The hot month of June is in full swing and we have provided lighting for two Festivals so far. The first event was the Starscape Festival held annually at Fort Armistead park off exit 1 of of the Baltimore beltway. This is the 12th year for the festival which has grown year after year and this year featured three stages (main, beach, and drum & base), one huge Dance tent, and a large VIP area. The main stage featured The Disco Biscuits, Pretty Lights, Lotus, and many others.
The load in days were among the hottest days of the year, and recent memory. The amount of labor (and planning) that goes into a festival is never fully understood by the audience member, but let me rattle off a few of the logistical issues that a festival faces. First thing that comes to mind is weather, then a close second sanitation such as the port-a-pots and trash cans / dumpsters. Don't forget the generators for the stage power, vendor booths, and area lighting. Food vendors, merch vendors, first aid, the massive security required to manage 15k people, parking crew, ticketing, and management. Then there is production with audio, lighting, and lasers. We provided lighting for all areas with two bands from the main stage bringing in additional equipment.
On Saturday morning I rode my motorcycle to the show site and parked by FOH. The 53' trailer for The Disco Biscuits was there at 8:00AM to my surprise. I started talking to the truck driver asking if he knew where gear was going and he explained that he was the driver and that he came from Red Rocks (Colorado) from a Thursday night event. The driver asked me if the motorcycle was mine and I said yes, that it's a new used bike to me, but I love it. He said that he rides whenever he can and showed me some photos on his iPad of beautiful mountain scenes from all over the country. I told him that I was reading a book called Road Show by the drummer from Rush who happens to ride the same model bike. He then told me his name was Mac, and that he was a driver for Rush AND that he rode with the guys in the book from time to time on the spare bike. I told him that he was in the book several times, and what a small world this is. What a strange coincidence, meeting a real life character from a book I'm reading - all be it a minor character, a character none the less.
Back to starscape: Hot, lights, blinky blinky, TONS of people, still very hot. Showed back up for load out which was very long and you might have guessed it - HOT.
I checked the web for show pics and found a few that were memorable.
I'm certain that a lot of beer was sold as a result of the three of them walking around. There was other body painting around the festival, but I think these girls were the only corporate sponsored marketers on the site.
Photo by Nick Fitanides
http://www.phrazz.com
The following weekend I was hired to provide lighting for Several Species at Nelson Ledges Quarry Park in Ohio. I was happy to make the trip to Ohio because it was a chance to work with Several Species again, and I was planning on riding the motorcycle to the hotel. The directions listed the hotel 406 miles from the office, which is a reasonable highway ride on a Friday during business hours. I left the shop at about 10 AM and enjoyed the 400+ mile ride traveling up route 68 to 81 onto the Ohio turnpike. I have to say that the part of the Ohio turnpike I traveled was the best turnpike I've ever ridden. It was scenic, well paved, and the travelers were respectful of the passing lane which is a change from the rolling road blocks in the left lane throughout Maryland.
The hotel was better than expected and for once in my life the check in went smooth, they were expecting me - I was "with the band". After unloading the hard cases from the bike and changing into shorts I walked to the neighboring Ruby Tuesdays and attempted to consume a full rack of ribs. I ate until it hurt than gave up, eyes were bigger than my stomach this time I guess. I grabbed a ride in a minivan with band members to the venue at Nelson Ledges which turned out to be about 35 minutes from the hotel. Our load in was set for midnight after Kashmir, a Led Zeppelin tribute band. I hung out backstage and heard Kashmir belt out song after song from the band in a very true fashion and I was thoroughly impressed with the ability of the singer to do a full three hour set without a break, no break.
It was midnight and the festival goers were nowhere near done for the night. Hundreds of people were in front of the stage area, vendors were selling food and drinks, and the beer drinking was showing no signs of slowing. It was time to load in lighting and what felt like a nice warm June night soon felt like a sweltering August in Texas. The stage roof was far shorter than expected and the lighting was crammed in with moving lights closer together than planned and a general feeling of being crammed. We worked with what we had in the venue and we made it work. Image Engineering sent a laser system for this event as is basically required of a good Pink Floyd tribute band. It is always nice working with Image and I've always enjoyed working with and for them in the past. After several hours and a few set backs we got into a different minivan and went back to the hotel for air conditioning and a comforting bed. I though while falling asleep in the van about the thousands of festival goers that were camping in this heat.
The next morning I woke up earlier than planned and so did my roommate for the trip Josh (from Image Engineering). We joined other band members in a car this time for a quick trip to a nearby Bob Evans. After breakfast we made a stop back at the hotel to grab sunscreen and I grabbed my bathing suit because there was talk of a huge lake. I didn't see a lake last night, but the park website did show such a thing. We were set to take the stage around 8:30 so there was plenty of time to relax and cool off before the work day really started.
After getting to the backstage area and making sure everything was in place from the night before I went to Josh to check out the lake and surrounding woods where the bulk of the campsites were located. The lake was fairly large with a vast camping area that had banners hung for their favorite classics band - Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, and even Ozzy. This place was huge and packed to sell out capacity. The general vibe from overhearing conversations and talking to people was that they were there to see Several Species that night.
After the walk around the lake I put on my bathing suit (sorry no photo) and jumped into the lake. It was breathtakingly cool, but did the intended job of lowering my core temperature briefly. I quickly dried off in the hot sun even though the humidity was at best - sticky. I thought to myself, next year I'm bringing a raft to sit around in the lake, but how will I fit that on the bike. I know, I'll ship it in a road case with the lighting gear.
I had lunch while watching War Pigz, an Ozzy Tribute band. The front man for this band had all the Ozzy moves down and really put his all into the performance. While the festival goers at this event were clearly not big metal fans, he did draw quite a crowd in tie dyed shirts and other hippie fashions.
Before Brit Beat, the Beatles tribute band was to take the stage we set all the floor moving lights that were not placed the night before. It was quite hectic getting moving lights and data lines placed while Brit Beat was moving their gear onto the stage. This is always the case on festival stages weather they are giant or tiny, too much going on in the same area with little time to make it all happen. We got everything set just in time. I went to front of house to make sure all of the equipment was responding to the controller while Brit Beat told the crowd in British accent that the next song was from their LP, A Hard Day's Night. The rest of their set was seen while I adjusted positions on the moving lights without the lamps on and made final adjustments before our set started. The combination of moving lights and a very serious Beatles band was ironic, but I think I'm the only person that noticed that detail. Another detail I noticed that Beatles fans (myself not included) would appreciate was that the bass player was playing left handed, in true Paul fashion.
View from backstage right of the beach
The Several Species set started to a cheering sold out crowd. The set was cut short a little bit due to the generator for lighting and audio being under powered or over loaded which caused the PA to cut out four times, mostly during guitar solos. Chris the guitarist who had the PA cut out on him didn't miss a beat as his monitors didn't kick out, or he's just that good. Thankfully the lighting gear never gave out which is probably poetic justice in that we had a great deal of LED equipment so we were using far less electric we would have for the same show a few years ago. The crowd was very energetic and left wanting more, maybe next year.
View from FOH, it's a fairly small stage
Start of the show, it's hard to run the show and take photos too
The show looked a lot better than this photo
After a hot and sweaty load out I was completely exhausted and made my way into the drummer's minivan going back to the hotel. The air conditioning in the room never felt so good. A quick shower and I was out like a light. The next morning I grabbed a table for one at the Bob Evans and rode the motorcycle back home enjoying the scenery and roads of Ohio, West Virginia, and a to a lesser extent, Maryland.
