National touring band from the UK are on tour in Europe and did not bring any adapter plugs with them and didn’t have them on their rider....they need 15!

These things are not easy to find here especially at the last minute, and at night. These guys have been around the block a few times and are touring with a crew, how did they just forget something so important?

Because they were worried about other things like green M&Ms in the dressing room, how many "groupies" would be at the next concert, where was there "dr#g supplier'"going to meet them and most important are they going to score that night. Adapter plugs are not a necessity for their performance...on or off stage. <GRIN> FWIW.

Lots of bands used to travel with a road manager who was suppose to be aware of what they might need and supply it but a lot of performers got rid of that position as a "cost savings". Now the performer/band has to worry about more mundane matters and they really are not concentrating on that since they have so many "other" worries (see above). IMHO

Agreed always be prepared, as for adaptor plugs my solution, and is what I did on holiday to France, is to get a standard multiway extension (best if it has a fuse in the strip itself) and attach a CEE 7/7 (French/German) plug as that will cover you for most of Europe and works better/is generally of better quality than a simple adaptor plug, plus some adaptor plugs don't carry the earth through.
Yes some other countries will need other adaptors (Scandinavian ones and Italy are the ones that spring to mind).
Thomann do nice rubber CEE7/7 plugs or RS do cheap ones for under £1 delivered.

Works the other way too which is handy if you buy a lot of stuff from Thomann and don't want to use the supplied adaptor plugs.

Fun Fact: In the 1980s, Van Halen had a specific clause in their tour rider, which stated that there must not be any brown-colored M&Ms allowed backstage at any of their concerts or the promoter will have to forfeit their payout.

Seems like an outrageous or at least a frivolous demand, yet there was an excellent reason why they asked for such an over the top demand. As a matter of fact it was quite an ingenious safety measure for them...

Check out this five (or so) minute video clip of Diamond Dave explaining the so-called rumor...

https://vimeo.com/36615187

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documen...dary-mms-rider

As a rule I check the dressing rooms before the band gets off the bus...tells me a lot about the production.

But how does everybody (in an experienced band) forget something so important???

that's just unprofessional, lazy, crazy, arrogant or ignorant!

i regularly get to work at a venue which is very well equipped but coming up with 15 adapters in no time? guess i couldn't find enough in the whole city! now luckily clair is around the corner but otherwise/elsewhere - no way!

as a promotor, i'd put it on artists' costs - silly behaviour then mostly stops pretty soon...

All true and personally I can't wait til the AI robots replace these idiots.

I had a similar situation when a French folk band arrived at a dance festival with no adaptors for their bits and pieces. I supplied them with appropriate power cables and an EU style power strip with a UK plug which I bought in a rare moment of foresight (informed it should be said by a moment of equal and opposite character, 'nuff said...) in Norway which has sat unused for several years in my "occasional" bag.

On a recent three band gig the singers from the other bands asked if they could use my vocal mics because the venue microphones smelled really funky...I asked them how long they have been singing professionally because I cannot believe that in all the years they have been doing this they didn’t think to buy even a cheap mic for themselves. My response was a quick no.

This summer took all the grills off my dynamic mics and pulled the foam out of them.
Washed the foam inserts in dish soap and warm water. Rinsed and let air dry.
Took an old tooth brush and washed all the grills.
Fresh and clean. Its amazing how fast the gunk gets clogged up in the foam and grills.

How can a singer not have his/her own microphone when you consider the hygiene problem? Just the thought of putting my lips on a microphone and sharing spit with hundreds of people I don’t know makes me want to puke.

When I’m on tour with my microphones, each singer is assigned a particular microphone for the Entire tour which is cleaned everyday with an antiseptic wipe and washed weekly like you described above. Years ago I did several tours with two singers (two different bands) who were germaphobes and this was the routine that worked for both, and I’ve stuck with it since.

On the other side of the coin I made a tour with a singer who made really good money but was so cheap he wouldn’t buy his own mic to stop from getting sick every week. One night his sore throat was so bad he had to stop in the middle of the show...urgent medical visit and a trip to a gear shop to buy a new microphone the next day and the problem was solved for good.

We used to clean the grills on our SM-58s as often as we could. We used an ultrasonic cleaner with a solution of Alcohol and dish washing liquid (DAWN). You would be surprised (maybe not) at how dirty an SM-58 can get . In between times we used an antiseptic wipe. FWIW.

My next pet peeve...musicians who always forget to lock the bus door!

Everybody knows that a tourbus is a vault full of expensive gadgets....computers, instruments etc and forgetting to lock the bus door is just inviting trouble, so, I alone keep the door code/key When I’m the road manager.

How about swapping out any IEC leads for your local type instead of converting at the plug end?

Any competent multiple country touring band will have a show box(es) with Audio and Electrical adaptors, accessories such as batteries, gaff tape, and cleaning supplies etc... That this band didn't and put the whole tour at risk (which also means their income at risk) means their management or the band themselves do not care enough to protect their jobs.

some stuff (including most older gear) is hardwired...

Yup, hence the EU power strip with the UK plug.

Mic baskets - dishwasher, sponge inserts are replaceable.

Spare baskets also preclude the need for spare mics. Give every singer a spare basket and if they lose it, no big deal.

The power strip with a single adapter is the Most efficient and cost effective way to go and this is usually how I roll instead of individual adapters for everything.

I will not tour with spare baskets or foam inserts and I won’t leave the care of my microphones to musicians.

Wise words, it's amazing how many "reasons" there can be for things going wrong.

The last time a musician decided to "help" me by moving a vocal mic, he managed to drop it more than three meters off the stage (with the stand) onto the concrete floor, after hitting the crash barrier. The $600 mic still works luckily, but one corner of the basket was crushed in and a bit of the paint was chipped where it hit the metal barrier.

Who tries to pick up/move a mic from the bottom of a fully extended boom stand...at the edge of the stage!? To say I was not happy would be an understatement. He was genuinely apologetic about what happened but the damage was already done.

I setup and pack all my gear, (especially my microphones) myself, this eliminates the chance of losing clips, cables and stand adapters, not to mention the loss of the microphones themselves.

so do i - and yet there have been (very few) bands which would pack things away faster than i could get back to the stage from foh and gear (mics, di's, cables) mysteriously 'disappeared' - as long as it's one band, it's easy to find out who to blame but festivals need some special attention...

We were doing a classical recording session at the chapel at the local college. We had just finished up when a group of students came in who had the hall after we did and started taking our microphones on the stands and basically tossing them off stage onto the floor. I said "hey wait a minute and we will get the mics off stage" but they persisted. I called college security and they came over and took names and told the students that they could be libel for any damages to our equipment. The students changed their modus operandi and offered to help us pack up. Took all of 10 minutes to get the stuff off stage with their help. Two of the students came up afterwards and apologized. The rest never said a word. No microphones were damaged but what arrogance.

FWIW

I've seen that done with a very nice flat back mandolin. It turns out they neither fly nor bounce. It should be said that was malice rather than stupidity.

I've never seen or had these experiences, but I would be so pissed if I did.