[Harp-L] Arrogant sound man (true story)

["John F. Potts" <hvyj@xxxxxxx>]

Back in the 80's I was playing a festival gig with a hard rocking  
blues band on a very large outdoor stage. There was a very LARGE PA  
with a sound man at the FOH board that wasmaybe 30 yards from the  
front of the stage under a sort of tent. All the electric instruments  
were DI'd. Stage sound was through a separate stage mix for monitors  
and  was handled by a sound man at a very large board off to stage  
right, at stage level.  As i usually do when playing on a big stage,  
i went direct into the board and asked for stage sound through the  
monitor.  I thought i could hear it okay when the levels were first set.

The guy mixing the stage sound was just too cool. Hair down to his  
shoulders, shades, hip threads, laid back, etc, etc, and with a very  
superior attitude.   Once the band started, i couldn't hear my  
monitor, so i looked over at the guy and pointed at the monitor  
speaker. No reaction.  I pointed at the monitor again and then up at  
my ear.  No reaction. He's standing in front of this very large  
mixing board which was for the sole purpose of adjusting stage sound,  
posing, looking like a hipper than thou sound man from central  
casting and paying absolutely no attention to me or anything else  
that was happening on stage.  It got to the point that I was almost  
tempted to throw a harmonica at him to get his attention. (i didn't.)  
We were 2 songs into the set before i got proper stage sound. 20+  
years later, I still feel like killing that guy.  But he did sort of  
look like a rock star.

JP


Billy James writes:
... I've literally felt like killing the [so called]sound engineer.
Quite often, these guys seem to have a really arrogant attitude and  
seem to think they are some kind of rock stars themselves.