Third Eye Blind at College Park
Nov 10th, 2007 by Alex
It’s been over ten years since I first heard Third Eye Blind on the side stage of HFStival 1997. Yesterday I had the opportunity to do so again at UMD College Park’s Ritchie Coliseum, this time while working on the show providing support to the Technical Director. As usual, I got a kick out of the technical rider for Third Eye Blind; it was from 1998, I wonder how it has changed over the years.
From load in until deck load out, I was there from 8:45am until 1:30am. Others were there far longer. Few people other than bands and the production staff realize that this is the norm for most shows. There is a lot of work to be done to prepare for a concert event, no matter the venue. I won’t even get into the work involved with catering, facilities and logistics, interaction with the fire marshal, ticket and merchandise sales, insurance, contracts, etc. It’s all important, but I’ll stick to what I know about the technical bits.
In this case, it starts with an empty room. Ritchie Coliseum seats few hundred and has a floor area little larger than 1.5 basketball courts side-by-side. A semi from Mountain Productions containing staging materials and barricades arrives. The assembly of a stage begins. Following that, another semi from Atomic Pro Audio arrives carrying the audio and lighting rigs, as well as much of the band’s equipment.
The stage has to be assembled, shimmed, leveled, and checked for stability. Weak spots are reinforced. After the stage is complete, separate teams break out and begin working on different tasks; sound-related tasks are usually led by the event sound engineer (though usually different from the band’s engineer who will mix the actual show), lighting-related tasks are led by a similar lead. Everything has to be unloaded from the trucks, sorted out and wheeled to where it will be needed. Meanwhile the building electrician gets to work providing high-voltage juice to the audio and lighting power distribution units, from which everything else draws electricity. House power isn’t usually used at all.
Risers are installed for the drummer and guitar amp facades. A little known fact/sidenote is that many bands don’t actually have functional guitars amps on-stage; guitar amps are mic’d backstage to prevent bleed and extra noise and the heads that you do see are just for show.
From a lighting perspective there’s truss to be assembled, power and control cabling to be laid within, gel frame to be loaded and inserted so that the lights will have the proper colors. Separately, intelligent moving lights have to be affixed to vertical trusses, the bases stabilized with sandbags. Once everything is rigged the entire truss is cranked into the air by hand. There’s programming to do on the light board and once everything is powered the lights have to be aimed.
From a sound perspective, mixing consoles have to be setup and configured; a Digidesign VENUE D-Show system for FOH, a Yamaha PM5D for monitors. There has to be space for the band’s guitar technicians on each wing. Stage monitors need to be placed, cabled, and checked for levels. The drum kit needs to be setup, each piece mic’d separately. All cables everywhere need to be bundled together using electrical tape. Loose cables on the floor that cross a walking area need to be in Yellow Jacket to prevent trips and everything else needs to be taped down. All of this is done long before the artists even arrive at the venue.
The age of the building (specifically the load bearing rafter I-beams) didn’t allow any of the audio rig to be flown in, so we ended up assembling an Adamson Y-axis line array on the deck. Seven Y10’s atop dual T21’s; it sounded good (but not quite as good as the Turbosound rig), but wasn’t fun assembling or disassembling. There are hundreds of different products out there and it can be difficult to work with gear that you’ve never touched before, especially when some of the help has no experience with any gear at all; kudos to Evan from Atomic for being such a laid back guy to work with, providing simple and clear instructions throughout the day.
When I go to a concert where I don’t know any of the material or only know a few tracks from the radio, I generally sit and listen. I might walk around to see how the mix sounds from different areas, but I tend to pay a lot more attention. This is different from a concert where I know most of the material; I arrive with some preconceived notions of the songs I want to hear. Having access to the set list lets me pick when I want to be listening and when I want to roam around backstage, take advantage of photo opportunities, etc.
I also got the chance to put a pair of Etymotic Research’s ER-20 earplugs to the test. Earplugs are a must when working or attending a concert venue. An average concert-grade audio rig will operate at levels well above safe levels (100-115 dB) and many near the pain threshold (such as Phantom Planet at Movin’ On 2007, which at peak level was running 130 dB). The biggest complaint is that the mix sounds crappy with plugs in. Not so anymore. Bear in mind, these aren’t foam throwaways. The marketing materials for the ER-20’s claimed that the plugs “reduce all sound 20 dB evenly across the frequency range” and that “speech and music [should] stay clear, just quieter, like turning down the volume.” After wearing them comfortably for a few hours, I can vouch that they do in fact sound amazing. High and mid-range was still completely audible; lows were a little bit muffled, but that’s going to happen when you stick anything solid (no matter how flexible) in your ear canal. At about $12 a pair, they’re a bargain at double the price.
The show was good. They played a bit longer than a hour before coming back for another half-hour (planned, as evidenced by the set list) encore. I’ve given up trying to relive a show in words. You were either there or you weren’t. Some topics don’t translate mediums well. Live concerts are one of them. Even so, here’s a video from FOH (courtesy of Jim’s digital camera, if you can believe it).
Once the show is over, it ain’t over for the crew. There’s still hours of labor. Everything happens in reverse, sometimes stressfully since the touring group wants to be on the road ASAP (read: hours ago). Everything needs to get unplugged, coiled, cased, stowed, then packed back in the trucks. It is like a game of Tetris, except everything is on wheels and there’s a lot of heavy stuff that can land on you if you mess up.
When I first saw Third Eye Blind at the HFSstival, they drew a larger crowd than the main stage artists. From the moment the opening riffs of Graduate hit the PA, the crowd was a mess of jumping screaming kids. Despite a recent lull and nearly ten years in between, last night was no different. There was an excellent ten minute jam session centering around Jumper, where everyone got some solo time. The crowd was hopping the whole time. I’d say it was a pretty successful start of their new tour.
It takes a unique personality to work a show. You may get to interact with famous people, but it isn’t glamorous work most of the time. If you have an aversion to hard work and grunt labor, don’t even consider volunteering for a crew position; not only is it a great way to get reamed at by roadies who do it for a living all year round, people standing around not paying attention can be a danger to others and themselves. I’m a bit sore from all the loading, but overall it was pretty sweet to be involved with it.
Looking forward to the next one.
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