myBLOG-Online

Who would be a sound engineer?

Yesterday was an all day event at Voodoo Lounge which in itself was fine, it didn’t exactly go to plan, bands not turning up, leaving the earlier bands without a drum kit as they had agreed to let them use their kit. If it weren’t for other drummers in the house donating their drum kit for the first couple of bands, it would have been an even bigger disaster. Anyway, I bring up the subject because of the last band to play who shall remain nameless at this time took liberties and played a much longer set than agreed playing almost double the amount of time the promoter and band agreed. I don’t mind a band doing an encore of one or two songs, but the crowd kept on demanding further encores and they kept on playing. I eventually cut them off at 1am, and I got a load of abuse from certain members of the crowd because I turned off their vocals. Two songs before that I turned off all the backline channels, you would have thought that would have given them a clue that it’s time to call it a day. Anyway I basically told the guy who was getting on my back that if he didn’t step out of the sound booth (which is a staff only area) I would be forced to ask security to forcibly remove him, he them threw some more abuse at me and left. I could have easily lost my temper and threw him out of the booth, but I kept my cool, I was sober and a professional, there’s no need to bring myself down to that level. A sound engineers decision is final, bands and their fans need to deal with that, I know of other engineers that would have simply cut them off if they played an extra song past their agreed time, so I think I gave them more than enough leeway. I had no choice, live music nights end at 1am, it’s as simple as that, no arguments. If it was in the Phoenix they wouldn’t have even have got to play as the night was running as late as it was, it should have been over by 11:30pm originally, but problems earlier in the day made that impossible. Even with the delays the night would have finished at about 12:15 if the final band played the time they agreed! Ultimately I think they ruined their set by playing on, if they ended on the song they should have ended on, it would have been a brilliant performance, infact probably the best performance I have seen from them. But when they played on people started leaving the venue; only the hardcore fans stayed after that. It was a disappointing end to an otherwise excellent evening session.

I don’t have much to say on the football front, another defeat for Argyle away at St Andrews. Birmingham were the better team on the day, I have no argument with that, Plymouth didn’t play as well as I know they can, Argyle had a good start but fell apart under the pressure from City. The game was over but for the shouting come half time with the home team having a three goal cushion over the visitors. Plymouth drop back to 11th again, looks like the play-off charge is all but over, Plymouth have been steadily slipping down the league over the last month. As an Argyle fan I should be more than used to this sort of thing, having a good start; fading through mid season, then pick up again near the end of the season when it’s too late to do anything useful, disappointing result for the Green Army! My premiership interest did much better beating Wigan 0 – 4 at the JJB Stadium. All Liverpool’s goals came in the first half with Craig Bellamy grabbing two (9, 26), Dirk Kuyt (40) and Lee McCulloch compounded Wigan’s misery with an own goal in the 45th minute; a game to forget for Wigan! This comprehensive away win moves Liverpool upto 5th in the league level on points with early season league leaders Portmouth, 3 down on goal difference.

In cricket, England did well on day three of the second test in Adelaide, knocking over five wickets for 312 runs. But you have to feel that this match will end in a draw with the wicket being so flat, neither England’s or Australia’s bowlers could get any sort of movement on the wicket. England’s only hope was for Australia to have to follow on and bowl them out for less than England’s first innings total, but that isn’t going to happen. Unless something spectacular happens, it’s going to end in a disappointing draw which obviously suits Australia more than England as the Aussies already have a 1 – 0 Ashes series lead!

Have Something To Say About This Post? Please Comment Below!