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.