Back in 2015, I was a regular volunteer back stage at the Red Wing Sheldon Theater. Initially, I did volunteer work pretty much the same way I’d worked paying gigs for the previous 40-some years. I’d show up for the unloading and setup and stand around back stage out of the way until the show was over and be there for the tear-down and load-out, staying until all of the cables were wrapped and put away and the stage and theater were swept up and ready for the next show. Almost like a theater employee, except without a paycheck. I don’t have any idea how many shows I worked, but it was a lot for the first 2-3 years we lived in Red Wing.
One of the weird things about volunteering is that most of the people who get paid to do these things are often way too impressed with themselves and they act as if they are granting you a favor in letting you do the grunt work. I’d run into that often long before I retired and was pretty much on a hair-trigger, ready to escape quickly on the first signs of that attitude when we moved to Red Wing. My tolerance for bullshit from “kids” (anyone 20 years younger than me or more) has slowly vanished with experience over the last 20 years. Lucky for me, the Sheldon’s Production manager, Russell Johnson, is not that kind of manager. As a professional lighting guy and stage manager, Russell actually appreciated my audio experience and as a result I got to do some really fun shows and escape the stuff I usually don’t like about live music: often that includes the actual live performances. My habit, after a few months of establishing myself as useful, was to stick around through setup and the sound check and if the sound check was a typical noise-producing disaster, I’d sneak out the back stage door and call it a night. Live music rarely gets better as the evening proceeds and if the band and/or sound goober are deaf at the beginning they will only be much worse a few minutes into the show. Been there, done that for decades. Don’t have any reason to suffer through it again. And Russell was fine with that.
I’ve been an Arlo Guthrie fan since the Alice’s Restaurant days, the record and the movie. So, when the Sheldon booked Arlo in 2015 I signed up to be part of that crew. The initial setup was pretty straight forward with the band bringing most of the gear they needed flushed out with some of the Sheldon’s backline and stage equipment. The sound check started off with the band, which included his kids—Abe and at least one of his daughters—doing what bands usually do with a sound check: making individual monitors and mixes as loud as possible. I’d pretty much decided not to stay for the show at that point.
After a bit of the usual musical ego-pumping, Arlo came out, moving to his mic at the front of the stage and listening for a bit. A few moments of that and he asked to have all of the monitor sends cut so he could hear the FOH mix. He had some suggestions for Russell about the house mix and asked for a bit of his voice and guitar added to his stage monitors. After he was satisfied, he turned to the band and said, “That’s good for me. You can do anything you want with your monitors as long as I don’t have to hear it.” And that is the way you manage stage volume. After Arlo’s sound-check moment, I decided to see if I could stay for the show and Russell let me find a SRO spot on the 2nd balcony where I could hear and see the show. It was terrific, musically and sonically.
After that, I had a spectacular experience with Leo Kottke at the Sheldon, a terrific evening hanging out with Buckwheat Zydeco, an excellent Ladysmith Black Mambazo show, and a couple of weirdly fun experiences with the Southeast Tech “Strings, Winds & Brass” shows in 2016 & 2017. Eventually, general disappointment in amplified live music plus some conflicting opportunities working with Hobgoblin Music and the Crossings in 2016 and 2017, ending with a show with one of my all-time favorite live performers, Peter Mayer at the Crossings, convinced me it was time to hang up my live music tech shoes.
My days of lugging heavy equipment are in the past. I don’t need to injure myself doing stuff I would just as soon avoid (I’m talking to you, Elvy. I don’t need to rupture anything lugging giant pots full of weeds around the yard and house, either.) and 99% of amplified live music is at lest 50% distortion, 40% crappy mix, and rarely more than 10% music. I’ve seen everyone I have ever wanted to see and a few of them were even worth seeing. Almost nobody is worth what it costs to see them in concert today. Snarky Puppy put the last nail in that coffin in 2019. A lifetime of seeing most of the big name bands when labels were subsidizing tours and tickets were rarely more than $10, working shows and getting paid for being there, getting free concert tickets as an industry perk, and being invited backstage by someone in the band or the touring company has probably given me a severely devalued outlook on what live music is worth. But I’m glad I was there on those few occasions when everyone involved was more concerned with the music and the audience. Those are the shows I remember best.
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