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44
Welcome To My Nightmare
Walking Into , er, Philly…
I
have never considered anything that has
gone wrong, or changed, to be a nightmare.
It has always been a learning experience,
and then I keep it in the back of my
head for the future. However, I just got back
from a nightmare.
We did a private event with a big
name act one night. I brought the PA,
tweaked it to my liking and then let
the band’s engineer take over with his
board. All I did was take a feed from him
and then let him do his thing. At the
last minute, we got another show in the
same room with the same gear the following
day. The only thing that I could
get out of anyone is that two big names
are to show up. Great, the truck left and
now I have this to think about. On top
of that, I will not have a monitor engineer
and I only have two wedges that I
can give them. I knew I was walking into
hell.
The day of the show comes and we get
in five hours before show time. I start working
with what I can. Three hours before show
In The Trenches
Stewart Godfrey
FOH Engineer
Village Sound Company
Owings Mills, MD
www.villagesoundcompany.com
410.356.2121
sgodfrey@villagesoundco.com
Services Provided: Live sound reinforcement,
design and installation of AV systems.
Clients: Recent festivals include the Federal
Hill Festival in Baltimore and the Projekt
Music Festival in Winchester, Va.; Biodiesel,
Dr. Fameus, Kelly Bell Band, The Bridge,
Basshound, The Cheaters and many other
local Baltimore acts.
Quote: “Whatever you do, take care of your
shoes.”
Personal Info: I graduated from Salisbury
University in 2005, and then from the Sheffield
Recording Institute in 2006. I have
been working at Village Sound Company for
a little over two years now and continue to
rock with great Baltimore bands!
Hobbies: Drums, guitar, recording, running,
wiffle ball and traveling.
Equipment: Yamaha M7CL & LS9, Midas
Venice 320, Meyer Sound MSL4s, UPA-1s
and 650-Ps.
Don’t Leave Home Without: Coffee and a
Sharpie.
Hell
Stewart Godfrey
NOVEMBER 2008 www.fohonline.com
Technical Coordinator
for Performing Arts
Longwood Gardens, Inc.
Kennett Square, PA
longwoodgardens.org
610.388.1000
khomer@longwoodgardens.org
Services Provided: Complete audio,
lighting and video production.
Ken Homer
Clients: Sophie Milman, Turtle Island
Quartet, Kenny Garrett, Derek Trucks Band,
Susan Tadeschi, Trout Fishing in America,
Eric Bibb.
Quote: “Life is a bitter pill.”
www.tonygleeson.com
Personal Info: 35 years in the biz running
clubs and venues or touring doing audio.
Hobbies: Reading and pingpong.
Equipment: Soundcraft, Yamaha, Crown,
QSC JBL, EV, Community, EAW, Shure, AKG,
Neumann, ETC.
time and I get stage plots. I need eight mixes
and nine wedges plus amps. Now I need
an engineer and one that can run a digital
board. We find an engineer — he was great
— and we found some wedges somewhere
with Crown amps.
We are still setting up during that first
band’s sound check. The second band
comes on stage and moves everything!
Mics get cross-patched and are everywhere
now. It took the both of us forever to figure
out where every mic was. Each band played
about 25 minutes and we had a few minutes
for changeover. It was relentless — no one
telling me anything and everything getting
cross-patched.
I look back at it now and can laugh
because I could have done a few things to
make things easier, and I still can’t believe
how fast I was moving that day. What I didn’t
mention was that I was in Philly, and anyone
that works out there knows that it is nothing
but hell!
Brian Crowley
Ken Homer
Don’t leave home without: Sharpie, Gaff,
Leatherman, flashlight and good help.
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