Waldebüne is the name of the gig. (Translated, it literally means - Stage in the forest) It is a really cool gig to see a show at. The last time I was there was about fifteen years ago with Whitney Houston and it was a shitty gig to work at. Since then they have built a proper stage with PA towers. (used to be scaffolding).
This was an arena that Hitler built in World War II. I can just imagine how much energy the place must have had full of people while he preached to them from the stage. He was a friggin maniac, but certainly understood the politics and fanfare of putting on a huge "show" for his people. Weird energy. The load in to the stage is thru a cement bunker that was designed to be a "safe zone" during attack. There are no straight hallways in the bunker - they are all curved in an "s" shape in order to prevent attackers from shooting you in the back as you run away from them. Pretty trippy.
Milton Keynes show was last night. It was a DVD shoot, so there was all kinds of fanfare with that. All went well. Jay Z once again joined us onstage. Not received as well as Madison Square Garden. I think the difference was that they just watched an hour show with Jay Z prior to Linkin Park so they already knew he was there. At Madison Square Garden it was a total surprise. Still went off though.
Jay Z's set sounded really good. Met his FOH guy, Bryon "hot dog" Tate. Lots of great source material. The band is smoking. I found the set itself to be a little boring, but I guess I am just not a Jay Z fan.
Ran into a friend that I had not seen for 15 years. Andy Farkas. He was the production assistant on Whitney Houston - his first ever tour. Now he is the road manager for Jay Z. Really great to catch up with him and reminisce.
Stoked to be flying home - Can't wait to see my wife. It seems like I have been gone a REALLY long time. We are taking a little mini vacation for a few days. I do not know where we are going. Shellie has kept our destination a secret so that is kind of fun. Don't really care where I am going, as long as I get to go with her.
Off to Canada next week to do a few days prep for Projekt Revolution. We are having to combine the two board groups out here now for support acts, etc. Gonna spend three days at the Adamson shop. Looking forward to it.
I'll let you know where our surprise vacation was when I get back in a few days. ]]>http://poochblog.evilentertainment.net/index.php?entry=entry080630-0149552008-06-30T00:00:00Z2008-06-30T00:00:00ZPress,,,More press.....]]>http://poochblog.evilentertainment.net/index.php?entry=entry080626-0919142008-06-26T00:00:00Z2008-06-26T00:00:00ZWhere in the world is Carmen San Diego?
Could it be Beirut? Spain? Nope - Athens Greece. It is so weird how the earth is so homogenized. As I look out my hotel window I could be in about thirteen different countries. I often wonder if I am going to go crazy one day and wake up with the "mad cow" and have no idea where I am. Certainly looking out the window won't give me a clue.
I forgot to share this photo with you the other day. This is a shot of the drive snake that the audio company in Brno, Czechoslovakia had us plug into the other day.
Doesn't give you much confidence does it? Me either. Luckily it all worked. Goes to show you that looks can be deceiving. What stuff looks like should be left to the lighting guys, we will stick to how it sounds.
Munich and Athens shows since my last post. I have been going to youtube.com and watching some of the cell phone recordings that people post of the shows. Click here for an example. It is pretty cool to see what the show is like from a different perspective than where I always am at Front of House. There are some places where the dB restrictions are so great that when the band is playing you can't even hear them because people are screaming so loud. Check this out. Glad to see that people are having a great time at the shows.
Lately we have been setting up shows and having to sit around all afternoon at the venue because it is too far away from the hotel or we don't have a hotel room. This leads to real boredom. Paul was messing around and making a joke like he was pissed and going to throw the garbage can. What he didn't know was that the garbage can was full of wet garbage like coffee, soda, and wet pickles from McDonalds cheeseburgers. When he picked it up to act like he was gonna throw it, he got COVERED in wet garbage. Here is the after photo. Luckily he was wearing a rain coat. Nice work, Paul. have a towel.....
Yesterday we played an outdoor stage outside of Athens. Really beautiful. Reminded me of where I grew up in northern California. Here is a shot of Jim Digby, Production Manager, and AJ Pen, Lighting Designer looking from the stage out at FOH and mountains in the background. Good times.
]]>http://poochblog.evilentertainment.net/index.php?entry=entry080626-0445572008-06-26T00:00:00Z2008-06-26T00:00:00ZIn Dublin and RIP Scott.... Received some bad news yesterday. Scott Kalitta was killed in a horrific crash in New Jersey this weekend. He was an NHRA funny car driver. Tater is really good friends with many people in the drag race industry and actually knew Scott personally. I had met him on one occasion as well. Tater was devastated, as were most people that have ever had any contact with Scott. We both commented on how the last few years have really seen an upswing of accidents in the drag race circuit. I think that the cars are just TOO fast these days. 1/4 mile in just over three seconds? Basically you are driving a rocket ship. Technology seems to have surpassed safety, and it is a shame to have so many tragic accidents like this one. RIP Scott Kalitta. RIP Eric Medlen.
For the NHRA tribute web page to Scott, click here....]]>http://poochblog.evilentertainment.net/index.php?entry=entry080623-0947002008-06-23T00:00:00Z2008-06-23T00:00:00ZBrno and Austria to Venice..... The PA was D&B Audioteknik. I have used this before in festival situations, but this is the first time that I had all day to mess with it and tweak it. It is VERY similar to Adamson. It is now my second favorite PA at the moment. The difference between Adamson and D&B is the low mid. The 18"s in the Adamson box really give it an edge. The 12" speakers in the D&B just can't compete with the warmth that happens in the Adamson. Also the D&B feels a little less "friendly" and a bit more "aggresive" in the mid high. (In my humble opinion.) But I will have to say that it is a really good PA as well. Jonas from D&B came out to tune the PA and had it sounding really nice. Definitely knocked v-dosc down a notch in my list of favorite line array PA's. (Vdosc was previously my 2nd favorite line array.)
Traveled to Graz, Austria to a show in an arena/convention hall there. The PA was provided by a sound company I have used many times. (Last time at the Nova Rock festival last year.) Thomas had the V-dosc rig sounding really good. LOTS of PA - 16 a side with tons of sub. PLENTY of head room. The room itself was not a very good sounding room, but we overcame and did the best we could.
Down in the lobby of the hotel in Graz waiting to take the bus to the airport and fly to Venice, Italy for a day off. Gonna go into the city and get some good pasta tonight. Can't wait.]]>http://poochblog.evilentertainment.net/index.php?entry=entry080618-2326362008-06-19T00:00:00Z2008-06-19T00:00:00ZSHOWS canceled, off to the Czech Republic on the charter plane We actually went to the gig in Sweden and started setting up before we got the news that they were canceling, and Maurice got a new hat. This picture is in the morning after copious amounts of alcohol were had in Jönköping.
For a crew morale booster we went and had a crew dinner in Jönköping, Sweden. It was a lot of fun. We all sat at a long table that overlooked the water and the food was excellent. After a really nice dinner we hit the city. I ended up in a club with a bunch of youngsters all having a good time. Not my crowd really, but the alcohol was flowing and fun was had by all. Apparently Pat and Maurice rode back to the hotel from the club on someone's bicycle that they stole in front of the club. (We were about 2 miles from the club). Someone is missing their bike right now. Oooops. Alcohol makes roadies do crazy things. Pat is limping around today because while riding on the handlebars of the bike Maurice crashed no less than seven times, sending them into the bushes and parked cars. Doesn't sound like fun to me. I prefer a taxi.
Since the show was cancelled we flew straight to Brno, Czechoslovakia. Two days off here. A couple of days ago we started flying in our chartered plane. This is SO much more comfortable. We fly in and out of small regional airports so we don't have to deal with big airport security and hassle. Makes for a better traveling experience. The plane we have this time around is very nice and the crew is really cool. Here are the photos:
LOAD EM UP !!!!!
Maria is our stewardess and she is very nice. We get full meals and service just like when you fly commercially.
Because it is our plane, the pilots fly with the cockpit door open. This is a shot of them just hanging out while we are flying. (with the autopilot on.)
Two days of rest and recovery here in the Czech republic.]]>http://poochblog.evilentertainment.net/index.php?entry=entry080615-0623362008-06-15T00:00:00Z2008-06-15T00:00:00ZMobile Productions new issue.... Press about LP Overview of the Linkin Park Production - CLICK HERE.
All this traveling has made us a little loopy. Here is a photo of how we are traveling thru the airports these days. Mauricio and Pat were demonstrating the "greener" way to travel by only one person burning calories at a time while the other rides in a luggage cart. This requires less food, which in turn uses less bio fuel to get the food to market, etc. It really is a domino effect that has increasingly large implications on saving the environment. You should try it. While pushing Pat thru the Helsinki airport, there were several comments - including, but not limited to, "that is not a toy". If they only knew the things we are doing to save the environment they would not be haters.
Two shows in eastern block countries Lithuania and Latvia went very well. The version of Valentine's day in Latvia was interesting, and reported to the crowd by Cheser as the "special" version. I think he meant in a "short bus" kind of a way. WOW.
Anyway - we have a festival in Finland today. We are going on at 10 pm tonight and in the bright sunlight. Very creepy - this time of year the sun DOES NOT go down. It gets a little twilight like at midnight, but never fully goes down. Makes for bouts of insomnia.....
We FINALLY get to fly on the charter plane tonight. WOOO HOOOO - no more commercial flights until we go home. Same seats, and we can leave stuff on the plane instead of dragging shit everywhere. Makes for a much easier travel experience.
Three in a row and then day off in the Czech republic. Maybe I will look up my future mail order russian bride while I am there. If I feed her, wash her, and clean up the poop, I wonder if I can convince my wife to let me bring home a Czech girl. Probably not - good thing that my wife is really all the woman that I need.]]>http://poochblog.evilentertainment.net/index.php?entry=entry080613-0005262008-06-13T00:00:00Z2008-06-13T00:00:00ZPlanes, and automobiles and finally a day off in Lithuania...... I last left you in Copenhagen where we had a couple of really nice days off. Here is us hanging out on our days off in happier times:
And then it starts. We left at 6 am on the morning of the Copenhagen show and drove in a people (upright seat) bus for 5 and a half hours to the gig. Lame.
We get to the gig and the first gig is a small festival in northern Denmark in Skive. The stage was poorly built and the PA was too small and the lighting rig looked like it was about 30 years old. Great way to start the Euro leg. Woo hoo. We all were in good spirits though and were ready to tackle it all. Here is the stage:
Show goes well - another 5 and a half hours straight to the airport in Copenhagen. Flight - 3 and a half hours to Lisbon. When we arrive in Lisbon there was no transportation waiting for us so that made some people grumpy as we had no sleep except for on the upright seat bus from Skive.
From the airport straight to the gig in Lisbon - Rock in Rio. Big festival with The Muse, and The Offspring playing before us. Long day there but, got the show up and running. A VERY weird PA configuration. TWO sticks of Vertec with subs sandwiched in the middle PER SIDE. So basically they hung two 90 degree horn boxes next to each other. Without going into a full physics lesson, if you were to put the same information in both of these boxes the phase cancellation would have been a big problem. The work around was to put different things into the two different columns. I put all the band information in the inside column and the vocals and vocal efx in the outside. Required a bunch of matrix workaround within my console file, but seemed like I got it worked out. Hmmmm- an interesting concept in theory (a bird told me that my new friend Dave Ratt apparently does this all the time), but in practice I think this is a bad idea. No longer are you combining things electronically you are combining them acoustically which is fine, but a whole different animal, and would require a sound check to get it right. AND once you remove things from busses it makes your outputs react differently to compressors etc. Now that you have removed your vocals from the mix bus and put them in a matrix by themselves the mix bus reacts very differently. If I had a bunch of time to tune the PA, perhaps this would have worked well, but we arrived right at doors so no extensive listening was possible.
The show starts and the first song is OK. It is a little weird and I was struggling a little bit to get it to all work and combine and sound all right. Usual first song knob turning. 2nd song starts, I trigger my second snapshot and BOOOM no vocals. OH FUCK. After working out all the matrixing to get the vocals to happen in the outside column only I neglected to do that in all my snapshots. (Dumb ass - must have been the sleep depravation) . I quickly re assigned all my vocals and efx to the mix bus and mixed the rest of the show only using the inside column. In the end it sounded pretty good with the "tradiional" PA config. What is the lesson in all of this? Experimentation with new PA designs is good, just NOT on a huge 90,000 person festival, AND no sleep for two days makes me grumpy.
After the show we actually got to go back to the hotel for two hours for an ass washing and 45 minutes of R&R. Then off to the Lisbon airport at 5:30 am.
Lisbon, Portugal to Madrid, Spain - 2 hour flight. Straight to the hotel in Madrid for a couple of hours of sleep. Up and adam to the bull ring in Madrid. Set up goes well. Got a chance to tune the PA a little bit before doors (LUXURY). By this time we are all feeling the effects of no sleep and lots of travel and it just turns us silly. This is Patrick Lachman - he is filling in for Sean Paden as Brad's guitar tech on this leg. Sean is going to be a father and is at home with his wife having a baby. This is Patrick's interpretation of how that is going.
Everybody tries to get a couple of hours of sleep before the show and then we do the changeover. During the changeover the local PA company's crossover rack (galileo) just takes a dump. NOT WORKING. Holy shit. This could be a show stopper. Chis "Cookie" Hoff is my systems engineer on this leg of the tour, and he jumps into action. Luckily we are carrying three Dolby Lake units that we use for Digital matrixing and line drivers. Cookie quickly reconfigures the Lakes to become the crossover for the PA. Luckily the PA that day was Meyer Milo and Cookie is very familiar with the box. We did not have the Lake preset for Milo so Cookie basically had to insert filters on the eq page to mimic what would normally be in the preset. There is a little behind the scenes voodoo that Meyer does in their preset that we could not duplicate, but we did our best. Meanwhile I am freaking a little bit, because at this point we really don't know what it is going to sound like when we start the show. All bets are off, and it is survival mode just to pull off a show and get paid. Show starts, we make a few adjustments, and it actually sounded pretty good, considering. Kudos to Cookie. Two things prevented that show from being cancelled. 1) we are carrying units that can be configured as crossovers, and 2) Chris "Cookie" Hoff was there.
After the show we went back to the hotel in Madrid and actually got a full five hours. (Felt like about two minutes). Then off to the airport. Madrid, Spain to Helsinki, Finland to Vilnius, Lithuania. 7 hours of travel to a hotel in Lithuania.
I just slept all night and am still pretty tired. I want to go see the old city this afternoon, as I have never been to Lithuania, but am pretty snookered. We shall see if I can pull myself up and out. Maybe I will go for a walk and see what I can see.
All and all - quite an interesting bunch of days. Haven't had that much excitement in a long time. I guess it is what keeps us young at heart.]]>http://poochblog.evilentertainment.net/index.php?entry=entry080609-0052232008-06-09T00:00:00Z2008-06-09T00:00:00ZCopenhagen is beautiful..... I don't know what the deal is, but I have been bombarded by cancer stories in the past few days. I really hope it isn't a sign. Unfortunately cancer seems to be touching everyone these days. It is horrible. On the plane over I watched, P.S. I love you. I know, I know, it is a chick flick, but somehow I got sucked into it because there wasn't anything else that I wanted to see. If you don't know, it is a film about a man who dies of cancer and leaves his wife letters about how to get on with her life for years after his death. I have to admit that I was very emotional thru it and even shed a tear or two. I can't imagine what I would do if I lost a loved one to cancer. If anything ever happened to Shellie, I don't know if I could be as strong as some people are and just continue with my life. My life is fragile enough, and if tragedy were to happen I think my psyche would be fractured, if not destroyed. God forbid.
Another friend of mine is a Lieutenant on the USS Decatur. They just recently left for a tour, near the desert, defending yours and my liberties. He sent me an inspirational email about a fellow officer that was fighting terminal cancer and all he wanted before he died was to move up in rank to chief petty officer. His illness prevented him from passing some of the requirements necessary for the rank, but several people pulled together and awarded him the rank of Chief Petty Officer prior to the inevitable.
Both of these things really touched me and made me re-evaluate just how lucky I am. People every single day are effected by this horrible disease. I hope and pray that I will not have to go thru that or put my family thru it.
Weird how sometimes life makes you think.]]>http://poochblog.evilentertainment.net/index.php?entry=entry080603-0437092008-06-03T00:00:00Z2008-06-03T00:00:00ZOff to Denmark.... Here are some photos of my FOH set up for rehearsals.
We did a super secret show to promote Projekt Revolution 2008. Busta Rhymes came in and did a song with the band, and also Chris Cornell came down and did some press.
We have been eating really well (good means bad) this week. From Baskin Robbins to In and out - you name it - we ate it. It feels a bit like the last supper before we go to europe and eat really bad festival catering. I will be spending the next month NOT eating well - so I took this opportunity to eat my weight in food. Been good times, but it will be good to get back to my schedule of eating right.
Speaking of eating - Went to a friend of ours today for a BBQ. Five different meats smoked from the night before and grilled veggies and naan bread. Holy cow - good stuff.
We are flying to Denmark tomorrow via London. Then a day off before the onslaught. ]]>http://poochblog.evilentertainment.net/index.php?entry=entry080531-1959002008-06-01T00:00:00Z2008-06-01T00:00:00ZDinner at Molly's....... Motley Crue is rehearsing across the parking lot so I got to see some old roadie friends. Really good to see Andy, Scotty, and Viggy. Guys that I have worked with, and been friends with, for years. I guess they are rehearsing and gearing up for the big tour that Motley is doing this summer. Tommy Lee's drum kit is HUGE. I think one of the floor toms is a 32 inch thing that looks like a kick drum. Funny.]]>http://poochblog.evilentertainment.net/index.php?entry=entry080526-1456272008-05-26T00:00:00Z2008-05-26T00:00:00ZThe set up...... Gonna go have dinner with a good friend tonight. Supposed to BBQ in her backyard with a bunch of us roadies. Should be lots of fun.
Back tomorrow with the rest of the backline to set up.]]>http://poochblog.evilentertainment.net/index.php?entry=entry080525-1827072008-05-26T00:00:00Z2008-05-26T00:00:00ZHere we go again....... My wife's laptop screen died after six years yesterday so we have to buy her a new laptop today. $3K I wasn't planning on spending. GEEEZ - why is it that just when you feel like you get ahead and are saving money the dishwasher breaks, or the Laptop takes a poo? Damnit man.]]>http://poochblog.evilentertainment.net/index.php?entry=entry080520-0630482008-05-20T00:00:00Z2008-05-20T00:00:00ZHome for a second...... and he blows it.......http://poochblog.evilentertainment.net/index.php?entry=entry080520-0619542008-05-20T00:00:00Z2008-05-20T00:00:00ZVerona Italy... at 3 pm.... Robert "ragman" Long - Stage Manager
Yes that is 3:15 PM on my watch and look at how much gear is set up.
]]>http://poochblog.evilentertainment.net/index.php?entry=entry080513-0633522008-05-13T00:00:00Z2008-05-13T00:00:00ZDone at 5 am loading in at 11 am.... Tomorrow is three of three in a row and it is an outdoor amphitheater that is a historic place. It is pushing gear over cobblestone and a real pain in the ass. Great place to see a show, not so much fun to work at. Leaving after that show to travel home. Verona, Italy to Frankfurt, Germany to Dallas, TX. Once again on Southwestthansa. :sad:]]>http://poochblog.evilentertainment.net/index.php?entry=entry080512-0423592008-05-12T00:00:00Z2008-05-12T00:00:00ZClearing the land.... Click here to see the photos of the property.]]>http://poochblog.evilentertainment.net/index.php?entry=entry080512-0415342008-05-12T00:00:00Z2008-05-12T00:00:00ZJogging?.... Who knew.... Went and had a really nice dinner with the noise boys. We had Indian food and it was delicious. The only thing weird was that it was in the same building that a mini mart for a gas station was. Scary at first, but after the first food came out we settled in.
Three more days here with KISS and then homebound. The load in today is going slow. It is 2 pm and one side of the PA is up and we have NO points for the other side. Gonna be a long day.]]>http://poochblog.evilentertainment.net/index.php?entry=entry080511-0424112008-05-11T00:00:00Z2008-05-11T00:00:00ZKiss in Germany
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