Last Minute Gigs Stories...

[Remoteness]

When I say "Last Minute" I mean same day or the night before, et cetera, etc. How many of you folks been there? And, what did you do to facilitate that request?

I my three decade career I may have done more than two last minute gigs but, only two of them were memorable enough to remember for a life time.

Here are my two super last minute gig stories...

The first one that stuck in my mind was when I got a call from an associate to record James Brown at Studio 54 for a 1981 live concert video shoot. He asked me if I wanted to record JB. Needless to say, I said, of course when is the gig? He replied, right now! They're doing a sound check and rehearsing as we speak. How fast can you get to us? I said, the gear is ready to go but, I don't think I can get a crew quick enough to make this happen. He said, I got plenty of crew, just come down and we’ll provide everything else. I raced down to the venue; we started setting up; we literally had a "bucket brigade" set up for this task. Believe it or not, we set everything up and still had time to record the last song of their rehearsal/sound check to play around with before the start of the live video shoot. Crazy, right?

The other time was in the early 90s. I got a call from MTV to record the Red Hot Chili Peppers at Roseland Ballroom for a live concert video shoot. I got the call the night before. We were updating our truck. We had most of the bays out getting ready to rewire the entire patchbay. The crew was in the process of severing the cables to the audio patchbay. I ask my MTV contact to hold the line a second so I can check on my crew and see if it was possibile to do this gig for them. I raced into to the truck and screamed STOP, DON'T CUT ANYTHING! I asked Ed if he cut any lines yet. I was just about to, he replied. I said, stop the process, can you get everything back in order enough to do a gig tomorrow. He said, yes we can. I raced back to the phone and told them we can do the gig. The only problem was MTV still didn’t have the rights to the show. We had to wait until the following day (show day that is) to find out if it was a go or not. I ask what time would she know. She said, sometime in the morning. Well, it was early afternoon and we still didn’t know. We held the wiring project up to make this happen for them and we still didn’t know what was going on. Since we haven't heard from them, I was about to start the wiring process all over again but, I held tight a bit longer. A few hours later, we got the call that it was a go. Again, we raced down to the venue and started setting up during their sound check. Unfortunately for us the sound company wasn’t very happy about the situation so, more time was wasted dealing with their issues. In any event the show got recorded and it aired a few weeks later.

What about you folks? Any crazy stories to tell? I'm all ears.

[Remoteness]

I figured this thread would get a few bites...

So, no last minute gigs to talk about? Shucks.

I hope it's because you're too busy to take them on!

More power to you.

[bradb]

I've got a last minute gig story... but its not a gig one, its a performance one. I was in college and my roomates and I were throwing a party. We were going to have bands play. A band I was playing drums in cancelled on me the night before, so I put together a Misfits cover band the MORNING of the party, rehersed 6 or 7 songs throught the day and played that night with an excellent reception. Very cool.

[Jim vanBergen]

Steve, nice stories.

Here's a learning experience I will never forget:
One of the WORST was getting a call at 8pm on a Friday night and being told, hey the show is tomorrow night, and me saying fine. The producer then said, "Great, so we'll have a car at your house in an hour to go to JFK". WHAT? The gig was in CHICAGO and load in was at 7am the next morning. So.... I packed my multitrack & master recorder in a flight case rack, a mic kit and my overnight bag and went to Chicago. The next day I interfaced with a CRAPPY local video truck that was in no way designed to do a multitrack record, worked with the four college kids who were utilities and had no clue how to mic/wire/setup a band or their backline, but eventually the band showed up with their road crew, we made it all work. The mutitrack arrived with a HUGE dent in the case...and the frame...and the machines, but they work, and the show goes on, and the show aired live. Post-show the producer is clapping me on the back and saying thanks it sounded great and you saved my ass, and then some guy walks up, says he is from the label and needs to take the recording back for the DVD. This is a first, zero warning. I say not without paperwork, he says here's my card, I needs them Monday 9AM at the label's office in NYC and to drop them off and there will be a contract and check waiting. So I fly back to NY the next morning, go to the shop and spend four hours doing transfers to DA-88s, and get a couple of hours of sleep before dropping them off at the label at 9am, where there is no check and no contract. Oh, did I mention they received the tapes, but never returned a phone call, mailed a contract or a check? Ah...at least I got paid for the gig. Live & learn!

JvB

[Remoteness]

That's a tough one...

You never learn if you don't make mistakes!!!

[Remoteness]

You know what I hate the most?

Last minute gigs that you make happen for the client then they cancel on you or back out of the situation leaving your crew and the dates you juggled around to make happen hanging...

That "sheet" sucks big time -- And there's nothing you can do about it but say no up front.

Many of you folks have it happen to you? Do you care to talk about it?

[dplitt]

This isn't a recording so i don't know how it would fit in...but it is kinda funny. I've been doing live sound for about 18 years but I'm one of those weird sound types that has never been a muscian...well thats not entirely true, after about 8 beers I have been known to do a little karaoke.

Anyway, a good buddy of mine was the lead FOH engineer at one the local Indian gaming casino showrooms here in California. Its a good size room and holds about 1,000 people and has a pretty awesome system and I used go up their once in a while to visit my buddy and sometimes help the crew setup.

One Saturday i was helping set the main act for that night and we did sound check at around 7pm and then band was told to get some dinner and return for the show at 9pm. Well it turns out the drummer goes for a drive and his car broke down. I guess you can see where this is going, the drummer does not make it back in time for the show and I get drafted to play drums.
I tell my buddy "I'm not a musician, I cant play the drums" and my buddy told me "don't worry about it, neither can their drummer". His humor kinda calmed me down but I did tell him to bury the drums in the mix and really push the bass. I actually payed almost a full 45 minute set before the real drummer finally showed up. Actually it wasn't too bad, the band did all top 40 cover stuff so at least I had an idea of what they were playing.

That was my first and last drumming performance, I hung up the sticks and retired from my short and semi-illustrious drumming career.

[celticrogues]

Heres one for you:

I work in Recording Services at the college I attend; we are responsible for recording all of the recitals that happen in the music school (usually at least one a night). We have 2 dedicated studio spaces that can be used simultaneously to record concerts, and 2 other spaces that are used for other recording projects but can be used to record recitals if necessary. We have three recital halls, all of which have flown mics to record the recitals, so basically all you have to do is patch the correct room into the correct studio and hit record.

One day at a staff meeting I got asked to do a recital that was scheduled for that night. It was not one of the regularly scheduled recitals, meaning it would not take place in one of the three recital halls that we have flown mics in, so I would have to set up mics myself. That was fine, as I figured it still wouldn't take too long and agreed to do it. The admin staff had known about the recital for awhile, but had failed to actually assign it to an engineer until the date of the recital. Hence the last minuteness.

I knew I had to set up mics, so I got there earlier than I normally would - about an hour and a half before the recital. I went to the studios to set up the Pro Tools rig first, and lo and behold - discovered that there were 3 other recitals and a recording session occurring at the same time. All of these things had been scheduled for weeks and had precedence over my gig, so this meant that all 4 of our studio spaces were being used to record other things, and there was no where for me to record this recital.

My only option at this point (besides giving up and letting Recording Services get a bad rep for not recording a concert the performer had personally paid for) was to use my personal gear that I use for non-school related recording (Mbox and laptop at the time). So with time ticking fast, I jogged the 10 or so minutes back to my dorm room, packed up my equipment in record time, and jogged back to the school carrying a backpack of computer gear, a duffel of mics and cables, a stand, and a table. I stopped in the studios to raid the mic closet (which had already been picked over by the guy doing to recording session) for better mics and better pres than I had and hurried downstairs to the room where the recital was to take place. At this point there were 45 minutes to the start of the show.

So when I got in the room (a huge square room that sounds like a barn) I discovered that there was no stage area like I thought there was going to be, and there was not going to just one or two performers at a time like I thought there was going to be. Instead, there were four seperate ensembles set up one in each corner of the room. The ensembles were varied, there was guitar, piano and vocal soloist; percussion ensemble and vocalist; string quartet, tuba, glockenspiel, and vocalist, and piano, flutes, clarinets, and vocalist. It was a composition recital and the music was to be continuous with no applause or space between pieces.

I freaked out a little - I had less than an hour to get my whole rig set up and only had 2 inputs on the Mbox, so I couldn't mic each ensemble seperately. In the end, I got it done in time (barely) with a blumlein configuration of C414's placed smack dab in the middle of the room (the audience was in a circle too) and positioned so each lobe was trained on one ensemble. It worked pretty well, and the performers seemed happy with the recording.

Cheers,
-MIke