Last night at the Phoenix sound desk went fine, in fact the best instrumental sound I have ever had, well for all but one band, but more on that later. Each guitar was clearly audible in the mix, but remained nicely in phase with the other guitar and bass, and the drum sound was amazing, plenty of punch and no ringing sound from the snare, but when you have a quality kit, you don’t expect it. Right onto the band that sounded bloody awful; the backline was way too loud, as soon as they started playing, I just turned all the backline channels off, and boosted the vocals to max, and pretty much let it feedback just to make the vocals audible over the backline. I didn’t have any control over the sound at all, I could have spent the whole set tweaking the equalisers, but it would be pointless, so I didn’t bother. I spoke to the lead vocalist after their set and he said “that’s what happens when you don’t have monitors” when I said that the backline was stupidly loud, frankly it’s pure arrogance, and frankly I couldn’t give a fuck if they sounded shit. Everyone that moaned at me in the crowd, was promptly told, “moan at the band, its not my fault”. OK, I know the lack of monitors is a problem, but it really doesn’t need to be that loud, when the PA has trouble keeping up (and it’s a 4,000watt PA) without feeding back, it’s a small venue (150 capacity) feedback will be a problem, which is why everything needs to be at a reasonable volume so the soundman can control the levels for the best sound at front of house. I am certainly not taking the blame for this one, as Phil often says, “you cant polish a turd!”
In Formula One, today’s race was probably the most exciting in years , with Fernando Alonso finishing just milliseconds ahead of Michael Schumacher, Alonso held the German off for the last 15 laps with a car that was over 2 seconds slower than Schumacher’s Ferrari at this stage of the race. Everyone knows that I am not a big fan of Ferrari or Schumacher, but I respect what both team and driver have achieved. It’s worrying to see the Ferrari so quick; I hope the other teams can match the Ferrari’s pace in upcoming races to keep it interesting. It’s also good to see that BAR are getting their act together now, with Jenson Button claiming the final podium spot, and team mate Takuma Sato finishing in 5th spot, which is a big improvement as neither car had finished a Grand Prix previously this season. Even the much-criticised Jacques Villeneuve managed a points paying position for Sauber, finishing in a respectable 6th postion. Substitute McLaren driver, Alex Wurz finished in a 4th position after not racing since 2000, and the two Toyota’s of Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher finished in 7th and 8th respectively. I really hope that this is a sign of things to come, making F1 exciting to watch once again, the previous four years have been boring with Schumacher and Ferrari dominating everything in sight!
In football, I check the results on my way home from work [that’ll be my job at Derrys] to see that Plymouth Argyle were 1 – 0 down at Home Park against Coventry, and it was still the same just minutes from the end, so I was resigned to yet another home defeat as I left for the Phoenix. But upon getting home, I was informed my friend Tomas that Argyle had equalised deep in injury time courtesy of Tony Capaldi getting on the end of an Akos Busaky cross, salvaging a point from the tie. Which consolidates Argyle’s position of 15th in the table, now five points off the drop zone, so with only two games left to play, the Pilgrims would be unlucky to go down this season. Here’s looking forward to a more prosperous 2005/06 season, having survived their first Championship season [hopefully].