St. Patrick's Day mayhem.

[o_bunny]

I've been doing sound for a band called Riverthieves for about a year and a half, though the band has been around for a lot longer than that. They're a Celtic-based band, which means that their major busy period is around St. Patrick's Day (with occasional spikes like Robbie Burns' Day).

This year was no different. Things started on the evening of Thursday the 15th with a gig at D'Arcy McGee's. That went pretty well, they sold a few CDs, and everybody went home happy.

Friday evening the 16th they did a gig at the Nepean Sailing Club which I didn't attend; Gene Bruce, the manager of the club, is an excellent sound guy, and the place has a very good sound system. I was going to go anyway, sort of a busman's holiday, but I ended up with a dandy migraine and wasn't in any shape to do anything that night.

St. Paddy's day started with a gig back at D'arcy McGee's at 11:30 AM. That ran until almost 2:00, then my lovely and talented assistant Dave Eh? and I tore down and packed up in a big hurry, and roared off to the Royal Oak Gloucester for a show at 3:00. And there we had troubles...

I bought a sound mixer just over a week ago, a used Yamaha 01V digital mixer (warning, PDF link). I played with it a bit, Heidi and Dave Eh? and I used it for several hours at a practice, worked great. I hooked it up in the sound system, everything was working well and sounding terrific, the band was into their second or third tune of the first set, when I made the grave error of considering ordering lunch. At that point, the audio coming out of the mixer stopped. Hmm, that's not supposed to happen. I shut the mixer off, waited a few seconds, and turned it back on. Got audio for a few seconds, then nothing. All the appropriate lights are on, the display shows what it's supposed to show, but no output.

Well, suspenders and a belt and all that, I had another mixer, though rather smaller, in the car, just in case. Trotted out, grabbed it, back in, then a flurry of activity as Eh? and I move the cabling over. The band, troupers all, just kept playing the whole time (it wasn't that big a bar, but big enough), and in a very short time, we had glorious amplified audio again. 5:00 came, we shut down and loaded out, and enjoyed a brief respite.

The rest of the band went over to the bassist's house for a bite to eat and a rest. Eh? and I went back to my place for another mixer; I wanted a more sophisticated mixer for the evening's show. We enjoyed a delightful dinner prepared by Heidi, my sweetie. I even managed to have a brief nap.

Then off to the Royal Oak on the Canal for the evening show. That show ran 9:30 PM to 1:30ish AM and went just fine, thanks.

Anyhow, if you see me looking a little the worse for wear over the next couple of days, that's my excuse. I fully expect that the band members will have slept many hours to try to recover.