When you walk up to a rig and see this curve on the graph, you should be worried. I could go on and on about why they get the award, but I'll just say The Canyon Club's sound crew have no contest for the worst tech crew of the tour. Well, okay, I'll go on and on...The FOH guy was filling in for someone else and just didn't care at all - he spent most of the tech time ignoring us and talking on his cell phone. The monitor guy was outright destructive and hindering in his ineptitude. After a long and frustrating time waiting for these guys to get their act together, which included such gems as "don't touch that", "I'll do that for you (just not any time today)", "we have a keyboard you can use (but there's no sustain pedal)", they pulled out the clincher: "You guys were late - we were ready for you at 4". The comedy there was that we pulled up at 4:30 to load in and soundcheck before the 6:00 doors, and it took until 5:50 to get eight inputs plugged in and 4 wedges placed. And we were still waiting for a sustain pedal that was thankfully coming by way of a friend of a friend who lives in the area. We would soundcheck without it, and hopefully get it before the show started (we did).
Ultimately this led to the 90 minutes of soundcheck time being reduced to a hurried few minutes of sound check (really more of a line check) before doors opened. All the while, the FOH guy was trying to track down why the PA sounded so bad, especially the difference between the left and right sides. I have to say I wasn't impressed with how the opening act sounded. It wasn't until just before the start of the headliner when I got behind the board that I noticed the main graphic EQ had one side in 6dB mode, and the other side in 12dB mode. I fixed that and started over with the EQ and by the end of the first song, we had a show.
During the show, the monitor guy spent half of his time running far away from the stage, abandoning the show to see what the score was on the game he was watching. The other half of his time was spent at the monitor desk, loudly talking to his friend. So loudly that twice during the show, the artist had to stop the show and walk over to him to tell him to be quiet. He didn't seem to care, he just kept talking over the act.
Now, the gear. The club has all they need to rip the place apart with brute force. Lots and lots of custom TAD boxes. I think it was eight 2-way mid-hi traps (each 4x10", 2") over four subs (each 2x18") for each side. And fills. A PM4000 at FOH, and a H3000 at monitors, and all the outboard you'd want for the biggest of bands. I can't say they're lacking any gear. I can say the guys at the helm are burned out. I don't think the club is getting their money's worth with these guys, at any price.
After the gig, I got to hear a story that made me feel better. Apparently the monitor guy approached my boss, the talent, and asked "What's up with your sound guy? I mean, you don't just come into a venue as a guest engineer and start riding the house guys! He's definitely "on our wall"; we'll be throwing darts at his face for a long time..."
I think I was polite, but I was trying to get a soundcheck to happen. If I made enemies with those guys, I'm not upset about it.
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