When most people think about concerts and playing out live, the things that lead to mind are the musicians — the singer, the drummer, the guitarist. This is not a bad thing; the band is the primary reason why the concert is happening in the first place. But, it's not only the band that puts a show together.
No band is successful if the team consists only of the musicians. Every band needs support staff: roadies, agents, managers, accountants, lawyers, vendors, etc. And, while all are important, necessary and deserving of respect, I'm going to take some time to single out a few of them (the ones that most people will encounter during their musical career) for special attention.
Sound guy:
This is probably the single most important member of the support staff; he (and for some reason, almost all of the sound people I have encountered are male) is arguably more important than some of the members of the band. He has final control over how the band sounds to the audience. No matter how hot the band is — you could have Miles Davis, Jaco Pastorius, Jimi Hendrix, Aretha Franklin and Neil Peart on stage, all on fire, in sync together, everything's perfect, but the band will sound like garbage if the soundman's zoning out, not paying attention to things with the 2k Hz rolled all the way down and the 500 Hz all the way up on the master parametric EQ. A good soundman can make a bad band sound good, while no band will sound good with a incompetent moron running the desk.
If you happen to find a great sound guy with a good ear, hang on to him for all he's worth. Buy his gear if you have to, but soundmen with golden ears are irreplaceable. Which brings me to the next point....
While it's generally a good rule of thumb to be as nice to people as you can, it applies even more so the sound guy. No matter how much of jerk he might happen to be, no matter what has happened to you, never take it out on the sound man. Or, at the very minimum, wait until the performance is over and you don't have to deal with the guy anymore.
Article comments
1 - Tom Johnson
Very interesting, Casper. This is the kind of stuff all music fans need to know. We fans get demanding at times and often don't think about how things that we think only effect the bands actually touch all these other people's lives, too. It's nice to know who's behind the scenes - it makes it all a little more real.
2 - duane
It would be nice if a Behind the Music epsiode (or something like that) showed all this stuff instead of talking about how the singer's Mom's death was a crushing blow to him and bla bla bla.
In my younger days, I was a guitarist in a club band. We had a manager who doubled as the sound guy, and his wife operated the lighting. We had two "roadies," who we didn't call on that often, since we would work a given place for a few weeks before having to pack up. We were lucky enough to not have to tear down after every show. But the roadies' job was limited to muscle work mainly. I taught one of them to set up my equipment, which took even me about 30-45 minutes (two guitars, two pre-amped Fender Twin Reverbs joined at the hip by an A/B box, echoplex, phase shifter, octdivider, and other assorted goodies, all independent boxes with a jumble of cords to tie it all together -- I had to be able to sound like a lot of different players, since we got paid to do covers). The first time he was tasked with setting up all my stuff, he made a complete mess of it, and I decided that I better do it myself from then on. That, I guess, is what a tech would do. Never had that luxury, but it sure sounds nice.
3 - HW Saxton Jr.
Casper, I've been a Union stagehand for
years(IATSE)and the usual scenario for a
sound gig is: On bigger shows the artist
or band usually has their own sound guy
working in tandem with the local crew/s.
Flying the delays,running miles of cable
the PA and all that,are usually done by
locals while the lead soundman works out
the bands sound specs w/ their own crew.
Front of house,onstage and the backstage
monitor work is almost exclusively done
by the local crew as well at least in my
neck o'the woods. Seeing as how most of
the bigger shows these days have gone to
Multi-Media type productions you usually
have a large A/V crew too as well.You've
neglected to mention this but I am sure
'twas just an oversight.This applies to
the lighting as well.Usually, most bands
will have their own TD for all the stage
lighting who works with the Audio/Visual
guys and local stage electric crew. You
are very correct that a good / bad sound
man can make or break a band.Did you dig
the major sound SNAFU during the Grammy
Awards this year??? Several people were
fired after that.You're usually only as
as good as the equipment warrants and as
your stagehands are.I'm not saying the
artists lack any merit on their own,it's
obvious that w/o any talent* they would
wouldn't be where they are.However,most
artists respect your work as such and
are quite respectful of your talents and
ability to help them come across to the
audience the best that they can.I have
been one of those guys in black lurking
in offstage shadows for years now.It can
be f***ing grueling & thankless work but
it's also satisfying and the $ ain't bad
either.Thanks for the indirect mention.
Most people have no idea that the Stones
show they just saw took 5 days to build
and present to them. Anyway,great post.
*RE: Talent. Actually that's debatable.
4 - Casper
You're right; I forgot to mention A/V; mostly because the kinds of bands that I play in and the kinds of shows that I frequently tend towards jazz bands in small clubs. But you are absolutely right; the A/V guys have a lot of work to do (particularly in some of the bigger production shows and/or venues). I also don't know enough about what they do to really be able to speak to it very well.
I did catch the Grammies with their technical issues. I'm have no doubt that people got fired over it; the Celine thing by itself probably warranted some kind of action.
5 - Michael Croft
As HW points out, as you scale up to bigger venues, the sound guy job (and I have met the occasional 'soundchick', including one who called her company Soundchick Sounds) get broken into Front of House and stage mixing. While I don't think even the hottest engineer can make a completely lousy act sound great, I agree that bad engineering can make a great act sound lousy.
I've been the engineer for a touring band where it was me and five on-stage performers. I've also run sound for a dozen bands on a festival stage where we didn't always get a stage plot or a list of the drops the band wanted until they showed up while we were breaking down the last act. There are bands I utterly love because they were nice to us on a hard day.
My wife says that she's been ruined for live shows by going to them with me because she has picked up my ear by watching when I wince.
Be nice to the support staff. They work hard to invisibly make the show sound good.
Oh, and Casper: good call with the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook. Highly recommended for all engineers and gearslut musicians who want to know more than 'you plug it in and it works'.
6 - Karl Kuenning
Hey Casper,
Thanks for the nice article featuring my book. Good thing all those years mixing sound didn't affect my hearing.
Would someone please answer that phone that keeps ringing?
Stay LOUD
KK RFL