I am so sore....

[o_bunny]

This past weekend, my sweetie and I worked the Ottawa Folk Festival. Officially, I worked, she hung out. In fact, though, she worked as hard as any of the crew.

I hauled myself out of bed WAY early to get my stuff together for the day. The company that supplies the sound equipment, Wall Sound, is very good, so I wasn't too worried about the gear; what I needed were the other essentials of a sound guy's life.

• Sharpies, in a couple of different colours (black for writing on most things, and silver for writing on black things)
• chocolate chip granola bars
• a large thermal mug of caffeinated hot beverage tea
• Leatherman tool
• cheap duct tape, black, for taping electrical connections together to make them more nearly waterproof, and for handing to people who ask for tape
• gaffer tape: 2-inch black for sticking things together that shouldn't be damaged by the sticking process, and 3/4-inch white for labeling things
• outlet tester
• cable tester
• flashlight
• CDs to play while doing changeovers between shows; curiously The Bothy Band's CD generated the most "Who is this?" questions
• drinks and food to keep us going through the day (yes, the festival organizers are supposed to supply food for the various folks that work there; we both have allergies* that make this difficult to rely on, and we were far enough away from the main area that I think we got forgotten about)

*me - citrus fruits (oranges, lemons, grapefruit, etc., etc.), tomatoes, strawberries, cranberries; Heidi - sugar, soy

We managed to assemble our stuff and get to the festival site before the appointed meeting hour (did you know that there are two 8:30s on Saturdays?). We hung out, I ate a doughnut, met the rest of the staff (I had two stagehands (Jill McGrath and Dylan Lidbetter) and a stage manager (Sonny Ochs, sister of the late songwriter Phil Ochs) as well as Heidi's help.

We headed out to our stage to set up. The mixing board, speakers, microphones, etc., were brought over in a van. We unloaded them, set up speakers on stands, ran cables, begged for chairs and a table to set up on, and were ready to go by the time the performers were arriving for the first show at 11:00.

Things went quite well. The weather was warm and sunny, the performers were having a good time, heck, everybody was having a good time. The only major glitch was an unfortunate electrical unplugging in the midst of things; we lost sound completely for about 20 seconds or so.

And people were great. There were no divas among the performers, everybody on the crew worked hard and worked well together, the shows started and ended on time, couldn't ask for better. There were a few moments of confusion, mostly from getting the same information at the small side stage as was needed for the main stage. One performer didn't need the electric keyboard that was brought out, another didn't need the guitar amplifier that was on the list. Minor details, not problems.

One performer, Mike Evin, brought "Beatrice" with him. Beatrice is a 64-key small upright piano. Uh, okay.... That went fine, too.

Sunday, it rained. We got a tent to protect the sound gear (electricity and water mix far too well), taped up the electrical connections, and the show went on. I was pleasantly surprised at the number of people who came out anyway; rain jackets and umbrellas, and away we went. The speakers were under the stage tent to keep them from getting soaked; unfortunately this meant that the sound wasn't quite as good as Saturday. Because the speakers were so much closer to the microphones, there was more possibility of feedback. To avoid that, I had to turn some frequencies down. The sound wasn't bad, just not quite as clear and high fidelity as it had been the day before.

There was everything from fiddle players and guitar players to a tabla player to a dub mixer. The tabla player and the dub mixer were with different acts on the same show, that was neat.

So, why am I sore? Tromping over uneven ground in steel-toed work boots, lifting and carrying gear, laying out and coiling up hundreds of feet of cable, and I suspect general tenseness from having to pay attention to so much stuff all at once.

But dang, it was worth it.