03.02.2013 - Across The Street - Dallas, TX

Well, that show's over LOL! 

What can I say? This was the technical glitch show from Hell. I've played in electronic bands in the past where the power has gone out mid set, complete and immediate silence. I'm not sure what's worse... that or what happened tonight. 

The issue tonight was the PA. First off, the venue charges the bands to bring in the PA. Ok, fine, for what they're charging, must be good, right? Right smack in the heart of a college campus, we'll make it back on the door, right? Wrong. 

But, let me back up... the staff were very nice. The sound guys were very nice. They tried. I think they just didn't know how to handle the signals we were sending to their board. As all of you should know by now, we're highly electronic driven. Lots of keyboards. Lots of bass. What's that equal if you aren't used to it? Blown speakers. Yup, that's what can happen... and, while the front of house, I hear, was ok, I'm pretty sure all our monitors blew. 

So, we'll back up even more. Sound check and load in at 7:30. We're there, but only the opening band is setting up. Normally, you sound check the last band first, then build out from last to first. Not tonight. It was band up, band down, band up, band down, band up, band down. We played last, so we really didn't get a sound check at all - we didn't want to lose the crowd so we just said, "Ok, we'll play now and tweak the sound the first couple of songs." That was probably out mistake. We wound up over at World Of Beer to kill time a little down time.

So, as I mentioned, we use heavy electronics. My vocal effects unit was feeding back all over the place. Finally got past that after the first song. Then comes the monitor issues... when we started, it was fine. Couldn't hear my vocals, but I could hear the keyboards. I'm pretty good about not needing to hear myself and keeping in key, but I gotta have those keyboards (aka the drums and bass) or I'm lost. So, bam... monitor goes... then it starts coming in distorted. Then out again. I spent most of the show singing to the mix that we heard bouncing off the far wall (which is a second or two off from real time - try compensating for that when you're singing - can you say confusing?). 

I guess Heath was experiencing the same thing. He kept thinking his amp was going out. Pretty sure it was his monitor now that we know what all was going on all around. But, it threw him for a loop. 

Supposedly, it sounded ok out front, but it was the weirdest kind of feeling to be on stage, trying to entertain people and to not be able to hear anything. I thank God for Cisco. His timing was right on tonight and, when the monitor would cut in and out, he remained on beat. Without his percussion, I wouldn't have known where I was in the songs. 

In the end, we survived. This kind of stuff happens. It will happen again. It just was kind of a bummer as we were very excited about this particular show. We were playing with some friends, August & J, and another up and coming band called The Five Hands (and they were really good, by the way). I didn't get a chance to talk to August or J afterwards to see if they were having issues as well (their front of house sound was kind of funky - so, probably so), but Adam from Five Hands said they were having monitor issues, too. So, wouldn't be surprised if the sound issues were universal - I think our electronics probably just were the icing on the cake for that sound system. I don't feel bad about the show tonight. I just would have liked to have been able to hear myself so I could be more "into it." When the sound is good on stage, I can forget about it and focus on showing the crowd a good time. Tonight, I spent the evening with an ear on the PA system out front, just trying to figure where we were in the songs. Since the sound never remained consistent, we wound up cutting our set a little short - after an hour or so, it was time to call it night. 

Next week, the fun continues and I'm sure we won't remember a thing about tonight. I'll be working on finishing the mixes of the new record for most of the week and then we've got live shows on Friday and Saturday. That's what makes doing this so fun. It's different every day and night. There are good nights, great nights and sometimes there are bad nights. Regardless, it keeps life interesting and worth living!

Ok, kids... my beer is empty and it looks like I'm the only one that is around to refill it. So, I will leave you with the cheesiest toast I've heard in years... there are tall ships, small ships, big ships, ships on the sea... all kinds of ships... but there are no ships like friendships... thank you for being my friends - cheers! 

Stay gold Ponies,

RH