The July 31 final show of this year’s James Taylor tour was a private event in Las Vegas that proved to be a harbinger of the days to come. I had agreed to work a series of one-off events in August with John Ondrasik and his band, Five For Fighting. John is an incredibly gifted writer and vocalist, and the band consisting of Jenn Oberle (bass), Steve Fekete (guitar), and Charlie Paxson (drums) perfectly complements John’s extraordinary songs. In addition, John is also an ardent Los Angeles Kings hockey fan, thus making the opportunity to work with him again that much more attractive.
No Blues in Biloxi
The first weekend began at the Hard Rock Live in Biloxi, MS, in a 2,000-seat venue that featured a big V-DOSC PA, Clair 12AM monitors and Yamaha PM5D consoles for FOH and monitors. The PA and monitor processors were Lakes, so access to control was a simple matter of going to the “Guest Engineer” page on the tablet and getting to work. For FOH, that page had a Left/Right PA module, a Sub module and a Frontfill module. I used graphics on the main PA and parametrics on the subs and frontfills. After I had EQ’d the individual modules, I created an ALL PA group so that I could introduce and employ narrow Q parametric filters for overall PA touch up while the entire system was up and running.
Both in house engineers — Corey at FOH and Jeff on monitors — were very accommodating to our needs and did an excellent job. Corey was most helpful while reacquainting me with the PM5D. The last six years of working almost exclusively on the Avid VENUE platform have turned me into something of a one-trick-pony. However, I did do the first leg of the James Taylor One Man Band tour on a 5D a few years back, so with a little gentle prodding, it wasn’t a difficult process to program the show on the FOH desk. An important detail that I did recall was that inputs need to be run cold, -18 to -15dB, in order to maintain proper gain structure from input to output. That fact also has to be kept in mind while setting threshold levels on gates and compressors.
I managed to program a very respectable show on the PM5D, and both sound check and the show went extremely well. The big L-Acoustics rig sounded great, and the audience responded very well during their evening with Five For Fighting. Jeff did a fine job on the monitors, and everyone in the band expressed their genuine appreciation and gratitude. Our entire experience in Biloxi was excellent. Each person on the staff at Hard Rock Live made us feel welcome, and the night was total pleasure for the band, the audience and me.
Another highlight of the evening was the positive results achieved by using the two Shure Beta 181C microphones that I had brought with me inside the Yamaha C7 piano. I chose what I felt would be optimum placement for the cardioid pattern and secured the mics to the harp braces using the special universal joint style clamps that are available with this microphone series. The 181s performed beautifully for me at FOH and in the monitors. Both John Ondrasik and I were thoroughly impressed with the piano sound. I am very pleased that Shure has allowed me to experiment a bit with this outstanding product.
The Chaos Factor
We were up early the next morning and ready to head to Minneapolis where John was performing a solo show at a private event. Our flight was scheduled to leave Gulfport, MS for Atlanta at 8:30 a.m., where we would connect to our flight to Minneapolis. Our 3 p.m. arrival time would give us plenty of time to sound check, relax and have a leisurely dinner before the 9 p.m. performance.
Sounded like it was going to be an easy day, right? I guess I forgot the chaos factor. When we arrived at the Gulfport airport, the flight to Atlanta was indefinitely delayed. John and I managed to get re-routed on a flight that left Atlanta at 3 p.m. A 4:30 p.m. arrival still got us to Minneapolis in plenty of time. If the flight from Gulfport left by noon, we would be cool. When the estimated departure time of 12:30pm came up on the screen, we knew the 3 o’clock connection was history. Time to execute Plan B.
We asked the gate agent to find us an alternative route to Minneapolis. After a long search, she told us she had found a way to get us there through Dallas. With a great sense of relief, we hustled over to the new departure gate. But when we presented our documents to the next gate agent, she started laughing. She said the plane held 49 people and 48 had already checked in. There were four people on the standby list ahead of us. Hopeless.
Getting There and Back
We trudged back to our original gate and our original carrier. We were able to get back on the Atlanta flight, but what would happen next was a question mark, as all flights to Minneapolis were fully booked. John and I made calls to his manager and the travel agent to seek alternatives. These are the kind of days that make one truly appreciate the digital revolution. Our ability to exchange information instantly among six people and an airline got us on a flight that left Atlanta at 4:30pm. A 6:30pm arrival would give us just enough time to do a fast sound check and get away from the venue before the incoming guests discovered the “surprise” talent.
Once we had finally landed, we passed by the airline’s service counter on our way to baggage claim. I suggested to John that we check in and print boarding passes for our flight back to LAX the following day. I walked up to the kiosk and entered my frequent flyer number. The screen told me that there was no reservation attached that number. I tried again. Perhaps I had made a keystroke error. In shock, I stared at the same result. No flight home. The look on John’s face let me know he was having a similar experience. We asked the customer service agent to investigate our problem. Her terse answer was that our reservation had been canceled.
What?!?
All we could do was to put the matter in the hands of the local promoter who had originally booked our flight. Luckily, he was the person who was meeting us at baggage claim. As we walked, John and I recalled that one of the many people who had earlier participated in the frantic rebooking process had asked, “Is your final destination is LAX?” We, of course, said that our destination was Minneapolis, but that we would be flying from MSP to LAX on the following day. We concluded that he had employed selective hearing, incorrectly read dates and summarily canceled our flight home. We had instantly gone from being successful road warriors in the digital age to being sad victims of digital over-achievement.
A Missed Opportunity
We arrived at the venue in time to do a two song sound check, one at the piano position and one at the acoustic guitar position. The venue was very small with monitors and FOH being mixed on the same DiGiCo SD9 console. I had originally been looking forward to learning my way around the desk, but that expectation disappeared in the face of expediency. I only had enough time to briefly play the piano, tune/strum the acoustic guitar and talk/sing into the vocal mics before John hit the stage. The local sound person would have to be the operator. I would end up starting the show producing and advising. I confess that I never knew what equalizers were being used on the various outputs.
As the show progressed, I was able to get more hands-on as I was shown how to access the equalizer, compressors and effects. The SD9 is a good-sounding compact desk, and the show went very well. However, I was disappointed that I had lost my opportunity to program the show from the beginning so that I could learn more about the DiGiCo operating system. I would have enjoyed being shown the routing from input to output and learning the processing options that were available. I will admit that my curiosity about the new generation of consoles was piqued, and I hope I have another opportunity to explore the capabilities of the DiGiCo platform.
At the end of the show, John and I were given the good news that our flight reservations home had been recovered and restored. The other bit of good news was that we finally had time to eat. Even the toughest road warriors in the digital age needed good-old analog cheeseburgers.
Hooray!
