Fear and Weirdness in Def Leppard

[wellREDman]

well OK here goes.
we had the first rehearsal run through with the band yestarday, and it went really well, and Im no longer convinced that Im a fraud who has no right to be performing at this level :nod:

the worst thing about video for band tours, is that the video budget is always the last thing to be allocated, despite being the thing that needs the most lead time.
when i was first asked to do this tour , i told em it was a deal breaker that everything had to be signed and sealed one month before the tour started. i wish I'd said 2 months, cos i literally got the "go" signal with 28 days to go

the first bombshell was that unlike every other band ive toured with, the set list wasnt a set, but a list of songs which they pick from on a daily basis, so instead of being able to burn a dvd with the background video layer of each song ,in order, im having to use my lappy as a dvd player to give me random access to each track.

the second bombshell was the list was not 10-15 songs like I'd expected but 32 songs !!
I'd also not taken into account that the first week of my one month lead time was Avit in birmingham!!

so 32 songs in 3 weeks !! (i normally allow four days prep time per song )
the only way i could achieve that was to spend my entire content creation budget on farming out loop making to other VJ's to supplement what i could do in that time.
(big thanks to Charlie, amakudi, Holly, Kyle, Nice Guy dave, RayV, syzygy, silenteclipse, Bench and Tom English). it felt good to be in a position to share some of my windfall with the community, but the flaw in this plan, was that i spent as much time project managing all these freelancers as i did making shit , DOH

the next issue was kit, apart from the fact that playing at this level meant I had to have the fastest possible computers (in a stadium you cant get away with pixels on screen, or a lag on live fx !) it also meant that i had to be completely prepared for Kit failure, so for every mission critical peice of kit i had to have a spare , computers, mixers, midicontrols, monitors, it all quickly adds up, not to mention how weird it was after having slowly painfully built up my rig up over the years to just go out and buy another one !
we also had to have backups of all the system instalsl on the computers, as well as the media on them.
thank god i also insisted that i have a video tech along to look after my hardware, and thank god for sleepytom who is filling that role, and built the computer and midi side of the new rig, and dealt with all the technical issues like the fact that amerikans use odd power.

we also had extra nightmares when we were told we had to ship the kit out a full week earlier than we'd expected, again taking my time away from content creation as we had to all concentrate on getting the rig fully functional in a couple of intense allnight sessions.

There was also fun and games at the american embassy getting our Work Visas, when we turned up for our appointment we discovered that we didnt have a neccesary piece of paper, which was still en route from the Record company in New York, the embassy gave us til 11 am to produce it, so we ended up standing outside the embassy waiting for a courier, who's estimated time of arrival was 11 am!
we got it in the nick of time, ran through security(hairy moment there indeed) and got a ticket for another interview (which read 10:59 whooot )

Day 1
so after three weeks of 18 hour days, averaging 4 hours sleep a night, we arrived very jetlagged in amerika, still waiting on delivery of half the content I'd outsourced, and having only made a quarter of the content i'd planned. again thank god for sleepytom as after intially setting up the rig, i was able to dishappear into the production office with my laptop to work on content whilst he and Bruce sorted out midi issues and projector nightmares
talking of which, they both spent a very stressful day trying to get the two beamers matched up because of the two remotes that came with them, one worked only intermittently, and the other didnt work at all.
Bruce spent nearly 4 hours on day one sitting on a wedge monitor ardously lining up the projector , managing to move it about one increment very half hour, while we waited with baited breath to see whether we'd have it looking good for when the production manager arrived.
which he did with literally five minutes to go before all the crew bosses snapped to attention when the big Kahuna turned up (and i mean big, the guy is about 8 feet high, and one of the most commanding individuals I've ever met )
he signed off on it, and we were finally able to leave the building around midnight, having got there around 830 am.( dont let anyone tell you touring is easy work !!)
so off to bed for Bruce and tom, and another long night infront of after fx for me
:nod:
the one upside to day one was when we turned up and saw the trucks, four giant shiny RED bulldog macks, which of course i had to pose for a photo infront of :nod: (pics of it all to follow when sleepy gets hold of an adaptor for his phone's memory card)

day 2
despite going to sleep around 5 am, i was up and jangling at 9 oclock so took a ride into the venue earlier than my call time so as to finish setting up my fx patch, and load all the content into banks on the vjamm computer, oh and continue rendering content !
the band were sposed to be there at 12 so i was extremely greatful of their rock'n'rollness when they ambled in at 3 giving me 3 extra hours in which to finally have a set prepared.

which is when it started to be all alright,
the new camera set up is a dream -weve got all the cameras going into a pair of V1's before they get to the rig proper, so i can control selecting which camera im using with my midi footswitches, so im now finally using both hands and both feet to control stuff. really operating at the edge of human capability (left foot selects cameras, right foot operates xfadrs on the V4s via expression pedals on footswitch, left hand triggers clips in vjamm with an akai mpd, right hand controls vjo FX with joystick- thats the last time i accept any snide comment from women about men not being able to multitask)

as we dived into the set with the band the other thing that made it all ok was realising that having 2 operated cameras rather than the just the brucecam im used to (sleepy doubles as second camera during shows) and the stunning quality of bruce's new suite of broadcast spec mini cams meant that the amount of video content needed was way less than i'd feared.
so first run through of the set done, the band loved what we did, Vid the production manager was happy with what he saw, and we all enjoyed the music much more than we'd expected, live they are way better than their IMHO overproduced records, much rawer and rockier, closer to their zeppelin/T-rex musical influences.

the other thing that had been fearing me out, was the fact that the LD, an auteur prodigy from tokyo, who speaks next to no english had not responded to any of my emails trying to integrate the lights and video, but when the show started it was a releif to see that he had set his colourschemes to mine on the few songs where i'd requested specific colours.
and afterwards Vid took us both aside for a meeting where he used a niffty little translator program on mis mac to go through changes we both could make to what were doing to complement each other. so all good on that front too.

Day 3
well after an incredibly welcome 9 solid hours sleep, im sitting here in my hotel room typing this, much more relaxed and reassured that APT is gonna live up to it's reputation, and deliver a pukka show and take a club type VJ Experience to an audience who wont have seen this kinda shit before.
off to second day of rehearsal now. and looking forward to working on tweaking/improving, rather than deparately trying to get enuff content together to fill the set.

hope this has been interesting

catch yall later.

[syzygy]

great post red! Its good to read so many details of how you're getting on.

I'm glad things are going well for you and that you're liking the music. I wonder if bryan adams will supass expections too...

Is that custom plugin doing the job?

Dan.

[Kyle]

Red,
Excellent adventures stories for your grand kids. When you write your first book don?t forget about us. :D

[Intrinsic]

Very nice to read a story about life like this :) thx for this Red :) and keep it coming! Must be a grand experience to actually be there and do this! :D

Cheers,
Thomas / Intrinsic

[wellREDman]

Originally posted by syzygy

Is that custom plugin doing the job?

Dan.

fantasically thanks,

[DrEskaton]

not sure personally if I ever want to VJ at that level. It's bad enough dealing with egos and politics at the level of "international" trance acts (eg not really very big), I can't imagine what it must be like dealing with the levels of ego, prima donnishness and "white powders" involved in real rock stars.

good luck to you wellREDman, you're a braver man than me.....

[dreamteck]

awesome read :)

Sounds like tough work but all very rewarding/satisfying in the end !

now i know why Sleepytom isn't around to send me my Korg Entrancer :yep:

[dansmachine]

Congratulations with this great job, and thanks for your story. I hope more of this will follow, and the good vibe remains.
I was impressed by your setup using all limbs! Ever considered an eyeball-motion-tracker for vjamm-clip-placement? (-;

Cheers!

[InsideUsAll]

nice one guys, pats on the back all round. and best of luck with the tour.

Dave x

[RayV]

Woohoo, what a read!
i had moments of real stress while reading!

Many smiles to u3 -
Respect !

very lucky you even dig the music!

fingers are crossed for the rest of the tour

(oh btw - 1.66 GB done on sleepy's server now)

& that thread gonna be awsom to read, looking forward for the next chapter
:yep:

[mondo]

go guys go!!
wikked blog - MORE!!

and we are only upto rehearsals - its like reading julian cope's "head on" - r&r madness beckons.

keep it up - there is deffo a book in there that i would hapily buy. make sure tom takes LOTS of pictures before during and after every wired/weirdo event

thanks red for spending teh time to blog it - it'll be worth it.

enjoy every minute....and try a midi-cybersuit next time - you'll be able to patch in your third leg for extra control when things get interesting.!!

RAWK ON

:yep:

[vjrei]

Nice experience...

I am glad I have the oportunity to be at the Ultra Festival here with V2 and Tek because many of those technical question were answered and while I was reading your history many shortcuts came to my mind with the content and buch of other things, at the end, is experience what we get and that is the best reward.

I would cover everything with an Edirol V7 to start with, a V4 as a mixer and a Powerbook with Motion Dive 3 as an spare computer, just those 3 things are enough for a concert to start with.

The Egos are always there, I had the bad experienece when the keyboard player of Rabbit in the moon came from the stage in the middle of the show to scream!!! to V2 because some stupid problem.

But we all have to be very diplomatic. Sometimes you have to realized that many of those band have been on the road for many many years and I assume I would be tire at one point of having to deal with some one elses inexperience. But Again, is a matter of being a ground up professionally too on both side.

[WordVirus23]

you'll be in Fresno, CA... my hometown
if you'd like to catch a pint, give me a PM
peace
..james...

[MoRpH]

Great to hear the story so far mate, glad its coming together ;)

[MoRpH]

Originally posted by mondo

enjoy every minute....and try a midi-cybersuit next time - you'll be able to patch in your third leg for extra control when things get interesting.!

Hehehe whole new way of lookin @ COCK ROCK :P

[Kyle]

Originally posted by WordVirus23
you'll be in Fresno, CA... my hometown
if you'd like to catch a pint, give me a PM
peace
..james...

James, They do pints in CA....i thought it was more like 40 oz or pitchers. Break out the OE or Colt 45 give em some Compton flava...lol:D

[wellREDman]

okay ill keep doing this , but its gonna be intermittent cos its lots of work/long hours atm, im hoping that this will be just during the preproduction/ rehearsal phase and will settle down once were into straight gigging.

one downside already, is weve been told its a no comp tour , which basically means crew dont get Guest list places except for family, so there goes my dream of getting to meet a vj in every city :(
Im hoping to be able to blag the odd one thogh on the grounds that we dont have any family in amerika

anyway got to rush off again to practice swapping over between us and Bryan adams, and back again, then a final run through of the set before the first show tomorrow

heres a couple of pics to be getting on with.
http://sleepytom.co.uk/apt/Def%20Lep%20Tour%20Pics/APT%20Rig%20mark%20VI%20sml.jpg
http://sleepytom.co.uk/apt/Def%20Lep%20Tour%20Pics/Matching%20trucks%20sml.jpg

http://sleepytom.co.uk/apt/Def%20Lep%20Tour%20Pics/empty%20venue%20sml.jpg

[alangeering]

do you ever fear someone coming along an accidentally unplugging a cable?

Sometime you must give us a run down of your rig and how it performs and what you'd have done differently.

[Kyle]

You are like the Wizard of Oz with all your switches, levers, and buttons.:wizard:

[vjpixylight]

I'm suprised to see only the one screen??
anyhow it looks tops and very professional mates!
Keep up the good work, and most certainly chronical it!!

cheers

Pix-o-later

[WordVirus23]

LOL... well kyle, we do have 40's and olde E... but yeah, there are plenty of places that still serve ye olde ale. sounds like RED is gonna have his hands pretty full tho...

RED: if ya have a spare hour during the day, drop me a PM :Smoking:

..james...

Originally posted by Kyle
James, They do pints in CA....i thought it was more like 40 oz or pitchers. Break out the OE or Colt 45 give em some Compton flava...lol:D

[mondo]

how was teh first gig?
just spoke to dfuse <doing beck tour>
and uva <doing u2 etc>

seems trouble with lampies is common, but nothing compared to the egos and wanky production managers who dont give a shit about vjs.

seems you guys have more involvement than most - keep it together - there is a long road ahead!!

keep it going!!

[wellREDman]

day 1
day2
day3
...............
day 20

there was a reason i didnt want to do a blog/tourdiary, the chances of me getting it together to do a regular thing were always worse than zero,
access to internet is intermittent, on gig days it requires sitting in the production office, where there often isnt room because of all the other ppl using it for "production".on days off(like now) we have internet in hotel rooms, but so far my days off have ben spent either running around strange towns trying to find a radio shack, editing furiously because the band added a new song to the set, or sleeping/drinking.

so anyway,
first gig went ok, the size of the audience was scary though,its the first time ive done the cliche, and thrown up due to nerves backstage. Ive played audiences nearly as big with Public Domain, but with them im a band member, so up until show time, im in the dressing room with them drinking,and hit the stage with them rather than sitting in the wing, waiting and watching the vast crowd, stone sober

the second went better, and so on
one of the nice things about doing visuals for touring band is that using the same footage for the same songs night after night means that you can keep tweaking/practicing as you go and getting a better and better show.

horror stories so far:
well the first breakdown was a revelation, as far as vjing goes we're fairly roadready (all kit in flightcases, cables loomed together) but compared to the bands backline, who we're sharing a truck with, we might as well have had a cable spiderwebmess like most other vjs ive seen. theyre packed and rolling into the truck in minutes it seems, and after the first breakdown it was quite plain we were a bit of a liability, so our first day off was spent rebuilding the rig in a spare room at the next venue, and rationalising all our cabling/mounting as much as we could to get a quicker/more efficient breakdown. but next time im building a new rig, with everything in one massive case on wheels, plug power, signal to beamer and cameras and go :)


the backline guys have been really patient with us though, and accepted us into the fold in a way that i dont think they normlly do with vidiots.
It seems like video guys have a really bad reputation amongst the rock touring crew fraternity, most video ppl who do touring are arrogant types from tv backgrounds, who wont lift or rig, and dont mix well with the rest of the crew. was told that the backline guys were far from happy when they were told theyd be sharing a bus with video, but since several have told me they were pleasantly surprised at how cool and rock,n,roll we are,

the other main problem we've had is overheating, the top projector has cut out several times , because were outside, we have to cover the beamers with a tarp, and because theyre stacked the top one is obviously getting all the heat from the bottom one,
also had a nightmare gig at a festival we did in Atlanta,
to start with it was a fairly gruelling drive to get there,14 hours from dallas overnight, not knwing if we were gonna hit the tropical storm that was between us and the gig, and only an hour or two in the schedule for delays, then when we got there, the only place i could set up was practically onstage with the band, and the production manager decided he wanted to hide me so i didnt look like a keyboard player, so he swathed my rig in black plastic screen held up by mic stands, which i wasnt too happy about, and insisted that there was a chink so i could at least see out. so anyway, black plastic sheeting around the back of computers doesnt do well for the airflow, and two songs in my vjamm machine went belly up.. I looked around for sleepy only to realise i'd sent him into the audience to take some pictures(he wasnt camera opping that show cos of the festival situation0
so i left an effect on bruce's camera feed up and went round the back of the rig myself, to try and patch the latop into where the vjamm machine went but with all the hecticness of the production manager looking on dissaprovingly. and all the fucking black sheeting everywhere, i then proceeded to disconnect the vjo fx computer too...blue screen on a massive LED wall in front of the biggest audience of the tour so far....whoop de doo

i also caused a bit of a hullaballoo two night ago
the band added a new song in called "gods of War" so naturally im doing the whole anti war protest video bit, but there was a bit of a fuckup with getting stock footage before we left so ive come away with no vid of bush/blair etc. after the first time we did it in soundcheck joe the lead singer asked where was bush etc. and i said i'd get tom to download some, in the short time we had between soundcheck and show all he could come up with was the bit where Bush flips the bird to camera. I went and found a band member and checked it was ok to use it, he said OK , but neither of us remembered just where we were playing that night....Florida, home of right wing bigotry....whoops....
next days papers read..."there was a smattering of booing, for the video accompanying gods of war which shows george bush flipping the bird at the audiece"... double whoops,
but im thinking it must also be some kind of record, ive never heard of a vj being booed before :nod:

another nice story comes from one of the guitar techs, he has earphones and is listening to his guy turned up loud in them, and was looking at the screen during a bit where the guitars has some big whammy bar swoops in it as i laid on a swooshy radial blur perfectly in time with the whoo whos of the guitar, to such and extent that he lost his balance,
as a vj youve got to be doing something right when you can make peole fall over :nod:

as far as ego's and stuff goes, i think weve been really lucky, both of the big rock bands i work for are really nice down to earth blokes, so far on this tour ive not had any experience of rock n roll egomania in any form, the band are really nice, approachable types who treat me like an equal, which is more than can be said for a certain dance/rock crossover band whose farewell shows we did last year.
in fact the closest thing to superstar behaviour ive witnessed is the odd fact that ive still not seen bryan adams at all apart from when he's actually playing, I think he teleports from his tourbus to the stage and back.

i thinkwe've really lucked out on getting Def Lep as our first major tour, the whole crew and company have such a nice, all-in-this-together family atmosphere, compared to the horror stories were hearing about other big rock acts. In fact most of the backline guys normally work with bands of an even greater pay/ production size(names witheld) but turn them down when def lep tour because of the close knit family feeling a def lep tour has.

the only trouble were really having with lampies is the language barrier, the LD is quite into the video and compliments me on it most nights,
in fact the problem we have with the lights is the opposite to the ones most club VJ's have. in club, you get lots of lightspill on the screen, and not enuff lights for cameras to work well. Here the LD is most of the time aware of keeping his lights clear of the screen, but the band themselves are so well lit we have problems with the cameras bleaching out and overexposing ...go figure

whats really nice though is the audience reactions, apart from U2 etc, all the big rock acts that have video just have a sedate, close up on the singer etc. type camera mixing, like a tv show of the gig, so none of the audience has been exposed to full on in your face european rave visuals before, so the wow factor for them is immense, its really nice when talking to ppl afterwards, when they find out i did the video, theyre like "wow man that was amazing,intense etc." such a long way from the indifference from munted uk club audiences.
the other nice thing about touring amerika , is that most places have a 10pm noise curfew, so were generally back on the bus and drinking by 12 at the latest, i so dont miss those 6am-by the-time-your-finished european gigs :)

anyway, thatll do for now, next installemant at some point in the future, and ill finish with a few more pics

[wellREDman]

sorry there s a firewall in the hotel so im gonna have to attach pics,
and cant work out how to attach them all in one post

[wellREDman]

:nod:

[wellREDman]

....

[wellREDman]

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[wellREDman]

.

[wellREDman]

/

[wellREDman]

,

[wellREDman]

-

[wellREDman]

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[wellREDman]

--

[wellREDman]

=

[wellREDman]

:nod: :nod: :nod: :nod: :nod:

Edit: Adult Content Warning

[Kyle]

Originally posted by wellREDman
Attachment: kyle stuff.jpg

I just did a little storyboarding for that. The true credit goes to VJ Anisha, she did all the flash animations.

[wellREDman]

Originally posted by Kyle
I just did a little storyboarding for that. The true credit goes to VJ Anisha, she did all the flash animations.
yeah sorry i dont have a pic thats a bit clearer ill see if i can get some more next show

[Kyle]

None the less.....kudos for doing a great job. I still stand by my Wizard of Oz comment. The black tarp...makes you the Wizard now.:yep:

[wellREDman]

lol
i forgot you said that to me

that was what the production manager said to me when he was inflicting the black shroud on me

[spark]

wikkid wikkid wikkid.

respect and best wishes to the three of ya.

toby

[Amukidi]

Red, this is quite the best stuff I've read on this site! Your writing style is so readable and I'm sure that many folks will gain a lot from this. I've only ever done a couple of 2 week tours, and even then, found how time becomes an almost abstract concept, and you learn a new definition of "tired"! Hope you boys get time to enjoy this incredible experience, and a big thankyou for sharing it with us.
Hanging on for the next installment!

[mondo]

red
many many thanks for your excellent input.
i LOL so many times at your superb prose - and the images are great
seems like none of us can truly escape teh blue screen of death!

looking forward to the next installment
well done wizard - love to u3:yep:

[RayV]

:yep:

i just SOOOO knew u'll do it BEST

your an excallent story teller
& its such an exciting reading, + xtra bonus = pictures!

its certainly a stright way to the hall of fame - at least as per vjc best threads ever

n im also so happy i bugged u to do it,
to be honest, i was already waiting for the 2nd chapter,
& now im even more waiting for the next !

if i compre it to narrative editing sequell,
i would like to request to read inserts of the p.o.v of Bruce n Tom
- well, that is if they can n willing to, they are definetly essential partners of this amazing book ;)

RESPECT , fingers are still crossed for you [3] (also toes)

xox
rayv

[Rovastar]

ANother great installment Red. I look forward to the next one.

[dansmachine]

This is top-entertainment!

Thanks for sharing the stories of your adventures (-:

Already looking out for more.

Jerome

[disassembler]

Hopefully you all will get a free moment when you are in Michigan and can enjoy some of finest the state has to offer.

Cheers.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/smoking/rauch25.gif

[holly]

:lol: :roll:
These are the best read! I'm SO glad I'm not living/sleeping on that bus.

[alangeering]

It's always the photo with the "adult content" warning that has the most downloads...

Thannks for the writeup, it's certainly more fun than doing exams, I'm a little envious.

Alan

[unjulation]

dof's cap 'n tugs forlok :yep:

[sleepytom]

Originally posted by holly
:lol: :roll:
These are the best read! I'm SO glad I'm not living/sleeping on that bus. you've not seen the naked guitar tech table surfing video though have you? it could just swing it for you :)

[holly]

;) How'd you know I had that weakness for roadies?

[devonmiles]

cause all farm girls from texas wait for the roadie to pick em up one day ( and wait and wait and wait...)

seriously, you guys set the standard for the new millenium: professional work plus rock?n roll plus family atmosphere. what else could we want more?

[petewarden]

I made it along to see the San Bernardino show, and it was really something special, the mix of ravey techniques with rock material worked really well.

Thanks to Red, Tom and Bruce for entertaining me afterwards. Shame we were still breaking down when Bryan Adams started on 'Everything I do'. :)

Oh, and I told James that Neuromixer was being used for Def Leppard, and his reaction was 'who?', which made me feel very old.

Pete

[robotfunk]

this thread is already a classic. please keep it coming folks, would love to hear some furthur adventures.

I have one question though. Is bryan adams actually on the same bill as def leppard? on the same stage?

[Kyle]

More boobs please:D

[cat]

>Is bryan adams actually on the same bill as def leppard? on the same stage?

Kill him, no really, please, I still have nightmares about the theme from Robin Hood, Its for his own good. Guns are legal over there, tell security he a fully paid up member of the communist party.....

Accidental electrocution ?
Poisoned Maccy D's?
Put a turd in his busses toilet and have the driver kill him in rage?
Please.....

I beg you....!!!!

[RayV]

:eek:

i have never heard cat,
a gentle British gentlman at most days, speaks so rough

It must be serious demage there, cat.

as they do in amerika - sue him for distress.

(hope i used the right legal terminology here)

[cat]

It was at the top of the charts for about 6 months being played on radio umpteen times a day, there was no escape, no escape I tell you.
I was still young enough to care about music, to hope that good music make 1 day be played on the radio, I was mistaken I know that now. That man took my innocence......

And I dont listen to the radio anymore!

[RayV]

:-offtopic
i dont listen to radio for many years too
god bless the internet for having so many radio stan to choose from
without talking or adds

[buzu100]

Great updates.....so im thinking a US reunion when your in florida in july - get in contact, buzu100@yahoo.co.uk
TanyaLady xxx ;)

[wellREDman]

okay here we go

this next update was gonna be all about how i didnt have anything to write about,
the fact that the the only drama we'd had was computer malfunction, something that everyone on vjf has experienced so not really a topic i can write interesting stuff about, apart from a modicum of gloating over the fact that im in the nice position of being able to solve my pc problems by having the production manager phone up the shuttle marketing department and name drop until they sent me a couple of free replacements:nod:
though of course my testcard for when we line up the projectors now has to say "APT Visuals powered by shuttle":o
and tom thinks i should change my tagline from "saitek warrior" to "shuttle whore " :o

so anyway i was all prepared to write about how boring touring was, after the intitial excitement, and how the only interesting things that happened werent really appropriate to post on an open forum, then we got got Camden NJ

that was where the tornado hit the stage.

the format for this tour, is basically what they call a rock'n'roll double header, were touring with Bryan Adams playing on outdoor stages built in the middle of baseball parks, taking it in turns to go on first (one bonus being that we only play every other gig, it being too light still when we open)
except mr adams only tours for two weeks at a time, then he has to go and have a bit of a lie down for 2 weeks, so in these breaks wer'e then playing headline shows in arenas with other bands (mainly tesla) supporting.
so after 2 weeks of nice airconditioned arenas, with proper backstage facilities (highlight for me, sleepytom being taught to play american football by rockstars :nod: ) we were in camden NJ for the first of the second batch of outdoor shows, complicated still more by the fact that the band and backline were shuttling back and forth to philedelphia soundchecking for their appearance at live8 (no we didnt get a chance to do visuals there :( )
the only low point of the arena shows was when we played Mohegan Sun , a big vegas style casino on an indian reservaton in Connecticut. the sports arena underneath it is host to big Mike tyson league boxing matches, so they have a full TV studio, broadcast cameras with hundred thousand dollar sports lenses, and a Barco beamer/screen set up that makes our 10k lumens rig look like a flashlight. so we decided to replace tom as cameraman for that show with their output. bad idea .
you'd think that with their control rooms, millions of dollars of masive rackmounted kit, and a 10+ professional tv crew that they'd be able to sort out sending me a feed of their mix, and putting my remix on their screens, you'd think...
I'd given them a written list of the times in the set where i wanted specific things from them, and not only did i not get a single one of the shots I asked for, but at various times in the show, i got my own output (feedback city several times) test cards, and the preview output from their mixer (cameramen setting up shots, cleaning lenses etc. ) plus bruce's output(i get 2 feeds from him) on the same bus as them dropped out, so for one song all i had to work with was a very boring long shot of the drum riser, for the whole song!
so anyway,back to camden.
after a nice 2 days off where we visited Holly in NYC (what are the chances our day off in NY would fall on an eyewash?) we were back in a ballpark, in hot humid weather.
we'd been told there was a big storm coming, the trusses had been dropped and covered in tarps, as had all the equipment and everything poewered down.
As the production people watched the satelite images on the net of the aproaching storm, bruce in his inimitable style went and stood titanic style on the scaff balcony stage right to face the storm, tom was putting the spare pc back in the rig, and i had taken the malfunctioning machine back to the bus ready for us to try and fix on our next day off.
i was just about to get off the bus again when it hit, the door slammed in my face, and because it was parked broadside to the wind, i didnt actually have the strength to open it, so had to ride it out on the bus , on my own. the bus was bucking about like a ship in a heavy sea, as i watched literally sheets of water blasting across like water cannon, (5 inches of standing water in the car park in 15 minutes) the buses were parked together with a 4 foot alley between them, and were rocking so much i was expecting them to make contact with each other, really scary.
so when the worst of it had died down enough for me to get off, i legged it through the still torrential rain back into the ballpark to a scene of utter devastation, the front of house scaff tower/tent had collapsed completely, wiping out hundreds of thousands of dollars of mixing and lighting desks,
the roof of the backstage loading dock was ripped off, exposing rick allens very custom kit to the elements(one armed drumkits are not easy to come by) and the truss roof of stage right(where our rig is) had buckled under the weight of wind and rain. everything was totally covered in water.
needless to say the gig was cancelled.
and as the rain abated, and we slowly started to clear up, everyone swapped stories of their own little bits of drama. the order to abandon stage had come as soon as the roof came off the loading dock, so miraculously no one was hurt. tom had quite sensibly left the stage in the evacuation, but bruce (natch) and Wolfie the guitar tech had stayed on to try and secure the flapping tarp sides of stage right which was sending flightcases bowling around. at one point they were both hanging on to stanchions blown out out parallel to the ground, and another wrapped in buffeting tarp unaware that the roof above them was slowly caving in.
other stories included people diving superman style out of front of house as it collapsed, someone lying fully accross the monitor board to try and keep the tarp on it, and the dressing room,another tent, lifting fully off the ground as 3 people hung bravely to the supports to stop it flying away, as the wardrobe cases blew out the side, and landed open strewing the bands stage gear everywhere.
next came the reconing of what was lost/damaged, luckily the next day was a fine sunny day so we laid everything out in the sun, took all cases off and let everything dry out for a day efore powering up and seeing what worked miraculously our only losses were a 7grand camra lens, and my laptop which i think was flung clear accross the stage (i'd left it ontop of a pile of flightcases stage right,which were bowling around in the wind, and found it again in a pile of gear which had been rescued from onstage) it was in it's storm case so not wet, but G-forces are Gforces no matter how tough the case its in. Tom managed to get it running by removing the hrd drive putting it in a shuttle and doing checkdisk stuff, but it went fritzy during last nights show, and is being odd now, so i guess it needs a new HD.
the real miracle tho was the beamers, our pair of 5k sanyos were absolutely drenched, apparently the tarp covering them was the absolute first thing to blow off. and none of us expected them to work, even after a day open in the sun, but lo and behold, they worked fine...:nod: outstanding bits of kit,
all their previous remote control grief is forgiven.
the really lucky person tho is chad the drumteck, the band have 2 sets of equipment , A-rig, and B-rig, so when for example, we do a festival, the B-rig can be sent on ahead, and the A rig can go to the next normal show, with the staging,lights etc.
only when this all happened, the B-rig was at live8, so they had to do their 15 min set in the absolute nightmare that was the backstage in philedelphia, then they had to get through the 1.2 million people,(the police escort helped) and drive for an hour to get to the evenings gig, and set up the A-rig in less than an hour, when they normally have all day to do so, because we were on first that night, and couldnt swap, cos Bryan adams was doing the same thing from toronto, then power it up not knowing wheter it was gonna work, when up til then his considered opinion was that it was totally fucked. and as i metioned before, Rick allen has a custom drum kit, all high tech custom midi stuff to let him play the left hand parts with his left foot, so if it hadnt worked that would have been it, no gig , but someone was definitely smiling on us that day, cos it all worked flawlessly despite being totally drenched not 24 hours earlier.
replacement sound and light desks had been located and rented and thans to the wonders of modern technology, the programming for them both was stored on usb jump drives so everything went swimmingly.
and there was a really nice moment when between songs Joe Elliot, after explaining they'd just come from live8 with an hour to spare after a natural disaster, led the crowd into cheering their crew "who made it all possible"

the normal aftershow flow of things, is because video and backline are packed and finished about an hour before PA and lights, is that we all sit around outside the bus on folding chairs partying with various hangers on whove blagged their way backstage, while we wait for the other bus to be ready to leave, so after all the excitement of the previous two days, the partying that night was fairly full on, including various very dangerous silliness with the fireworks that had been bought ready for the fourth of July.

anyway,
thats enuff for now,
hopefully next time i wont have as much hecticness to report and i can do what i was planning to do with this installment, and widen my theme to the oddness of amerika as seen through the eyes of a travelling limey.

over and out

[wellREDman]

heres a before and after montage

though its actually an after and other stage montage
we have 2 identical stages that leapfrog venues in front of us, so i took some shots the day after of the non totalled stage from similar angles

[wellREDman]

the kit drying out

[wellREDman]

only to be attempted by professionals

[wellREDman]

!

[wellREDman]

cos every vj likes to show off his toys

[wellREDman]

'

[syzygy]

blimey!

[wellREDman]

.

[wellREDman]

=

[wellREDman]

/

[wellREDman]

(

[wellREDman]

*

[wellREDman]

Originally posted by Kyle
More boobs please:D

just for you

its always such a drag having to sign autographs:nod: :nod: :nod:

[wellREDman]

cos every cameraman likes to show off his toys

[Kyle]

*bows down.......another wicked blog entry. I hope things work out for you.


More boobs please...and anything else you can get. Can you sign butts too. :yep:

[RayV]

Dear Red

AMAZING - [Once again, hat's off]
& what a story that is!
Home of the brave indeed!
[I wonder if Bruce got eventually the footage of the storm before he was hanging out there: nod:]

Ah & Good job with Shuttle man! A smart move that is

But - hey -
What's that??? "And how the only interesting things that happened weren't really appropriate to post on an open forum"
Don't we all wanna read exactly the un-appropriate stuff on this very thread?
Ok, make it just parts of it ["the best of"]
Are we here about freedom of speech? or u just got us all curious & that's it...

Ah - & great photos!!!
Loved the NY smiling one & the sleepy classics ah yea
& yea the Red signature (btw - what's color pen do u use? ;)
& where are the eyewash & holly's pics?


:grouphug:
& one from me
ray-v

[Rovastar]

Thanks for keeping us entertained. It sounds like you have been earning your money. :)

[elbows]

Originally posted by RayV

Are we here about freedom of speech?

The fine concept of freedom of speech can never change the fact that words can cause consequences and so a sense of responsibility comes into play.

I have no idea what things were being referred to by red, I know nothing of the tour except what he has said in this forum, but I can think of a number of possible human activities/situations which could have all sorts of repurcussions if people talked about them openly.

People use their discretion to decide what is suitable for public, the public doesnt normally even get to hear about the details red has given us in this thread, and I for one would not encourage reckless disclosure of all information.

[buzu100]

Originally posted by wellREDman
cos every cameraman likes to show off his toys


Nice to see the pouch is working out for you Bruce!!!

Hugs

TanyaLady

[myogenic]

:)

good to hear from you lot!

i'm sooo jealous :)

[vjpixylight]

huricanes and tropical depressions are on the rise, so I would expect maybe a couple more episodes;)

[spark]

<<< scared by blue goo >>>

x1000 smileys

toby

[RayV]

OOO Elbows

I didn't mean it that serious & definetly didn't mean to pry
just a tiny bit of a tease

its such a fun read all & all

[Pesh]

Originally posted by buzu100
Nice to see the pouch is working out for you Bruce!!!

Hugs

TanyaLady
hey Tan, hows the US treating you?

[elbows]

Originally posted by RayV
OOO Elbows

I didn't mean it that serious & definetly didn't mean to pry
just a tiny bit of a tease

Sorry about that, I take most things too seriously!

[RayV]

no worries elbows..

u c, i imagen the book already...

should be a good one, innit?
well -to me, it should be & probably will be, bit funny too