During sound check the live PA guys Laz and Steve sounded really great. I mean, I was really amazed how good it sounded in there, and they surprised us by having Laszlo sing! He was really good too. So… after they were done I had a couple of trial mixes to make sure all was in order from our end, and noticed that the left table was impossible to back que on. Like the needle literally flew off the record whenever you spun it backwards. Luckily I had two spares, but managed to kill one of my headshells in the process of trying to replace the other one. What a mess… Haven’t even had a chance to see if I can fix it, since I think I totally nuked the bit where the cartridge goes into the headshell by putting it in sideways. Grrr… No more mixes from me any time soon. But we got it sorted through a combination of parts.
That all sorted itself out around 8:55, just as we were getting ready to start. So Nick went on and played a nice set, then Jamie followed with more goodness, then the live boys came on and sounded sweet. By this point we had probably 60-70 people in there, which is quite a feat for a first night in a new venue in Camberwell! I had been in social butterfly mode this whole time so when Nick came up to tell me the sound was fucked, I was totaly taken aback. When I got to the dancefloor the volume was at maybe 1/3 – 1/2 it’s sound check level, and totally distorted. In sound check the limiter had been steady at one light of 7, and now it was cranked full-on at 7. No wonder it sounded like shit! So I immediately tried to find the sound guy, who said he would be back at the venue by then, but he was nowhere to be found. The bouncer took me back into the sound room, and I wasn’t about to start fucking with all their shit, since I know that’s a really easy way to make an enemy of the sound guy, so we just had to deal with it. Someone told me the barmaid turned it down at one point, which would explain some things. Anyway… the sound dude finally arrived at the beginning of my set, and he sorted it out relatively quickly, but it was still nowhere near as loud as it had been. In short, the mood for my set was seriously compromised by all of this, and it showed. My ill-preparedness didn’t help much either. When it was all over, I had it out with the sound guy a bit, but everyone who worked at the venue was so quick to point the finger of blame at us that it was a totally worthless discussion. May have made a few enemies in the process, and not toally sure if we’ll wind up there again unless I can get some assurance that the staff we need will be on-hand for these sorts of issues. We brought them a hell of a lot of money for a Thursday night, so hopefully they’ll be persuaded to see things our way.
