A Day in the Life
Ever wonder what a typical day in the life of a Roadie is like? Well, actually that's a trick question since there is no such thing as a typical day for a Roadie, there are however average daily events. Let's start your roadie day about midnight in Cincinnati. The doors to the trailer are shut and locked, and everything has been stripped from the Taft Theatre's dressing room. A final check of the stage to verify nothing of value has been overlooked, you say goodbye to the union stage crew, and everyone piles into the motorhome. The system for determining who drives is an inexact science that combines shrewd negotiation, assessment of each roadie's current fatigue, and in some cases blatant bribery. Sometimes it was as easy as someone volunteering. You feel good so you volunteer to take the first shift. No one argues.
You are now leaving the deserted downtown streets of Cincinnati and you need to travel 622 miles to be at the stage door of The Morris Stage in Morristown New Jersey by noon (a mere 12 hours from now). A few minutes earlier you had asked the Union Electrician what the easiest route out of town was so you head towards his landmarks. The lights are all blinking yellow in unison for as far as you can see and there is a fine mist coming down to force the use of the windshield wipers. Just enough moisture to obscure your view, but not enough to irrigate the grime in the path of the blades, you respond by treating the glass to some windshield Visine. You find Highway 71, and head North for Columbus. A Co-Pilot is not a luxury that can be allowed. Sleep for everyone not in the driver's chair is mandatory. You have two Dr. Peppers in the cup holders within your reach, and the CB radio is turned down very low with the squelch set very high, so that you won't accidentally wake up your mobile roommates. Aerosmith plays softly, as well, but it's hard to hear due to the static. The beat of the wipers eventually matches the beat of "Dream On" and then continues past it to go back out of sync. You settle in for a long drive. Luckily you are alert but you know that's not likely to last. If everyone drives his share it would equal about two hours each. That's not very likely either. It's just like that scene in "Platoon" where Charlie Sheen finishes his watch and tries to wake up the next guy. If you can't get the next guy up, you stay on watch (or in this case you keep driving). If there aren't any headwinds the motorhome can get about 500 miles without a refueling stop. You end up driving for four hours before you finally pull over. In the rest stop one of the band roadies comes up and relieves you of the keys. You buy a Baby Ruth bar from the machine and inhale it with three bites. You'd really like a Butterfinger too, but you don't have enough change (the machines back then didn't take dollar bills). You quickly get back on board since you are always paranoid about being accidentally left behind at a rest stop. Every roadie has heard the stories of a crewmember left behind, and not discovered until hours later. Safely inside you remove your T-shirt in preparation for slumber, and for the first time tonight you catch a whiff of how bad you really smell. You really need to find a shower tomorrow. You think The Morris Stage has one in the dressing room, but you can't really remember. The shower in the motorhome is of course out of the question. Potable water is too precious to use in mass quantities like that, and besides there are seven cases of Heineken stacked up in there right now. As the Motorhome lurches forward seemingly being dragged by it's own headlights, you scientifically checkout the condition of the driver. "You OK?"..."Yup". Now that you have satisfied yourself that he isn't going to nod off at the wheel, you crawl into your bunk. A split second later you wake up in New Jersey. You wonder if we had acquired a warp engine during the night. No warp engine, but somehow the motorhome had successfully found it's way through Columbus and Pittsburgh and finally to Morristown. You had garnered about six hours of sleep; it seemed like six minutes. You ask the light guy, "what time is it?" "11:45, (15 minutes to load-in)".
You grab a semi-clean T-shirt, put your steel toes back on, and head for the stage door with your toothbrush in hand. Finding a sink, you scrub your teeth, and consider yourself lucky since you remember the times you had to use warm Perrier to rinse the foam from your mouth. You grab a half a turkey sandwich off the deli tray and woof it down. You pop a Coke open and head for the dock. Time to go to work. You get to the stage door in time to see Fred backing the rig. He almost always gets it backed on the first try; it was sort of a pride thing with him. It takes him twice today; he must be in bad shape after that eleven and a half-hour drive. You unlock the doors, fold them back and lock them to the box. Fred backs up the final ten feet. As the stage crew gets their final swigs of coffee and finish the last bites of donuts, you assess the stage. Loading dock, good local crew, and no surprises on stage (you've played this hall at least twice before that you remember). It will be your job to go in the box and direct the unload, you ask a familiar face from your last visit if they have a shower. "yeah, there's one in the dressing room" comes the welcome answer. You start to move the first of over 100 various sized road cases that need to disembark. The cases almost all have oversized castors, but many are very dense and heavy and they do not move without a struggle. The stage crew integrates with the roadies as the cases flow out towards the four corners of the stage. Orders are barked out in shorthand "down stage left", "upstage center", or "stage right stack." The local crew is fluent in this form of communication, as the cases take their appropriate locations. The stage begins to resemble a large zig saw puzzle just after the pieces are removed from the box. The entire truck is off loaded in about 30 minutes, then the fun starts.
The locals pair off with the sound, light, or band roadies as the orchestrated chaos begins. The PA stacks are one of the first things to go up so that they will clear the stage for the light rig assembly. You build the base of the PA carefully checking the stability of each cabinet, applying a strategic nail where needed. As the pile gets bigger you climb on top to pull the horns up to the top. The speaker cables around your neck are connected one at a time to each speaker as the other end hits the stage to be connected later on solid ground. As the stage right stack takes shape you are thrown large two by fours (spray painted flat black) one at a time, so you can prop up the front edges of the horns, aiming them at the various nooks and crannies of the balcony. Gravity is the primary tool used to hold the stack together, since any nails used will cause delays later when the stack is disassembled. After you are satisfied that the stack is aimed correctly (and stable), you repeat the process stage left. As soon as your speaker cabinets aren't in the way the light guys starting to build the grid. Two large aluminum trusses are bolted together with quick release pins. The Genie towers are positioned at the Four Corners of the grid and the trusses are attached to the towers. Large electrical cables are connected; par lights that had been carefully housed in the protective confines of the square truss are lowered out of their perch so they are free to be aimed later. The two trusses are connected together with aluminum beams forming a large square structure. Once everything is ready four men simultaneously crank the four towers lifting the structure to a height of about twenty feet. While the PA and lights are going up another small group of crew has moved the sound and light boards out to the house. Each of these pieces of equipment weighs about 500 pounds, is very fragile, and can be worth up to $25,000. A spot in the audience has been chosen by the promoter (per your contract) to be roped off for use by the two engineers. Frequently they have not blocked out enough seats or the spot is totally unacceptable. Since you have final say on this matter, you change the location and let the promoter's rep know that he will have to move 24 ticketed fans come show time. He protests, but it's not your problem. Several small cases holding equalizers and effects are placed next to the boards, and the "snake" is unwound off it's large reel on stage making it's way up the aisle to connect the mix with the stage. Within a few minutes a race between the roadies that are on stage wiring the sound and connecting the lights ends up in a dead heat with the roadies in the house connecting the boards. It will soon be time to fire up the PA, and start checking lights. One of them is on the very top rung of an "A" frame ladder, the other one at the board bringing the faders up one by one. Another roadie starts marking the stage with black gaffer's tape, performing the role of stand-in, so the lights can be directed at the imaginary band members. Hand signals are used to aim the lights and prompt the movement to the next fader control. Shouting doesn't usually work because the PA is about to awaken. You pop your cassette (you always use the same one) into the portable deck. You slowly turn up the bass cabinets first and the muffled sounds of rock and roll (at least the parts below 800 cycles) shakes the room. Everything sounds OK so far, so you bring up the mids, now the hall fills with Mick Jagger singing your favorite test song "Shattered" "Look at me! I'm in tatters....shattered." Now the highs are added as the music crystallizes and takes form, "Go ahead bite the big apple, don't mind the maggots!" Now that the copper coils deep inside the magnetic housings have begun to warm up you can safely bring up the gain. You need to check for acoustic problems in the room so you open it up and walk the hall. As quickly as possible you run to the back corners, walk the width and breath of the hall to check the evenness of the mids and highs. You rush to the balcony (time counts here because taking too long could piss off the stage crew). You check the angles of all the mid range and high frequency horns visually, but mostly with your ears. A second song replaces the Stones; it's Jeff Beck's "Blue Wind", no vocals, but music closer to the type being played tonight. You finish your walk before Jeff can finish, satisfied that the PA is ready for action. By this time your partner who is on the stage has fired up the monitors. No music here, he's airing them out, looking for feedback. "Check one, two, Tesssssssssst three four, ssssssheck one two, tessssssssssssssst, three four." "Sssssssssssssssssssssssss, tessssssst, sh sh sh scheck, one two." {There is actually a point to all this inane chatter, he is looking for any problem frequencies that could trigger feedback during the show, and an "sss" or "ch" sound can commonly cause them} As he finds offending hot spots on the audible frequency spectrum, they are quieted using equalizers and parametrics.
By now the lights are done and the band roadies take over. Now that the stage has some breathing room, the band gear is brought out from the wings where pre-assembly had taken place. Everything is placed on it's mark (the black gaffer's tape) so that the lights will find their targets during the show. Concurrently the monitor guy starts micing the gear, hooking mic cables to small snakes on the stage that are connected to the main snake running out to the house. By sound check every mic will be connected to the control board in the house, so that you can control the level and characteristics off every single mic on stage. The stage mix has a split of all the mics so he can control them separately on stage as well. By now the nine foot Baldwin needs to be put up (did I forget to mention that we carried a nine-foot Baldwin Grand Piano with us?) After removing its Anvil case protecting its black lacquer finish, it ends up on its spine, perpendicular to the stage. Two of the three legs are attached (one front and the rear one), and we prepare for more of your volunteer work. You can't remember how you got this task, it probably just happened because nobody else would do it. After a detailed briefing with the stage crew, and only with a roadie or two that you trust mixed in, eight men tip the Grand Piano forward towards the audience. They catch it when it gets nearly level, resting on the two legs. You now get on your back, with the third and final leg in your hand, and with a corner of a Grand Piano (weighing as much as a small car) hovering above you, you calmly attach the leg. When you finish, you scamper out of the way and they set the last corner down gently on its new support. The pedals are then attached (which is much lower drama). You call out to see if the piano tuner is there. (An interesting side note is that many of the piano tuners we ran across were blind. I actually preferred them since they were very fast and very accurate, so I requested a blind tuner whenever possible) Sound check is about 15 minutes away as the notes are adjusted one by one, while you pet the guide dog. The band roadies are tuning the guitars using oscilloscopes and pignose amps.
The band gets there a few minutes early and wanders around getting in the way. The Road Manager rounds them up and takes them to the dressing room so your crew can finish. Your thoughts are on just one thing, a shower. It will have to wait at least another hour. The tuner is finished for now (he will be back just before showtime to re-tune it) so is your new friend (the piano tuner's guide-dog), "Mozart" the Belgium Shepherd. The band roadies are done and the band starts filtering out to the stage. What follows is about 15 minutes of complete confusion as the musicians that haven't touched their precious instruments in over 16 hours get reacquainted. The drummer beats, then adjusts, and then beats his drums again. The guitarists play scales, and the keyboardist tunes and programs synthesizers. Eventually the organized sound check gets started. You sit in the best seat in the house, mic in hand (it's wired to the stage mix, so everyone on stage can not only hear you, they can hear you breathe). The drummer's check comes first, so you say "Right Kick" in your mic. The drummer steps on the pedal of the bass drum about once a second. You bring up that mic and adjust the tone of it to get the most out of the acoustics of the hall. Since the kick drum is the foundation for most of the music, a lot of time is spent getting it right. You repeat the process for the Left Kick (Yes, in case you were wondering he has a bass drum for each foot). You move on to the snare, another critical piece of the mix. Next you ask for the hat (high hat symbols) and then for the kick, snare, hat combo. Now you are starting to build a mix based on the levels of the mics relative to each other. The process continues until you have the whole kit. On this tour that means 12 separate mics, all deliberately positioned with booms and goosenecks to be in the optimum position to give you the best sound without interfering with the drummer's field of battle. Next the bass guitar, only two channels here. All the electric instruments have a direct input (electronically pure sound, the same as what is being sent to the amplifier on stage) and a mic on the amplifier itself. This mic picks up the altered sound caused by the amplifier and speaker's interpretation of the electronic signal being sent from the pick-ups in the guitar. These two sources can be very different, and can vary in quality. An example is that sometimes for no apparent reason the direct signal may have a bad hum, or the mic may be feeding back. When both are working perfectly you find that a mixture of the two is the most pleasing to the ear. That is what you work on now, mixing the two channels in proportion to each other, and adjusting their characteristics to get that "Ralphe" sound. After Ralphe lets loose with his effect pedal (you only allow him to do it once during check so you can gauge a safe level) you ask Stevie and Ralphe to play together. This is critical. You have to get this sound right since it's the foundation for everything else that happens on stage. You repeat the process with both guitars and the keyboards, meticulously equalizing the level of each individual instrument to be heard without overpowering any other instrument. The last piece before the violins is the grand piano. The nine foot Baldwin is a challenge to accurately mic. You need precision and a degree of volume. You have found that a small condenser mic wrapped in acoustic foam placed in the largest of the holes on the sounding board does a good job of capturing the lower frequencies. The highs are collected by a mic suspended over the short strings on a boom mic. It takes some tinkering to get it right every night, but you are very familiar with the big black monster, and you get the right sound in less than ten minutes. Jean-Luc takes center stage (he's been out in the house next to you offering suggestions up until that moment). He puts each of four different colored violins through their paces. He plays several snippets from the songs that will certainly be played during the up coming show. His final chore is to check the effects rack, using the echoplex to multiply the apparent number of instruments to several dozen. He barks at the band roadie that the sound is "dull", and Joe grabs a bottle of denatured alcohol and proceeds to clean the heads. "That's better", he says, as he calls for the whole band. The whole band plays one song ("Trans-Love") and then retires to the green room.
No time to eat yet, there's an opening act tonight, and it's a big one. Ambrosia (remember them from Buffalo?) has been booked to open the next three shows. Unlike some opening acts that have two or three mics, this band will require moving and readjusting all 24 channels. Also this band has vocal mics and will undoubtedly need some monitor gain. You take out your pocket notepad and deliberately note the setting of every knob on the ADM board. Each channel has 6 different controls and there are 24 of them, then there are the main EQ controls, grand total approximately 175 numbers to be recorded and reproduced during that change-over between bands. Your partner is striking the mics while the band roadies move the JLP gear out of the way. Ambrosia's roadies set up in front, and the negotiation starts. "Can you move the grand off stage?" "No, it'll go outta tune, how about you set up in front of it?" A compromise is soon struck where the Grand is rolled back far enough to allow the opener's keyboard stack to be assembled in front of it without sacrificing the delicate tuning. Mics are moved, a new soundman takes his spot where you usually sit (you feel strangely like your territory has been violated) as he starts the same process you completed only 15 minutes ago. The check goes much quicker than yours, mostly because they are told up front they have 30 minutes to complete it period. They don't quite finish but are shooed off the stage by the promoter at 7.
Now you have to choose. You have one hour to eat or shower. You pick the shower since you've been grazing all day off the deli trays. The band will be sitting down to a nice home-cooked (catered) meal, so you can use the dressing room shower. You really hope there is hot water as you find a towel and a bar of soap. As the water warms you rinse off the bar of soap several times "just in case" since you never know who used it last. It takes several agonizing minutes, but the shower finally starts coughing up it's warmest water. The soap, water, and body grime combine together forming a foamy dark liquid that spins down the drain. You start with your hair, since you aren't sure how long the hot water will hold out and that area of your body needs cleaning the worst. No shampoo, you ran out last week, and haven't gotten around to re-supplying so you use the bar soap as a substitute. You hurry for several reasons. One if you are quick you may get some food. Two, there is a show to do in a few minutes and if they open the house the "cattle" will want to hear walk-in music. Three, and the most serious, you are highly vulnerable for road pranks in that shower. Butt naked and soaking wet, you could lose your towel and clothes, have cold water thrown in on you, or have some other humiliating thing happen that somebody just made up. You finish the blessed event without incident, dry off, get dressed, brush your hair, and head for the board.
The doors are about to open so in goes the Steely Dan tape. Not too loud, but loud enough to make the hall not seem too quiet. "Daddy don't live in that New York City no more", finds its way from the magnetic coding on the cassette, down the snake, to the amplifiers, all the way to the transducers in the speakers, which vibrate some air that moves into your ears vibrating little bones that cause your brain to recognize them as sounds. You now get your first (and only) break of the day. It last about 45 minutes. You use the time to repair a bad mic cord that you identified yesterday (I know you thought you were on break, well this is as close to a break as you get). The soldering iron attains the magic temperature, and you apply a mil-spec {military specification} solder connection. After reassembling the XLR connector you test the repair with your VOM. The operation was a success. You flip the tape over.
The house is now mostly full, as you notice it's about five minutes to eight. You pick up the intercom headset and push the amber call light several times. The monitor guy picks up the other end and lets you know we're on schedule. The soundman for Ambrosia makes his way out to invade your turf. You yield your throne (but only temporarily) as you assume baby-sitting duties. You must ensure that the equipment is not jeopardized, and that Ambrosia doesn't use all the volume available (that's reserved for your band). Now the first pay-off of the night, the house lights drop, the crowd cheers and as the stage lights come up to reveal Ambrosia, the sound of their first note reaches your ear just as your adrenal gland releases a miniscule amount of fluid into your system, causing a "chill" to go up your spine. Just like the shows you did with them less than a year ago, the band accurately reproduces eight of their popular recordings. The fans reward the artists with enough applause to warrant an encore. At the conclusion of the encore the stage fades into blackness and is replaced by the house lights coming up.
You regain your rightful place at the controls, pop a tape in, and begin painstakingly restoring the settings you had discovered earlier during sound check. You know that these are only the starting points, and that the attributes of the hall have changed in the last few hours. You complete the resetting of the board in about five minutes. A security guard takes your place as you head to the stage to see what's left to do. Ambrosia's gear is off stage left, they're going to go ahead and load out. That's OK with you, plenty of crew and it's not too cold out, so the door can stay open for a few minutes. Your partner has already set up most of the mics, as the band roadies move everything back to the designated locations. You adjust a mic or two on the kit and then toy with the high piano mic. Time to test each mic. One by one you either say "test" or "check" or tap on the mics in succession. The monitor guy raises his hand each time you successfully test the next mic. When you get to the 24th one, you head back to your board. Now for the next fifteen minutes or so, you get to sit at the board and mentally prep for the show. Actually you are scoping the crowd, looking for bootleggers, checking out the babes, and trying to look cool. Sometimes people come up and talk to you. "How did you become a roadie?" (I should have told them to read my book someday), "Is Gene-Luck a nice guy?" (Actually it's Jean-Luc), "What's Jamie like?" (you need to remember where that girl sits, until I can check and see if Jamie's available tonight). You look down and your call light is flashing. You pick up the headsets and hear the road manager say "end of the next song". You mentally estimate that Donald Fagen has about 30 seconds left. He sings, "...don't take me alive" and the music fades. The house lights gasp, and go black, the crowd erupts in the blackness. A few barely distinguishable points of light flit around the stage as the roadie's flashlights maneuver the band to their lairs. The applause is broken as the voice of the road manager permeates the darkness from off stage.
"Ladies and Gentleman, Jean-Luc Ponty!" 20,000 watts of colored light floods the stage as first notes find their way to the fans. This is your busiest few minutes of the day. You have to make changes quickly with no hesitation. You first raise the main volume, compensating for the cheering crowd. Then you make sure Jean-Luc's red violin in on top. It is. Add a little bottom to it and move to the drums. Plenty of kick, add a little snare, on to the bass. A little muddy, add some top, lower the gain just a tad, balance the guitars, where's the Arp?, add more keyboard, a little more, there it is. Back to the violin, still on top, tweak the mid range just a smidge. There! Perfect!! You stay vigilant for the entire show. As the audience's ears get accustomed to one volume level you take advantage of the human bodies uncanny ability to sense an almost imperceptibly small volume change slowly and subtly increasing that volume during the course of the evening. It gives the effect of each song being just a little more powerful than the preceding one. You have every note of every song memorized and if anything is not right it registers immediately and you make the needed adjustment. It's a good show, the crowd is appreciative and you take a moment to smile to yourself, satisfied. The last song comes to an end, and Jean-Luc says, "Thank you for coming to our show, good night!!" and the band exits the stage. The house stays dark and the stage lights glow deep amber, barley on. The crowd continues to applaud, as the band regroups. About three minutes later (that seem like 30) the lights come back up as the band predictably returns. They react to Jean-Luc's head nod by breaking into "New Country", the recognizable hit off the album "Imaginary Voyage" The crowd claps to the distinctive country-jazz beat. The song comes to it's conclusion too soon, and again he tells the crowd, "Goodnight". Again the lights dim but the house lights do not automatically come up. Here the fans have their own destiny in their own hands. If they respond with loud enough applause for the next minute or so, they will be treated to a second encore, but they have to earn it. Louie is under strict orders not to taunt the crowd using the stage lights, if they are to get the second encore they'd have to get it the old fashion way. You look down and see your call light flashing, it's the road manager, "What do you think?, do they deserve one more?" You look around the hall and see a young man with his shirt off standing on his seat working the crowd with his arms, urging them to not give up. "Sure, one more." You smile as the band takes the stage and does a song off the "Aurora" album. Now the show is truly over, you've only seen a third encore once, and that was at the Palladium in New York, the house lights bring everyone back to reality and "the cattle" file out of the exits.
You remain at the board, softly playing the Taj Mahal exit music, while watching the crowd disperse. The girl who asked about Jamie earlier comes up to you wanting to meet him. You found out he already had a "date", so you tell her to try again next time we're in town. Disappointed, she leaves without comment. (you and the crew have a long drive tonight, so trying to convert yourself to being her second choice has no value). The band equipment is already being put back into their corresponding road cases. The microphones have already been tucked in to bed for the night, and cables are being collected. As soon as a majority of the crowd is gone you kill the sound and tell the stagehands it's OK to kill the power. You secure the EQ rack, and with the help of the union steward you replace the lid on the main board and twist the latches shut. You leap up onto the stage and assess the progress. The PA starts to come down, so you grab your gloves, tag the biggest union guy to join you, and prepare to take residence in the nose of the truck (When exactly, did you volunteer for that duty anyway?). The last item off the truck eleven hours earlier becomes the first one back on. You build a wall of bass cabinets, and top it off with some cable bins. The union guy is considerably larger than you, and seems to enjoy seeing if you can keep up with him as you jointly throw the cases into place. After the "dance floor" is full (the raised area in the front of the box) the lighting trusses roll in. The cases are getting bigger now so the box fills up quickly now. Your partner is sending the cases in the right order, the wrong case in the wrong order would be a time consuming irritation that does not happen tonight. By the time the last case is loaded your new shower is pretty much spoiled. Fred nudges the truck forward about ten feet and you swing the doors shut. Padlock in place, you now need to help Fred put his bike back. With that done its time to walk the stage and dressing rooms. Not much left tonight, more Heineken that we don't need. Why couldn't there be some bottled water for a change without any carbonation? You say goodnight to the Morristown crew and head to the motorhome. "Who's driving first?" the drum roadie asks. You stay quiet knowing that you drove at least twice as far as anyone else last night. Louie breaks the silence by saying, "I will". No one argues. You hit your bunk, and hope the warp drive is still in good repair. Midnight arrives to find you unconscious, the day is now officially over. Another one now begins.
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This is a representative sample of the book "Roadie A True Story (at least the parts I remember)" and is the exclusive property of Karl Kuenning © 2001. This text may not be reproduced without written permission.