "monitor engineer" is often synonymous with the title of "whipping boy," despite the fabulous skill and professionalism they might display at their chosen career. A monitor engineer must–at all times–be detached yet totally involved in what is taking place. They must recognize that the star of the show and the band have immense pressures weighing upon their little musical shoulders–if the star cannot hear properly and puts on a lousy show, or if the band plays disjointedly because of a poor monitor mix, nobody is going to leave the venue thinking, "Her monitor engineer must have screwed up." Even the Front of House engineer can get testy with the monitor engineer because most people in the audience will blame them for every little squeak and squeal coming from the stage.
Getting back to the baseball analogy, a monitor engineer has to treat every show as if it were the seventh game of the World Series. Not just that, but they're up to bat in the bottom of the ninth inning with their team down by one run. The tying run is on second and the count is three balls and two strikes. A base hit will tie the game, a home run will win it and one more strike is unacceptable. That said, I stepped into the batter's box and waited for the pitch, despite the fact that in the monitor world, there are always two strikes against you.
My training has always been to watch the person who is paying me as if my job depended upon it. So I did. Ms. Lauper started off by yelling at me to turn up the wedges: "More piano, louder. Turn up the sidefills, louder, more, OK! Turn up my voice in the ears. It sounds terrible, boost 600Hz, now! Boost 3k, now! Turn it up, now!" I tried to comply, and no matter what I thought of her demands, I was determined to give her what she needed. Unfortunately, the rest of the band was not to be ignored, and I began receiving demands from the violinist, the pianist, the drummer and the guitarist all at the same time. The bassist didn't even care to wait and came to the board to inform me that he had mixed Ms. Lauper's records. He began to dial in his own mix, which was fine with me, though if it were any other time I might have rushed the mound, totally enraged by the blatant brush-back pitch.
Normally, I would have brought everything to a halt and just gone around the horn one musician at a time. But due to the limited time we had for a sound check and my newness on the job, I wanted to make sure I read all the signals correctly to avoid getting into any power struggles. Fortunately, Ms. Lauper made the call herself, and starting with her, I went around the stage until everything was dialed in properly and the team was comfortable. By that time, the stage manager was pacing up and down, trying to get us off the stage so that he could get the ground crew working on the finishing touches before the doors opened to the public. Our allotted time was up!
When we finally took the field to close out the game, the three-song show went smoothly, and despite some directives to make a few changes during the performance, I didn't strike out. As a matter of fact, I got on base and drove in the run, which was no easy feat with all the curves, cutters and sinkers that were thrown at me. I do appreciate the great teamwork provided by Luis, Russell and the rest of the crew at Rose Hall. They too seemed to realize that while each player on the team is important, it is the monitor engineers that are in a league of their own. While the monitor position is as tough as guarding home plate against a bean-ball pitcher, the main thing to remember in situations such as these is to keep cool, don't take anything personally and don't charge the mound. And last, but not least, in the words of Cyndi Lauper: "There's no crying in monitors!"
