A Week at the Opera Days 4 thru 6

Thursday was a lovely day off spent in the city.  There are few things better than wandering New York City with nothing but an iPod a camera and absolutely no agenda.  I wandered from (in case you want to google it) my hotel at 333 Adams St. in Brooklyn across the bridge, zigzagging through Chinatown and other sketchy neighborhoods north to Central Park, back south to the insurance district and Madison Park and back north to Times Square where I met my uncle for dinner.  All in all I walked about 9 miles, took a bunch of photos, and spent the day absorbing New York.

Friday was gig day and what a beautiful day it was.  The temperature never rose above 72 and the humidity never rose above 30 percent.  Here's a view of the show from the 2nd delay ring, keep in mind that there are just as many people behind me as in front of me for this photo.

10:00 pm, time to load out.  Shit.  Here comes the rain.  Nothing like a thunderstorm to help load out a show that toow 3 days to load in.  The storm passed by quickly and we worked until 5 am before the local crew was forced to stop for 8 hours.

Saturday 1:00 pm time to start loading out the rest of the gear, this shouldn't take too long... remember, it's only 14 towers with 10 MILO each...

...5 hours later.   We're DONE! Time to go home.

A Week at the Opera Days 1 thru 3

Day one: travel delays and service snafus

I left Manchester, TN via BNA (that's Nashville in airport lingo) Monday 6/16/08 90 minutes later than scheduled due to flight delays of the plane arriving to BNA. I arrived at JFK (that's New York JFK in airport lingo) an extra hour later due to flight delays in the air causing the pilot to fly in circles over Virginia for an hour waiting his turn to arrive. ...At least I made it through security without the extra special treatment this time...

For a moment I almost sympathize with the counter attendants. They have to put up with some angry people spouting venom at circumstanced beyond anyone's control all day long. But I said ALMOST. They knew the job before they took it. It's basically a government job, it pays well and there is no recourse for treating people badly. People work for airlines and airports for the same reasons people become cops. The power trip. The fucking FAA, FTA and DHS (Department of Homeland Security) have made it impossible to voice any complaints or disdain for the treatment from the nasty human beings employed to handle customer service issues behind the counters of our airports. Their paranoia of terrorism and efforts to control the population through fear have rules in place that make it a crime to piss off the attendant and the attendants are already pissed off.

Arriving at JFK I had an interesting encounter at baggage claim.

I wonder if the pigeon had trouble making it through security.

Day Two: this gig is enormous.

The gig is a free outdoor show for the Metropolitan Opera House of New York. The event will draw 100,000 people to the park Friday night to see Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna- singing popular arias and duets with Ion Marin conducting the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus.

Prospect Park is a park in Brooklyn that is the second largest park in NYC only to Central Park. The area that the gig is in is 1/2 mile long and 200 yards wide. This is a small section of the park which is probably a 10 mile drive to go around.

**Geek Info**

This photo is from the halfway point of the venue. From the stage coming toward me are 10 delay towers. (three are parallel with me taking this pic and not visible to the camera) each of these towers will hold 10 Meyer MILO.



Behind those trees are 4 more towers. That is 140 flown speakers for delay. Each tower has either a 700HP or M3D sub on the ground below it depending on the position.



A prepped tower ready to fly:



The Main Stage Lighting Rig:



Day 3: Fly high and tune...

Today was a short and easy day; float the arrays to trim height, tune and align the system and tie up loose ends.

The stage with the roof up and video screens flown.



That's it for the tech stuff.

Today I had time to wander Brookyn for a little while as I needed to do laundry and had time to kill. To get from the park to the hotel I took the Subway and decided to take some "arty" photos. I don't claim that they're any good, but they look cool to me.

The view from the desk in my hotel room:



Lady Liberty.



A cool fountain on the harbor.



New York:





My new roadie friend Chris and I with the city behind us:



I know I've seen movies with this walkway in it but I can't think of the titles:



I don't know my schedule for tomorrow. If the day is lax I may try and visit my Aunt, Uncle and Cousins from CT tomorrow.

Bonnaroo Recap

A festival is a unique gig experience for anyone and a 4 day festival, that runs almost nonstop, is a marathon of work for the stage crew.  Audio, Video, Lights, Stagehands, Artists, and a cavalcade of administration staff are working long hours in miserable conditions to make it possible for someone's favorite band to perform for 90 minutes only to swap them out for someone else's favorite band in less than 30 minutes.

5 stages

4 days

Almost 200 bands

Bonnaroo!

The temperature in Manchester, TN this week was roughly 10 degrees hotter than the sun and the humidity reaching up into the 90% range wasn't helping keep anything or anyone cool.  The forecast was calling for a week full of rain, but the rains only fell for a few blissful minutes on day three.  The rest of the time the only clouds in the sky were the funny smelling kind that only emanate from 80,000 people smoking freelance pharmaceuticals.  To add to the misery; guess where 80,000 people relieve themselves, in rows of porta potties.  The fresh Tennessee mountain air that we smelled .. in day was replaced by the rotten smell of 4 days worth of poo held down by humidity as the festival drew to a close.

On to the roadie stuff…

This was my first gig as a contractor for Thunder Audio, Inc.  I hadn't met anyone on the crew so I really didn't know what to expect.  What a relief it is to have such a great crew.  Everyone on the crew was professional, talented and easy to get along with.  At a festival like Bonnaroo, the latter is the trump card.  A crew that works well together will have a great time, a crew that doesn't is doomed to misery.

As the FOH engineer / tech my job is to tune the system, mix any bands that don't have an engineer and interface with the guest engineers and make their job as easy and painless as possible.  I was lucky to have some easy going engineers that understood the hectic nature of a festival and were quick to adapt to changes.  (There was one asshole but I already forgot his name.  Hey fucker, if you don't know your own band's input list how do you expect anyone else to?)

One of the greatest moments of my career was meeting "Big" Mick Hughes.  Mick is the FOH engineer for Metallica and one of the most well known engineers in the business.  It was also my birthday… what a present!

My new friends from Meyer Sound, Buford Jones and Paul Giansante were hanging around all weekend surveying the use of their products at the festival.  All of the tent stages were using Meyer gear.  …MILO and 700HP to be specific.  I was fortunate to have some of the best compliments of my career given me in front of and from my Meyer friends.  Hopefully that will get relayed to the people that sign my checks...

Here are some pics from the gig...

The Main "What" Stage

Hippie in his natural environment

Metallica!

The Bonnaroo rainbow.

My Stage "The Other Stage"



Dimmer Beach



MILO Stage Right



Everything hanging all tidy like, time to rock.



And finally... me.

I'm off to New York for a week with the Metropolitan Opera House.  Stay tuned for more pics and bloggery.  Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow.