P_at_the_Playground - 05 December 2011 09:51 AM
Now if we can just get the Blind Tiger to have a proper sound guy.
If you stepped behind the stacks off to the side of the stage you could hear the stage mix, and it was good. That’s because Phil who was running monitors was one of two people I specifically requested to have mix the band when I heard Kenny wasn’t going to be there. The other was Will who mixed them at the BT earlier this year and who had mixed them at Ziggy’s back in the day when they were without a FOH engineer. I suppose I should feel vindicated by the fact that I had the foresight to request that, but instead I was just deeply and personally embarrassed by the fact that happened in my home town at my home venue. Shit happens though and you move on. I’ve been fortunate to have seen a lot of really good PGroove shows over the past 9 years and I am looking forward to many more. Just made me that much more thankful that I made the trip to Athens for the Theatre show and that the NYE run is less than a month away.
ETA didn’t mean to step on the band or mgmt’s toes with my previous comments. I know they want to come back to the BT just like I want to go there to see lots of shows, so I and I am sure mgmt was balancing that with how to approach the sound situation that night. I didn’t want to piss off Squirrel or get him in trouble. I’ve seen him mix a lot of good shows there and elsewhere around town. He’s much better with bluegrass/newgrass and when he’s not gotten into the liquor. I kept holding out hope that he would get it together, and I tried to give him a few pointers on the things that were off in the mix (bass, kick drum, toms, overall volume, solos, keys, guitar…the list unfortunately goes on) and though it improved marginally as the night went on I quite frankly wish I had pulled Doc aside and pleaded with him to put Phil out front. The guys have to eat too and they deserved a better mix than that. Hell I should have put my mics onstage at setbreak, even if I only have the hyper caps and it wouldn’t have picked up the vox worth a shit at least the mix was consistent if you got in front of the stacks. I was too focused on getting people to the show, getting the house clean, getting the keg etc and should have put more effort into making sure the show went off without a hitch. Everyone please come to Greensboro next time they play and I promise the sound will be right!
