(the following is loosely in the style of Janet and John - less of the 1949 educational books and more of the Radio 2 broadcasts - check this link for more info)
Mr Best Man has a leaky roof. Poor Mr Best Man. See him get wet.
Not too wet - it is the conservatory. But slightly wet. Unlucky Mr Best Man
Mr Best Man also has cold shed, and lots and lots of Artex. Not in the shed - that would be silly.
So Mr Best Man has decided to get a bunch of his friends to come and do his house work for him. Lucky Mr Best Man to have all those friends with nothing better to do of a weekend than do house tasks for free. On a weekend with forecast rain throughout.
Do you know what ’sucker’ means?
So I’s travel across London to meet Mr Ben. I’s take a power tool and a pair of steelies and a saw and a chisel and a sealant gun and a stanley knife and a change of underwear and a drill set and some toothpaste and a camera and some knee pads and a scraper.
I’s have many tools.
Until I meet Mr Ben:
Mr Ben has many, many, lots of tools.
Lucky Mr Ben.
Mr Ben and I’s travel down to Mr Best Man’s house. On the way, we see a huge big truck -
We think that the huge big truck will be very useful to help with sorting out Mr Best Man’s house. But they aren’t going our way.
Poor us.
When we arrive at Mr Best Man’s house, we say hello to him and to Mrs Mr Best Man and to Eric the Dog. He barks and stands on I’s foot.
I’s have my own room for the next two days:
I’s even get a bed for my very own. At least until I’s return to my own home. Wife number one may say that our bed is hers but I’s know who paid for it …
The next morning I’s and Mr Ben and Mr Best Man and Mrs Mr Best Man and even Eric the Dog get up early. Before lunch time early - even before double digit time early!
We start on removing the roof to the conservatory - you never know what you are going to find!
Silly Mr Best Man
Then Mr Ben gets to use his pressure washer toy:
I’s get to use a sponge.
We has a little company when a big yellow helly-copter buzzes overhead and parks very close by:
Then we stops for lunch in the roofless conservatory. Burgers and hot dogs followed by cake:
What Joy!
Do you know what intravenous injection of sugar means?
Then Mr Best Man and Mr Ben and I’s replace the roof. First we have to put flashing in.
No silly - not that flashing.
It takes a little gentle persuasion to get the roof panels in after they have been cleaned. Mr Ben has the delicate touch:
A delicate touch, and a mallet …
As the sun is still a-shining, proving that weather reports are always accurate (!), we decide to go indoors and remove some decoration blocking access to the Artex.
What do we do with decoration that blocks access to the Artex? Firewood!
Mr Best Man’s house has a special surprise in it’s Artex:
Many many many many many lots of picture hooks! We ran out of fingers and toes trying to count them all (and that included Eric the Dog, the neighbours on both sides and a passing cat)
At that point, we equipped hammers, chisels and crowbar. Mrs Mr Best Man and Eric Dog run for cover.
Do you know when you need to buy Polyfilla? We do.
As a special treat, Mr and Mrs Best Man took us down to the seaside as it got dark:
The next day was Sunday and we rose a little slower this morning. But lots of Mr Best Man’s other friends came to play with us.
So I’s was banished to the loft to receive boxes. At least the boxes had now gone from my room
Then Mr Ben and I’s were sent to B&Q to purchase 3mm wood sheeting.
No, silly, not that kind of sheet.
Have you ever tried to attached 10 sheets of 8′ x 4′ to a roof rack 3′8″ wide?
We have.
No photos.
We returned to Mr Best Man’s to find that the present Mrs Ben and wife number one had arrived and were attempting to clean bits of Eric Dog from the landing.
His hair - what were you thinking?
The sheets were for the main shed, once we’d fixed the trick hinge (the trick was how it hadn’t fallen off) to provide an internal wall to sandwich the remaining loft insulation. There wasn’t much insulation left.
Greedy loft.
While we argued with nails and insulation, everybody else painted the lounge and cut the grass, and painted the lounge and sugar soaped the hall and painted the lounge and had burgers and sausages and worked on the garden.
Did you know that some people put bricks into their grass to make it grow longer? (Notice the holes in the lawn)
And did you know that Mr Best Man has a path under the gravel?
Nor did he!
So the roof is fixed, the lounge is white (mostly), the beams are gone, the garden is back, the shed is partially done, the boxes are mostly hidden, the burgers have all been eaten and next door’s cat was perplexed.
We pack to return to our respective homes and Eric Dog checks to make sure we have everything we brought down:
We have.
Arriving in work the next day, colleagues asked me what I did over the weekend:
“Well, I’s and Mr Ben went to Mr Best Man’s to stiffen his membranes, manhandle his wood, get some damp bracing, clean his innards and give it all a lick of paint”
Do you know how to step away from the slightly deranged man?
One chief, two lighting technicians, three electrics casuals, one sound technician, two sound casuals, one flies, one stage and one work experience assemble bright and breezy on a wednesday morning to convert a bare theatre into a home for this years collection of hip-hop theatre.
I use the terms ‘bright and breezy’ and ‘morning’ together loosely.
Most people choose to relax over bank holiday weekends - it’s a pity they all choose to relax by coming to see a show. Then again, it pays the next mortgage bill so I shan’t complain (too much).
Setting up the sound was fairly easy - the majority was in from shows previous.
[Shop Talk]
We only had to add a couple of Shure Beta 58 UHF for beatboxers/rappers. We know from previous years that our Sony’s don’t react well to a beatboxer’s style.
5 PCC160s were added downstage as we knew there was going to be some foot work …
We also added a computer at the sound desk to allow for archiving and burning CD back-ups. It also linked to our MediaMatrix for remote control purposes and was also running SCS on a live test - not on the actual shows but programming as if it were.
[/Shop talk]
The staging was also pretty simple - a bit of re-hanging of black soft goods
Lighting was a little more complicated. It wasn’t our entire stock in use but not far from it.
FIrst two more lighting techs joined in the fun at lunchtime - employed, it seemed, purely to patch in all the cable runs and fit the Howie battens to the front of the stage.
Then the stage guys found themselves incorporated into the lighting crew, then the sound crew found themselves getting pulled towards the bright side event horizon - everything had to be rigged and all the non specials focussed by bedtime wednesday.
We tried rigging ancillaries to deflect the pull - comms first, then rigging the projectors and vision mixing position. Hope was running out first and all we could do was put in the cue lights and trust that the clock would run out before the error of getting sound crew to focus …
And it did!
Day two at the BC house:
Fresh blood joined in the slog today - another lighting tech to replace one who was having more fun with a cuban salsa band, the DSM ensconced himself at the prompt desk (seemingly for the entire weekend), the production manager switched to stage manager duty, and the sound operator arrived. This marks something of a change for me - normally I take residence at the mixer for the entire weekend. This time, someone else had that pleasure.
They didn’t have the comfiest chair (that had been claimed by one of the companies onstage for a Dr Claw moment - I’m going to assume that you, o gentle reader, know who Dr Claw is -) but it was a comfy chair and fairly free rein of the sound of the event. Along side the comfiest chair, the work desk from the sound control room, an old telephone, a typewriter, a riding crop, giant inflatable radios, and a mannequin are also press-ganged into prop duty.
We go straight into rehearsals - over the next five days we have a couple of dozen companies to get onstage, make happy, get rid of, rinse and repeat. Three of those days are also the show days - 8 or so companies perform one after the other, then a break while the audience goes off to entertain themselves for a hour then the ‘headline’ act of the night closes the evening.
I spent most of the day enjoying the ability to move around and not be stuck at the sound desk - actually I spent most of the day listening to the sound in the house, helping make sure everything was set-up backstage, assisting in the set-up of the projectors that we didn’t manage yesterday with the all-consuming lighting fit-up/focus, helping to put down the white floor and put up the white goods and wall that saturday’s headline act needed assisted by one stage and one flies who wouldn’t be there for the actual show, and eventually doing the splits as best I could to outline the focus position for the same act. I think the only sound I did was to add a pair of speakers upstage and delay the system back to them.
And a bunch of paperwork for the shows coming up in the next few weeks, including a rapid re-staffing for an external company due in the next few weeks.
I even stayed on an extra hour to do the splits.
There was about enough time to get a few hours sleep at home next to an indistinct shape that I presume was wife number one before
Day 3 in the BC house:
Delays on London underground brought me into another full day of rehearsals, starting with the white set which I helped to strike with a member of crew who hadn’t put it together. Then the backline arrived. Yep, in the midst of a festival that was pretty much playback and handheld wireless, someone had added a three-musician jazz band. With four instruments (drums, bass, and keys/sax).
[Shop Talk]
The sax was miked with a wireless Beta 98 running through a Sennheiser 3000 series wireless system; a Roland amp for the keyboard, DI’ed into our system; The bass cabinet was an Ampeg 4/10, also DI’ed into our system; drums were Pearl kicks, toms and snare with Zidjian cymbals and a cowbell miked with a Beta 52 on kick, SM57 on snare, three e604 across the toms and a pair of KM184 as overheads.
I wonder if it’s worth trying to get a commission everytime I mention those mic brands, I do seem to repeat them quite often.
[/Shop Talk]
The three musicians across four instruments was less of a worry than the absence of a keyboard on the rider - still I checked the last three versions they sent and no mention of any keyboard …
Pause for a quick meeting to confirm that my re-staffing meets everyone’s requirements, after the quick meeting with the recording company archiving the weekend’s events then a quick walk (in the outside) to get some food that wasn’t purchased in a supermarket. And aptly for a bank holiday weekend, a quick, heavy shower to remind me not to take late lunches.
Or maybe just lunches outside.
The rest of the day was spent dealing with an endless succession of similarly clad persons bopping onto stage to a seemingly endless selection of similarly mastered CDs, occasionally broken up by a company that had music on DVD instead.
Back home for the few hours sleep tonight revealed an indistinct shape in the spare bedroom also. Apparently, my mother in law had come down for the bank holiday weekend.
Day 4 in the BC house (show day one):
I’m in a whole hour later this morning - I still have to get up at the same time as mother-in-law has kindly agreed to finish off the tailoring on a suit picked up from the NYC holiday.
Then it’s back to the office.
Another mic runner joined the collective this morning. I think this meant this years sound crew was as large as the sound crew combined for the last two years - maybe three.
It’s not a bad thing.
Show day one didn’t start well other than that however. One group was running late for their rehearsals that day and the bassist from the jazz band had missed his flight and was somewhere in T5 - as long as he wasn’t in baggage claim, we stood a chance of seeing him some point in the day and the production team did a couple of rapid schedule alterations to ensure that there was no wasted time.
The two remaining musicians appeared at the beginning of their time and finally had a look at the instruments. The drummer was fairly happy - the keyboardist asked where the keyboard was.
Oh.
A quick peruse of the rider, followed by a few choice french swear words, leaves me with my finger on the call button of my mobile asking what model keyboard they need and wondering if the backline company is going to be open at lunchtime on a saturday on a bank holiday weekend when the sound op pips up from behind me - “I’ve got that model in a flat in Camden”.
There was a moment of perfect stillness then he gets hustled off in a taxi to retrieve his keyboard. Meanwhile, the AV operator and the other two sound techs begin to soundcheck the drums and I run through the rest of the re-scheduled schedule noting all the extra wireless requirements that have appeared.
The key board shows up an hour later (not bad for London traffic) just in time to find that the keyboardists’ Kaos sound effect pad PSU has blown up.
The AV operator finds himself headed towards Tottenham Court Road to get a replacement as we scour the building for a PSU with the right voltage/current/connector.
A spark of good news - nope we don’t find a PSU but the bassist arrives just in time for a run-through. A phone call from a hungry AV op tells us that replacement PSU’s are only available online.
Kaos pad duly cut.
The musicians go and one of the next wireless requirements appears. “This man needs a radio mic.” Not a problem “For his trumpet.”
Oh.
We spend a little bit of time working out how to attach the 98 to the instrument with it’s somewhat short wire and succeed with time to run the piece and stay in schedule.
Then spider kid arrives for his (unasked for) radio mic. With the moves he is doing, the pack has to go on his front and the mic head on his collar.
Then the company with a beatboxer arrives.
It’s late afternoon by now and with the show having a family friendly 6pm start, there’s not an awful lot of time left for us to have lunch.
So we don’t.
One final little issue when one of the Sony hand-helds spontaneously decides to not transmit audio but we have enough spare transmitters to add that to the ‘fix later’ pile - the pile that’s normally on the work desk (the desk that by now is featuring in several pieces …)
The show opens only a few minutes late (as always, waiting for the punters) and we run through the show in fairly long order.
By which I mean there’s no real problems but we come down for the mid-show break later than we expected. The set is re-assembled for the nights headliners. It’s about this time that someone thinks to wonder what happens to the set as that company are only on for the one night - something the crew are all aware of already …
The studio theatre also runs late with the piece in there so we resume nearly an hour later than planned and start sending member of the crew home to give them their 11 hour breaks with a few lucky souls chosen to remain to fit the set back into a truck for removal.
Getting home after it all, I try on the adjusted suit trousers, now not 40″ long with a ragged edge and extend my first words with wife number one in four days
“Turn off the bloody light”
“But I need to see how the trousers are doing”
“(mutters obscured by duvet covering head)”
Day 5 down the BC house (Show Day 2):
Leaving the indistinct shapes, I arrive in work to find that the current company, tonights headliners and previous participants, have brought their music in on USB stick this year. It sounds no different to last year but we duly burn it onto CD, which all goes fine until they exclaim - during the second playthrough - that the music has jumped. Running on 2 CDs simultaneously, with no discernable audio glitching and with no difference in the clocks.
We check and double check everything and can’t get it to do it again and in the end run it on two different CD’s on two different players running in unison with a third copy from hard-drive and an extra pair of eyes keeping track on all the counters.
That’s about the extent of the excitement for the day - excepting all the dancers throwing their bodies into slightly improbable positions of course. We even mange lunch breaks - obviously we aren’t working hard enough.
The show goes fine and runs pretty much to time.
It’s the going home where it goes wrong - arriving at the tube station just after the second to last train with the last one on the board. It may be a brisk walk from tube to overground train but it’s doable.
15 minutes later and I look up from the book to see the tube is still on the board but it’s arrival time has vanished.
My train is due in five mins and it’s a 15 minute journey.
Ah.
15 minutes more. It’s now 1.00am, we know the tube is being held at Camden, we know it has to come past as it’s the first northbound train tomorrow (actually, later today) but even the station staff don’t know why it’s being held.
About now, I give up and head out for the night bus.
I catch the first going in vaguely the right direction, aiming to intercept a second night bus at Aldwych. Getting off at Holburn, I’m so busy fuming at London Underground (and wondering if I can blame Boris) that I’m half-way to Charing Cross before I realise my mistake.
Bah.
It’s approaching 2.30am when I finally get into bed, next to an indistinct shape. I hope it’s wife number one - but I’m too tired to care.
Day 6 down the BC house (Show day 3 - final):
By now, we got the routine down pat. The lighting op and the LD are at the production desk in the circle, receiving regular caffeine injections; the sound op is at the mixer, fingers twitching slightly; work experience is testing the carpet at the followspot position for it’s sleepability factor; the two mic runners sit blankly on the side of stage; the DSM hasn’t moved for five days; the AV op flicks endlessly from Facebook to iTunes; the single stage crew member moves from chair to chair depending on his boredom threshold (he does keep returning to that comfy chair); the flies operator alternates from sitting at his controls and going outside for a smoke; one of the lighting techs has retreated to the office with a selection of guitar based music and the other three lighting techs seem to be morphing into each other.
Matching hairstyles, T-shirts, shorts - only the trainers show any individuality.
And the croquet.
Thank goodness this thing draws to a close tonight - any longer and we’d install a diary room …
We have a successful days worth of video, sound, lighting and dancing - the performers do okay as well.
Then we pull it all out, ready for the lucky souls who have the 8.00am start the next morning for the next show.
I arrive back home around 2.30am again to the indistinct shapes - I’m not certain they’ve moved since the morning. I flick on the TV to watch a bit of American comedy/drama to send myself off to sleep.
Three hours later, I’m still wide awake. My brain may be mush from the onslaught of bad script-writing but I’m not tired. I switch over to the ice hockey and twenty minutes later, I’m out like a light.
And in sympathy to the guys starting their morning call, wife number one and mother-in-law awaken at 8am.
It’s my turn to be an indistinct shape, muttering under the duvet …
Good day, gentle reader, we resume our tale of two travellers in a foreign land.
Prevously they have left the land of plentiful bagels and suffered on the journey of Amtrek. Check my previous post for more details.
Now we resume our tale in the land of the free (trade) …
From Union Station, which looks a whole lot better from the outside than on the platforms, we got a taxi up to our hotel - the Omni Shoreham (on Rock Creek).
This was a proper hotel, which was to say it had a restaurant, served breakfast every day (which it charged for), had paid internet access (at $10 for fifteen minutes!) and looked posh. But no kitchenette, no microwave and no TV guide. There was en suite (but the plug didn’t work properly here neither). There was an N64 built into the TV. Which you had to pay for.
Anyhoo, as Amtrak had added over an hour to the journey, which meant the taxi had to travel in rush hour so we didn’t feel much like going out. Instead we sat in the outside terrace and ate at the hotel restaurant. It wasn’t too bad.
This time.
By now, it was Sunday and after having a full buffet breakfast (I’ve still never had decent bacon in the States - it’s always dry, crispy and salty, and trying to get a fried egg …)
We decided to do a quick saunter around the block - at the very least we needed to find a working laundry. Then we’d come back to the hotel and decide what to do with the day. It took only a couple of minutes to find the elevator to the local Metro. We continued up the slight hill with the intent to see what we could see from the top.
Well, to the left a Starbucks, forward the road and to the right, a zoo. Obviously.
The National Zoological Park is part of the Smithsonian Institute, was landscaped by the same guy who worked on Central Park and is free to enter. Maps cost $2 though.
As you can guess, what started as a five minute jaunt to see the area ended up as a five hour visit to the zoo with a final walk through a leafy canyon back to the hotel. There were lions, and tigers and bears. Oh my. And toucans, elephants, panda’s, sea lions, eagles. And iguanas and geckos. And a whole manner of other feathered and furry animals. The kiwi didn’t come out to play, though and we couldn’t see any of the wolves.
I’m also fairly certain that Marine One went over our heads - at least we saw two large helicopters with distinctive colours flying in different directions. Watching West Wing does provide some info …
And, of course, I foolishly left the camera in the safe in the hotel room. DOH!
We ate at the bar lounge that night, seemingly having left our appetites at the zoo. Wife number one had been watching the tamarins eat too much as most of her blueberry cheesecake ended up over her white woolen top.
Ah.
Luckily there was a cleaners just up the road.
After an expensive breakfast the next morning, we returned to the elevator for the Metro.
Yet another underground transit system for us to try out.
Well, the Metro is shady everywhere - not badly lit but deliberately shady, which when combined with the concrete walls is not very inspiring to look at. Maps and signage are better as they follow the Underground concept of showing at each platform where the train is going and each stop to get there. And don’t show anything else on the platform maps a la the Underground.
But buying a ticket is more of a faff - ticket prices are only shown for a single and you have to do sums to work out the value of the return fare then ‘load’ a farecard with that amount. There are machines inside the barrier for if you get the fare wrong and need to ‘top-up’ to get out. Once a farecard is used up, it is taken by the machines. And the farecards get printed on them how much is left.
Oh, and the single fare changes dependent on the time of day, but it doesn’t tell you when that is.
We weren’t the only newcomers who needed human assistance to work it out.
There were smart cards that seemed to be like Oyster PrePay but we didn’t look into them - besides we already had something similar from the subway in New York.
The Underground has definitely gone up in my esteem since this holiday.
So once we’d finally got tickets, and helped a nice American couple get theirs, we descended to the platform, using the maps to look at our journey to come (NY transit take note, please).
We journeyed the three stops to Metro Center which brought us out on 13th and G Street North West.
Not quite as simple as Manhattan - there are avenues normally with state names and normally running diagonally to the main grid system.
BTW If you do search for the street layout of Washington, be prepared to wade through a mountain of Masonic imagery …
Well, with a slight distraction at Filene’s basement, we went past the Treasury building and looked at President Bartlet’s office - oops sorry I mean President Bush Jr. Then we walked onto the Mall and were towered over by the Washington Monument. And looked down onto the helicopters flying low over the Potomac. Then by the WW2 Memorial and along the reflecting pool to the Vietnam Memorial. Across to the Lincoln Memorial then down to the Korean War Memorial.
[note - this is the point where something has gone awry with our photos and we cease to have any beyond the WW2 memorial. The Washington shots are here - hopefully if any file recovery programs actually work, this set should increase)
By now we we a little memorialed out so we headed across to the Smithsonian castle and found a foodstore so we could eat on the Mall midway between the monument and the Capitol building.
We then entered the Air and Space Museum - full of big hanging things - then pushed on past the Capital to the Library of Congress then past US Supreme Court back into Penn quarter, missing - sadly - the International Spy Museum and returning to Metro Center.
They don’t do things by halves in Washington, at least in terms of architecture. There doesn’t seem to be one building that doesn’t, from outside at least, stand proud in a city of columns.
We returned back to the hotel and finally found the main entrance to the Metro - that we had been walking past every time we left the hotel. I’m not certain how anyone can miss three escalators covered by a large overhang but we managed.
And it we hadn’t been going to a drug store I doubt that we would have noticed at all, it being in the middle of an intersection …
A quick note on buying pharmaceuticals in the US, if it’s an over the counter drug, bring your passport. The pseudoephedrine I was taking to try to keep my sinus’s open while I failed to shift a head cold is a federally controlled substance. A driving license is not enough - as you need to have a citizen number (seriously) to purchase it. My passport number worked - though it did tell the computer I was a resident of Ottawa (shrugs)
We braved the hotel restaurant again that night - and wished we hadn’t. Wife number one had the seasonal ‘cherry blossom’ based three course and only really liked the ice cream that was part of her chocolate and cherry pie - the ice cream from Haagen Dazs.
The duck parfit stack I had had changed it’s contents since I had it two days before - there were a large number of peppercorns on the side of my plate by the end and there had been none the first time I had eaten that dish. The main meal was no better and again only the Haagen Dazs ice cream was enjoyable.
With the hotel eateries out of the picture, we purchased fresh bagels from a local diner. If you are in the North-West area of Washington, I’d recommend Cafe International on Connecticut Avenue. They open from 6.30am to 5.00 most days, have internet access (25 cents a minute or $7.90 unlimited) and a good selection of cakes and savouries. The only problem we had was a slight language issue between our UK English and the Japanese accented American of one of the servers.
Returning to the Metro, we bought fare cards like seasoned commuters (kinda) and headed back into Penn Quarter to see if we could find any shops.
Yet again, we got waylaid by Filene’s basement. Slightly laden down, we stopped in a local bakery for sandwiches, cookies and coffee then got overcome by a last bit of lingering culture and headed to the Natural History Museum.
Yet again the Gem gallery caught the eye of wife number one - this time the Hope Diamond along with the Splendor of Diamonds exhibit. The meteorites weren’t quite as good as the ones on display at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC but the quality of the exhibitions was markedly better - see, no stuffing …
Having missed the wildlife photos at the Natural History Museum in London, it was nice to be able to catch up with another collection here - it shows what a lot a patience and a damn good camera, and a little lucky timing can achieve.
We returned to the hotel one final time - then remembered that we didn’t like the food and we had to pick up a couple of bits of laundry. So we recovered the nearly clean woolen top and went out to the Open CIty diner. The service was quick as was the food. The food was simple and tasted good - something our hotel could have learnt from. We were even able to take dessert out with us.
Our last day in America loomed and we tried to fend it off with a breakfast at the Cafe International.
No luck - first a taxi to the sweeping concrete of Dulles International Airport (I’m surprised there weren’t any columns) then wandering aimlessly up and down the terminal which took almost our remaining cash reserves and left us with the grand total of $7 and change.
Then onto Virgin Atlantic to find that economy class in this plane wasn’t up to the standard of economy class of the flight over. The screens had a permanent flicker and the films weren’t the direct access of the flight over - instead they started them playing on a loop. If you missed the start, then you had to wait until it started again.
I managed to watch most of the Golden Compass and Juno but don’t ask me questions on camera or colour as the lady in front of me spent the entire journey with the seat back and I got to test the vertical viewing angle (result - NOT ENOUGH!)
Apparently I was meant to be sleeping.
Yeah right …
Arriving back at Heathrow, it was nice to walk into the short UK citizens line and not nice to then wait as the baggage handlers put the cases out one at a time. One case for about every complete turn of the baggage carousel.
I got to know some of those bags very well, particularly the African couple who had brought 13 bags with them. Yes, that’s 1 AND 3, 13 bags.
Finally we escaped to rescue our bored looking taxi driver who returned our sleep deprived bodies back to our abode.
Now I just need to spend some time sleeping to feel rested before returning to work next week.
For those concerned, wife number one was able to complete Resident Evil DS once through and is most of the way through attempt two.
Yes, wife number one and myself actually left the sunny shores of England to go to climes foreign, even going so far as to be in a different continent …
The towering heights of Manhatten Island followed by the cherry-blossom capital of Washington D.C.
Okay, it was only the US but that’s still 3,000+ miles away.
That’s about 8 hours flying time.
Or about 3 films worth …
Virgin Atlantic now have a flat-screen for each seat, even in economy and on the flight over there was a large choice of films
As we were headed to the eastern seaboard, we decided on films that would allow us to see where we were headed to.
So we started with I Am Legend (mostly in Manhatten), moved on to National Treasure 2 (which has DC in it for a bit). Then for some light relief we watched Aliens vs Predator 2 (definitely not NYC or DC).
A quick warning to any supporters of NO2ID travelling stateside - US Customs require a digital photo and index fingerprinting before they let you in - it was nice to not be told that until in the line to enter the country …
We flew into JFK which is out in Queens. To get onto Manhatten Island, you have to drive past La Guardia. How often you you drive past an airport going from an airport to your destination?
Before that though, we drove past the flying saucers at Queens. Okay, actually they are the observation towers left over from the World Fair 1964 but I first saw them in Men In Black so …
Anyway, we ordered a car from Dial 7 (guess the phone number!) which drove us through Queens, over the Triborough Bridge then down to 96th St (might be worth getting a map of Manhatten up about now) across the whole of the island to the Hudson Parkway then down to our home for the next week - the Milburn Hotel on West 76th St.
It seemed a little round about to me but then I don’t know road conditions at 9pm in the area …
The island of Manhattan is largely a protrusion of granite, rising a few hundred feet from sea-level. The southern tip and center of the island are virtually solid granite, while areas in Greenwich Village and Chelsea are composed of softer soil. As a result of this geologic arrangement, Manhattan’s tallest buildings are located in these two large “rocky” areas.
Manhattan is flanked on its west side by the Hudson River, and on the east side by the Harlem River (on the north) and the East River (on the south).
Manhattan’s street layout consists primarily of avenues and streets. The space between avenues is typically much larger than the space between streets (roughly 3x).
* Avenues run North-South, starting with 1st Avenue on the East Side, and going westward to 12th Avenue.
* Streets run East-West, starting with 1st Street in Greenwich Village, and increase in value up to 220th Street at the north tip of Manhattan.
General areas in Manhattan
* Below 1st Street is considered to be the Downtown area of Manhattan
* 1st to 14th Street contains the general “Village” area. The area west of Broadway is Greenwich Village, and to the east is East Village.
* 14th to 34th Street west of Broadway is Chelsea, known for its large loft apartments and studios.
* 34th to 59th Street is generally regarded as “Midtown”
* 59th to 110th Street contains the Upper West Side and Upper East Side, respectively. Between the two lies the green oasis of Central Park.
* 110th to 145th Street lies the village of Harlem
* 145th to 220th Street has no special designation, but does contain the neighborhood of Washington Heights and the Cloisters.
Houston (pronounced HOW-ston) Street marks the top of Downtown which has a grid system of sorts but is named streets rather than numbered. Areas downtown include Soho (SOuth of Houston), Tribeca (TRIangle BElow CAnal street), the Lower East Side, Little Italy, Chinatown, Lower Manhattan (where the Twin Towers used to stand and the Freedom Tower is under construction), and Battery Park)
Anyway.
We arrived at our hotel, the Milburn on 76th street, just off Broadway. This is a little hotel that is pretty much just somewhere to stay while going out to do stuff. Still, our room had a kitchenette with full sized fridge, microwave and sink, en suite bathroom (with dodgy plumbing), free internet access (including PC’s in the lobby for those of us who still don’t have laptops or smart phones), and even free rentals of DVDs, VHS (with players in the room), and playstations!
Rather than getting a decent nights sleep, we instead had arranged to do a tour bus to next day, for which we had to arrive while there were still single digits in the times. Bleurgh. Our first challenge was not finding a subway stop (only 4 blocks from the hotel) but working out how to use the subway.
As regular users of London’s Underground, we have been spoiled.
True, the New York Subway is 24 hours which the Underground does fail at but the Underground is better lit, isn’t so shabby around the edges and has proper signage. You don’t appreciate how good the signage is until you don’t have it. The subway has white on black signs in the roof that mention whether a train is going uptown or downtown - there’s no route maps, no next train due signs (or announcements) and the trains only have a start/end sign - which is the same whichever way you are travelling. It may save on the maintenance but it’s not friendly to first-time visitors. Sometimes the only indication is a single sign that says ‘uptown’ or ‘downtown’ at the entrance - New Yorks subway system expects you to know it.
Still, we arrived early with a loaded Metro Card and arrived at the tour centre.
Say hello to Sergei.
And his red umbrella. The three dozen or so of us on todays tour are going to spend the day looking out for the red umbrella, a handy eye-catcher for any tour guide. Plus it keeps him dry in rain and shady in sun
We went with Grey Line on one of the Manhatten Comprehensive tours - what we didn’t realise was that this is from a coach and not an open-topped double decker - any photos would be through tinted windows so we didn’t bother with the photos.
The coach left from 48th and 9th and headed southwards, mainly on Broadway while Sergei pointed out all the sights.
And in Manhattan, that’s like: “This is Times Square, on your right is Port Authority and your left is Grand Central, now we pass the Public Library on your left and on your right is Macy’s and then Madison Gardens and on your left was the Empire State Building and we’ve now missed St John the Baptist Church and you’ll have a couple of seconds to view the Flat-Iron building but in doing so we’ve passed Gramercy Park, oops and Union Square and that building is Forbes, nope the other side, oh too late, well next is …”
But with a Chechnian accent.
After we had missed looking at Wall Street (twice), we arrived at Pier 17 for a water taxi. 15 mins to stretch our legs (and check out Victoria’s Secret … as you do) then the water taxi arrived.
Actually, it was 15 minutes to stretch your legs and about 30 mins waiting for the water taxi to arrive - still it gives a chance to show off Sergei’s umbrella
This isn’t an amphibious vehicle but a regular two deck boat. It was yellow, though.
The water taxi heads around Lower Manhatten from the East to the Hudson Rivers then swings past Ellis Island to Liberty Island, pauses for the inevitable photos (I wonder why) then heads back up the East River to Manhatten Bridge then back under the Brooklyn Bridge and to the dock.
The coach picks us up and missing Wall Street again, we headed to an eatery called Chevy’s. Lunch was free - which considering it was a choice of burger, burger with cheese, veg wrap or chicken burger was good - and was over quickly.
With a little time to kill, we paused at the Famine Memorial. Right next to the World Financial Center, I’ve never heard anything about this before - but I think this page tells about it quite well.
We moved back into the Winter Gardens - what else would you call 16 full height Palm trees in a glass hall? - and had our close-ist look at the site of the World Trade Center. It’s looks like a giant building site.
They are putting the foundations down for the Freedom Tower, a 1776ft skyscaper to replace the twin towers (more information here). Sergei mentioned that the tour used to go up to the observation deck in the WTC - had the planes flown in five hours later, it’s wouldn’t be his jaunty red umbrella guiding us past tourist NYC.
The coach returned and we headed back up north of Central Park to St John the Divine Cathedral on 112th and Amsterdam. It’s currently being refurbished so isn’t looking all that divine at the minute - the main body of the church is sealed off, the North Transept was destroyed in a fire last year and the southern tower is being build by hand - very worthy but very slow. The north tower is yet to be started.
More details can be found here - they don’t seem to have updated their web site recently though.
Back along 125th St to get a glimpse of Harlem then down the Musuem Mile to the Rockefeller building to finish.
We say goodbye to the red umbrella and ascent to the observation levels.
- Northwards from Rockefeller over Central Park
- Southwards from Rockefeller over Lower Manhattan
After leaving there, we pause in Tiffany’s for high-brow shopping then head to a pizzeria recommended by one of the assistants for some low brow eating.
From there we walk back to 59th and 8th and catch the subway back to 72nd for the quick walk back to the hotel. Stopping at Loehman’s for a quick bargain search - fail. It wasn’t quick.
Day two of the adventure had us using the free internet access at the hotel to start (now that’s a plus) after a lie-in and free breakfast before headed subway-wards to get to Penn Station.
We had decided prior to the holiday to travel down to Washington on the Amtrak and have a look at the landscape. Our first task was to check out the station so we knew how easy (or not) it was going to be to get here carrying all the luggage.
First indications were good.
Then as we were just across the road, we decided to do a little shopping at Macys.
For hours.
Holey Moley - that’s one big-ass shop. Even keeping a tight rein on wife number one, it still took several hours to traverse the store.
It wasn’t dark when we finally left Macy’s (though the overcast clouds made it feel like it was) and we decided against going up the Empire State. Instead we headed up to the New York Public LIbrary.
Now that’s what a library should look like.
Then we swung by Grand Central.
It may be one of the most lauded train stations in the world but when it’s overcast and rush hour has started …
Then we walked the four blocks over to Times Square. The lights weren’t at their brightest yet but the crowds were as thick. We braved the TKTS booth.
One of the assistants at Macy’s had mentioned that Altar Boys was a show worth seeing - of course that wasn’t showing for a couple of days and I’d forgotten that Avenue Q was still playing (thinking about it, I seem to remember some localisation of jokes so it may not have been the best choice in any case). And we didn’t want to see one of the larger (read expensive) shows.
As it happened, we had seen an advert on the side of a bus while walking over for a show called Curtains. Starring David Hyde Pierce (from Frasier and Hellboy) (who was off that night) so we got tickets for that.
Which gave us just enough time to get back to the hotel, get changed and get back to the theatre.
The show itself is pretty good fun - think An Inspector Calls meets Chorus Line
It was going fine until there was an incident with the sound desk. In that it crashed. Totally, without warning, in the middle of the act two romantic song and with little hope of recovery. And the unlucky engineer tried. We heard pink noise several times as he attempted to return it to a show worthy state. My guess is that something was untoward in the scene memories towards the end - what caused it and why no backup could deal with it, I don’t know.
After 20 minutes of pink noise spotting, the show resumed with the cast testing out their projection skills which earned them a standing ovation from some of the audience. I was glad we had stalls seats for that one.
I’m not saying what the sound desk was in case the problem existed with another bit of kit (hardware or software).
And in case the problem was with the desk, well it was made by a company that I mention elsewhere as the digital desk manufacturer most likely to tour into our space, it’s big enough to deal with a musical and it’s not mentioned on this site anywhere.
Back to the bright lights of TImes Square for one last caffeine injection then return hotel-wards to more sleep (yeah, we thought that one through).
The sun dawned on day three and we slept in that little bit later. This turned into a slight problem as one of the two lifts had failed and the room used to serve breakfast in was packed.
Still, we managed to get our free cereal and bagels then took advantage of the good weather to explore Central Park.
I say explore - I mean, walk a little distance through. The park covers over 840 acres. We entered just below the Natural History Museum at 77th, meandered past the great lawn up to the reservoir then back to the obelisk via Belvedere Castle then deviated into the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Like so many of the major collections, there is no way to see the whole thing in one day - not and do the exhibits justice. We spent a few hours in the Egyptian tombs, a disappointing five minutes in the photo gallery (guess what was under renovation), a quick stride through medieval art and a potter through arms and armour. We noticed that some of the exhibits had been loaned out. I always though that a museum that loaned out an exhibit would put another similar item in it’s place. Apparently not.
After wife number one bought, and ate a hot dog from a street vendor (and bought a second one to find out what the sauce was!) we returned to Central Park, walking past the Alice statue and joining the Mall by the summer stage before circling the nature sanctuary and onto Central Park South then getting back on the subway at 59th and Columbus - the second time so far this week.
We decided to eat in tonight - mainly cos we’d been walking past Citarella’s on Broadway to and from the hotel each day. The price wasn’t bad for us (used to London prices in pounds remember) and the food was lovely.
Which kinda made up for not getting breakfast the next morning as our hotel didn’t do breakfast at the weekend, which started on Thursday. Of course.
I seem to recall we had some spare bagels. And the kitchenette in our hotel room had a fridge, sink and microwave and we’d fortuitously stocked up on milk and OJ.
Catching the subway back to 59th and 8th (we like this station) we walked along Central Park South to Bloomingdales. Now, this is a taller building that Macy’s but it seemed the smaller store. We tried to make it quick but still lost a few hours there (not as expansively as we had in Macy’s though), which included eating at the brilliantly named but average juice bar Forty Carrots. Reviews of this place call it a ‘froyo’ bar (what?) and rave about the ‘frozen yoghurt’ (oh).
Guess what we didn’t have.
Ah well.
When I finally got wife number one out, we ended up going back to the mall at the Rockefellar Plaza.
Okay, that one was my fault. I’d noticed a Gamestop there earlier and liked the idea of picking up a game or two for the DS at prices less than I’d pay in London.
Wife number one forgave me when she found Resident Evil DS preowned … I lost the DS for most of the rest of the holiday and still haven’t had it back yet.
Sigh.
As it was still mid-afternoon, we returned to the subway (not 59th this time) and went up to the American Museum of Natural History to see the dinosaurs from Night at the Museum.
Honestly.
We arrived too late to see the rotunda (the main hall closes at 3.30pm - huh?) and could see no dinosaurs on the map but had a look through the stuffed exhibits (and stuffed exhibits really don’t do anything for me) until we reached the Gem Gallery (ooh sparkly) then went back to the Planetarium before we realised that there were two more floors.
Wife number one got to see her dinosaurs after all but the Water:H20=Life was shut. And the Sonic vision display was not advertised anywhere and I’ve only just found it now while checking the web site
Which is a pity cos it looks like we may have enjoyed it.
Instead we went back to the hotel via Citarella’s again. Not all bad then
Well, it’s day five of the holiday (day six if you count the day of packing and flying - which you probably should as we saw the saucers) and we are travelling again.
It was a good thing that we were catching the Amtrak as American Airlanes were grounding most of the flight due to potential failures in airplanes, as were a number of internal flights.
Of course, just for us, the train before ours broke so all those passengers were shunted onto our train. Now, we’d paid in advance, for business class tickets. All that got us was a higher grade carpet to sit on for two of the three hours.
It wasn’t until the train was en route that it occurred to Amtrak to allow passengers to travel by more than one train - but rather than do the sensible thing and say any connecting service would be fine, they continued to specify which train passengers should catch.
If they had allowed access to the express train at Penn Station for passengers travelling to Washington then we could have been spread out and wouldn’t have noticed much disturbance to the journey. Instead, we crammed two trains onto one and ended up an hour late having stood for a majority of the journey. And it cost them money as we got a full refund.
Still, what do I know …
So we wave goodbye to New York and enjoy the view of the luggage rack as we head down the Eastern Seaboard to the US capital …
For the brave, a few more shots taken at various times around Manhattan.
I’ve not been deliberately avoiding writing about shows from behind the scenes of recent - I just haven’t actually worked on many different shows over the last few weeks.
Still, the show calender is full for the next couple of years (!) so here’s the next one (contain yourselves, please). There is some show talk interspersed in this one. If you see acronyms, it’s probably as well to skip on if there’s no gearhead in you.
This week started with another of our one day rehearsals - which actually had a lighting design of sorts (booms, cyc, 2K back wash, a few MAC 500s overhead and corridors of light from our ever tetchy SL profiles); black box masking with cyclorama and white marley; and a little bit of sound.
Anyone paying attention will have a fairly good idea of our ‘basic’ set-up and thus it was again today
-Midas control to MediaMatrix processing for a EAW and JBL rig with Max 12 foldback; same old, same old-
The source today though was five vocalists singing harmonies. Each one had their own SM58 and each made good use of the proximity effect when needed. When I saw the initial tech request for this (asking for 15 SM58 to be split into three groups of five) I was a little dubious, and for the rehearsal set-up, adding a little extra copper was all that was needed.
Radio mics were mentioned but it wasn’t until into the afternoon when we finally heard the pieces that it became clear pretty quickly that lavs just would not be able to do their vocal ranges justice. Our Sony handhelds may well have done the job but I know that they don’t respond as quickly as the SM58’s do - something to try next time though.
While I liked the harmony action, the fast paced contemporary dancing just didn’t seem to match. There was a tabla for a couple of sections and it may be the plan to expand the use of instrumentation - as it was, the singing and dancing seemed very disconnected.
The main piece we’ve had in for the rest of the week had a very synchronous design - a study of monochrome, really - though more involving than that descriptor sounds.
The show, from an established continental dance company with a very good reputation, opens on a black box stage with a grey floor. And a light orbiting a dead tree. Hung upside down (the tree, not the light)
The dancers are also in black and the piece is scored to Cage, Glass, Bach and Biber.
Once it finishes, the tabs come in and we actually do a proper scene change - when the tabs go out at the end of the interval, the floor is now black and several small black tabs are hung at angles over the dance floor. As the piece progresses, these change height, moving in and out and silks upstage begin to billow as if a wind is being blown across them (as if). Again, the works of Glass are used for this dance.
Once the tabs go out for the third piece, the set-up has changed again. Now the floor is black one side and white the other. A grand piano is on the dark side with 10′ legs and the pianist is accompanying the works of Beckett, Mozart and Haubrich. Meanwhile on the white side is a pile of light - literally.
One day, I’ll explain how to make a pile of light
The nearest any of these pieces comes to colour is the tungsten lamps in the few lanterns not gelled in a flavour of CCT blue - that’s not to say the performance is tedious. The performers are excellent and the pieces work very well.
It’s just that together, they are all a little similar. A little too similar. I always tend to think that companies showing a collection of pieces should have some cohesive element to them. These three pieces are just a little too alike to be shown together.
[SHOP TALK]
Okays, for those who’ve been waiting patiently.
This production is a little showcase for d&b Audiotechnic. A pair of F1220 hung from our pros speaker bar, a second replacing our stalls EAW and a third acting as front fill left and right from beside a B1 each side. Onstage a pair of M2 monitors each side provide foldback.
Everything is powered from P1200 amps with the appropriate cards - as they prefer the sound of the older analog amps to the newer D12s for their speakers.
At the control position are two CD players and a small sampler, running through a Yamaha DM2000. There are two mics on the grand piano (though it being a little taller than normal, I never actually saw what was inside).
Most of our system was switched off except for the E3s and EAW that serve as delays and centre cluster. Processing and delays were all on the DM2k, apart from system processing on our speakers that was our normal MediaMatrix settings.
It was nice to hear the F1220 with a piece that wasn’t recorded directly from an old record player
[/SHOP TALK]
And as a note, there probably won’t be much more show related posts for a few more weeks.
Wife number one and myself will be making a big donation to a carbon positive scheme at somepoint soon to make up for the imminent flight to NYC and DC on what will be our first holiday on our own - ever.
I’m sure someone, somewhere, reading the mention of drumsticks in this post is left wondering just what show requires so many.
Well, tonight I had the chance to see the show in action.
Ten enthusiastic Japanese drummers beating the hell out of a variety of skin-covered drums for a couple of hours - what’s not to like?
Actually, it was a little more refined than that. While assorted sizes of drums made up the majority of instruments, there were also some shamisen (the 3 stringed lute like instruments), a couple of flutes and even some hand cymbals.
The company also remembered that they were putting on a show so there was a lovely comic element to it - a show down on ever increasing drums, a cymbal exchange that reminded me of the matrix ping-pong video and even catching the audience out with hand clapping. I’m not explaining the comedy in any more detail - as one listserv I frequent is wont to remark:
“Taking apart a joke is like taking apart a cat.
The first thing you get is a non-working cat …”
The show didn’t grab me quite as strongly as Taiko drumming has in the past - but then, I was watching from the sound box at the back so I wasn’t subjected to the full decibel onslaught.
If you want to see (and hear more), here’s a clip from Youtube -
… After a two week session of cable management, kit management, anger management, early starts and long days, of shows with encores that stretch on for aeons, of bad diet and infrequent breaks, and bad TV in the breaks, of trouble shooting real and imaginary problems and of packing up and going home and loading cases and loading cases onto trucks and rescuing stray cables …
I’m looking forward to a lie-in and a few days absence of work.
It’s about 8.00am and it feels like it. My eyes are still closed but I’m aware of a repetitive tapping noise. It’s been going on for a few minutes. It sounds like, well, it sounds like wife number one on Messenger.
That’s the thing about sleep - you can close your eyes and, unless your curtains are threadbare, very little visual information is going to impact, even if your brain is conscious. It’s very hard to close the ears though. For the most part, they continuously pick up the sounds around you and it’s up to the brain to deal with them.
If you’ve lived with someone for a while, the brain can learn to ignore certain sounds. Husbands learn quite quickly to listen without hearing what wife number one (two, three …) is saying so as not to distract from pondering more important things like chocolate BUT (and this is the skill) to store the last few sentences in memory in order to respond appropriately when required.
That little trip to the loo that she does at around 3.00ish most mornings - that also goes into the same category. As long as the brain doesn’t register a loud crash, scream or ping and it does register someone shuffling back into the bedroom after a couple of minutes, it doesn’t think it necessary to disturb the sleeping process.
Someone tapping away on the keyboard for several minutes does disturb that process - it’s a pseudo-random repetitive noise which the brain latches onto the non-repeating part and pulls you up from the catching up of sleep process.
Then there’s the shuffling of someone whose not quite awake not bothering to walk properly and the slow rustling sounds of someone putting on their clothes, or the clink of change.
For those interested, wife number one is heading out for one of her weekly swims at the local pool - Messenger is there to check that a friend is coming along with her.
Finally, there’s the gentle thud of footsteps and the front door closing as she departs (no farewell kiss, mind!)
Now, I actually sleep best during the morning. Suffering from semi-somnia (part-time insomnia), bruxism (teeth-grinding) and snoring (loud) as I do, sleep can be something that happens to other people.
It does seem to be mostly tied to nights that I have to get up early to got to work the next day (typically) . So days off normally mean a better nights sleep. But the best sleep normally seems to be during daylight (one too many overnight get-outs maybe) from around 9am to about 11am.
I’ve entered this state and am dreaming happily away when I become aware of a presence. This isn’t a presence in a dream, or some dimensional apparition though. For one thing, I am aware that my dream has “paused” and this presence is on the physical plane.
For another thing, it smells of chlorine.
There are many ways of being nicely woken up - blearily opening one eye to see a manic gleam an inch or so above you is not one of them.
It may be wife number one but she has slightly damp hair which is brushing against your skin and she only has one thing on her mind - leeching body heat.
I remember at a bedsit I stayed at for a few months while at college, there was a dog that got lonely on Saturdays when the home owner went out. My door didn’t lock properly and the dog - Max - learnt how to open it, wander into my room and rest his head on my bed in front of my face.
It’s impossible to sleep with someone staring at your from close range - it doesn’t matter what time you got to bed that morning - it was never more than a minute or so of Max resting his head before I awoke.
He didn’t touch me, didn’t whine, didn’t even breathe on me but just his presence was enough to wake me. And waking up early on Saturday morning (every Saturday morning) to an elderly dog is one of the more ‘interesting’ memories from college. I learnt fairly quickly that doing it with a hang-over only made it less fun - for me at least. And he wouldn’t stop until I had actually sat up.
At that point, he’d go and lie on the rug, mission accomplished. He had someone to keep him company until his owner returned.
I think being woken by a chlorine smelling, slightly damp, slightly manic, heat-leecher is moderately worse.
Particularly the morning after.
(actually, I’m very fond of wife number one. She’s kind, considerate, thoughful, what’s the next word on that list … oh yes, generous and lovely)
(is that enough,wife number one? Let the cake go, now. Please?)
Another year, another Flamenco Festival (a quick mention of last years here).
I’ll get the kit list out of the way first then add a few general comments afterwards.
[shop talk]
Same as last year, we have a stack of Q1 and Q-subs powered by D12 amps with our EAW speakers taking a rest. A little extra sub power is provided by a pair of B2s powered from A1 amps and there’s a pair of Max12 speakers helping on front fill duty. I haven’t really had much chance to get out front and have a proper listen this year but I trust that it’s all sounding okay out there …
Four pairs of C6 (P1200 amps here - four of those in a rack are blooming heavy!) are hung from our booms at ear height for side fills and a dozen more Max 12 (powered by a mix of Lab.Gruppen and Yamaha amps) get called into use as and when needed - not as often as you might think in fact.
Monitor duty this year is performed by a Yamaha PM5D-RH - which everyone seems to be picking the basics up of very quickly. Thus there’s no outboard onstage and monitor world is made up of the amps, a large KT DS400 splitter rack and a dozen channels of 3035 receivers.
Again, the radios are seeing a lot of service this year with the DPA 4066 in use for every show and the ME104 doing a fair amount of instrument duty. A pair of Beta 58 UHF aren’t getting much of a look in, though they are serving quite well on cajon duty.
Wired mics include the usual Neuman KM184, and some KSM105 for the dedicated singers; Beta 98s clipped onto most of the percussion (not many ‘palmas’ mics this year - maybe the clappers have been in training). A few SM58 for backing vocals and a single 416 for ambience marks the entire mic collection this year - we are definitely getting less variety than we used to.
The floor has 25 PCC160 underneath this time around - these have been wye-split down to only take up 15 channels - though this didn’t help much when we had to pull up the floor for one day only then return it back the next!
Out front, our Midas is back to it’s normal FOH detail with a rack worth of dbx 1066 and 166XT compressors, and KT DN410 parametrics. A couple of DN360 graphics and a single of each of a PCM70 and TC M3000 on effects (with a PCM80 and our SPX990 enjoying the view). For those who like the shiny factor, a pair of Avalon 737 tube compressors was added after a couple of days.
A pair of Sony CDP-12s were also out there - mainly for sound check and announcement and most of the engineers had their own laptops with RTA and playback software onboard.
And for those who prefer the digital side of things, one show insisted on having an Yamaha LS-9. Fitting it at the sound position was something of a challenge but we got there. Luckily it was only the 16 channel version …
And for the final show, another 8 channels of wireless were added - although these were an EM1046 rack with SK5012 transmitters, rather than the 3063 tx units in use for the rest of festival. Extra DPA 4061 and 4066 mics added to use every channel of wireless bar a single Beta 58 (I’m not certain we ever used the two Beta UHF together)
[/shop talk]
It’s funny but writing out the kit list for the last couple of weeks doesn’t really seem to do justice to the amount of work that goes into setting up and running it in a festival environment. A day of set-up prior to any of the companies coming in certainly helps. Keeping a company in for more than one day also allows time for either lie-in or setting up for a piece later on in the festival.
Having a hires list that wasn’t fully up to date wasn’t helpful but the hire company know that these couple of weeks will involve a lot of me calling up for last minute requests (”I know we have twelve floor mics? Can we have ten more? And another effects unit? Today?”) and they are near enough and large enough to manage this kind of thing.
There are some thing though that perhaps we’ll be trying to avoid doing next year -
Not everything was marked so a couple of the turn-arounds took a little longer than we were happy with. None of us hold with the idea that people should only be allowed to do certain jobs (within reason) but it’s unlikely that everyone will know everything that’s happened. Just sometimes, you are working on something that was set up by somebody else and it just takes that little bit longer to work out exactly what’s going on. A supply of Sharpies and tape for next year …
And, having to have a separate FOH desk for one day can be a challenge if the main desk can’t be removed and the space allocated is a little tight. That was the same show that insisted on removing the flamenco floor (custom made this year) and all the floor mics underneath for a single performance.
If ever a show should have been on the last night and not mid way through …
I believe that the lighting rig (all generics: fresnel wash; PAR colour and profile spot) was re-hung three times over the two weeks - surely a bit of planning in terms of stage layout would have helped with that.
Some things you just can’t avoid - finding out as one show is packing up that the percussion for tomorrow’s show may have gone missing means that some extra work is needed to help get them sorted. And we found that some of the older mics electronic shielding was starting to fail - so replacements are needed.
But then, having a couple of the companies not supplying paperwork until a day or two before their show (and after the festival had started) wasn’t particularly helpful. This was the same company who requested twenty-two channels of wireless two days before their (sunday) show so they could do essentially a musical.
By the time we had properly sound checked all those wireless mics (and completed the focus, and hung the many extra soft goods, and rehearsed the changes), the lass who served as our translator/backup monitor engineer/stage sound tech had an hours worth of run-through to learn the mic moves of a two hour show. Bearing in mind that there were no monitors and only sidefills were used, we were left wondering why the FOH engineer, who knew the show, didn’t just send a couple of feeds from spare auxes (there were five or six free on the Midas for that show).
A cut-off date for riders, I think, and a “sorry, too late” there after. (actually, based on the business we work in, I can’t see that one happening too soon)
And I think every department had to deal with a company that had a relaxed view to taking meal breaks - these shouldn’t be optional.
That’s not to say every sudden thing caught us entirely off-guard - we found out that BBC3 were coming in to record one of the performances only a few days before they appeared. It was, however, a simple matter to put their splitter on top of ours and use the isolated outputs to provide a feed from every channel which they converted to optical and sent it down a fibre optic to their OB truck. We barely noticed them that whole day other than to chat every now and then.
The shows themselves went very well and were well received by the audiences. I still can’t get over the amount of kit needed for what is essentially an acoustic performance - I would like to witness a flamenco unplugged show at some point.
I may be biased there …
Still, it’s mostly over. The clean-up was a little messy. Cable does have a habit of propagating if you leave it along for too long and two weeks of live events mean that there’s a lot of cable left to do it’s own thing. And having to come in the morning after a get-out is always a little painful. (is that my physio calling?)
With the second truck pick-up (too much kit for one), the day after also involved hitching a lift in the truck with one of the guys from the hire company visiting our second theatre space to have a talk about a potential new purchase down there.
Meeting the guys down there striking the surround speakers and returning them to delay positions:
“Morning”
“Morning, what time did you finish last night?”
“Two am. And you?”
“Half one. We did start at eight”
“Hmm - longer out than us. What time did you come in for the show?”
“Two pm. And you?”
“Nine in the morning”
“Normal theatre hours then?”
“Yep”
Stopped to talk purchase options with them and hire company man then nicely head out to box office to pick up a delivery of drum sticks and stagger back to the stage.
Stagger? Carrying drumsticks? How heavy are drumsticks?
Well, according to the delivery label, 200 drumsticks weight 18kgs (that’s about a stageweight and a half in theatre money). And the 500 sweatband that came with them were another 9kgs. And the box had split (a trail of sweatbands behind me)
And when I get back to the stage, I then find that that theatre has borrowed some three-phase cable which I can now return.
Joy.
You get some funny looks on the bus carrying 30metres of 32A TPN+E Ceeform …
Getting back to the main house, I was just about to finish things off when a delivery of flight-cases arrived. And by which I mean actual flight-cases.
Good news: our monitor amps, desk power supply and sound playback system now have cases to live in.
Bad news: fitting rack nuts without the proper tool is a real pain in the, well, fingers. Only two scapes and a blister …
A final bout of paperwork and I clock out - and, as is my want after Flamenco, that’s a week away from the office.
This means the minimal amount of space we have onstage (not much of a stage left wing as there’s a public road just outside the wall, not much upstage because of the stage door entrance and not much stage right due to the goods lift and small dock leading the public road on the other side of the building) is taken up by the day’s show while the show not in rep is on one of the three trailers outside.
The trap room under the stage is our normal store for rostra, dance floor, meat-racks, flight-cases for our moving heads and scrollers, soft goods and so on. This show has one of the BBC channels in to record it so they’ve taken over around a third of the room. More of the room has also gone to allow the orchestra some storage for instrument cases.
We’ve squeezed the flightcases into the sub-basement around the seating rostra that normally lives on the pit (and which of course has had to move to allow for the orchestra).
The meat-racks were meant to be stashed in the lecture theatre but couldn’t fit under the new door frame by less than an inch …. so they’ve been moved to the outside courtyard that’s normally used for motor-bike parking (and we have quite a few bikers working for us), along with the ’scope, the Upright and the cherry picker for external use. Yes the lanterns have been tarp’ed before you ask.
We were going to have to move the racks out there in any case for the weekend as it had been booked (for lectures, who knew?) - we just didn’t want almost our entire lantern stock outside for a week.
So the stage, pit, trap, wings, dock, courtyard and lecture theatre are booked or taken. But in addition to the Beeb, we also have a TV company in to video the show. Where do they go? Well, in addition to the OB truck, they’ve taken over the sound control room with some serious racks (and a plasma screen).
There is also the issue of where the boxes go that hold the camera’s, lenses, stands and so on. Well, we do have three rehearsal studios onsite.
But they are all booked.
Luckily, one of those bookings is for the chorus for the opera so as they aren’t rehearsing at the minute, those boxes can go there. And we hope that they don’t decide that they need to rehearse again this week …
So we can fit the TV crew in, and the sound control room is built to accommodate a40 channel analog desk with full outboard (and being an opera is not in use in any case) but there’s enough TV kit to warrant moving all of our in-house sound boxes out to somewhere else - no space in the LX control room (in use by the opera) or the audio description booth (in use for the opera) by the way.
Our sound kit has ended up being stashed in the wardrobe for the studio theatre which does have a show on but fortunately won’t be needing the wardrobe. Our mixing desk, also luckily, has been on holiday having it’s innards serviced so we only need to find a space for that for a day before it is needed.
But the show it’s needed on has a lot of sound kit hired for it (that’s another post) and that’s all being delivered before the opera has left.
So the stage and it’s surrounds are packed, all the studios are in use, the courtyard is full (and wouldn’t be an option in any case) - where do you put a full monitor system?
As it happens, an event room which is being converted to an office happens to be free just for the few days we need. We couldn’t get the racks in (doors too small) and it is internally reached through a tight dog leg turn (cable trunks and sound desks need not apply) or externally through a single width fire door and that involves pushing stuff around the entire building.
This week, somehow, we are going to manage. And we even have a couple of opera flight-cases in the crew room (which is also the stage equipment room)
This time next year, if the same happens again …
Hell, the next time we have two big shows in sucession …
Anyone patent a flight-case shrinker recently? Please?
We are currently hosting the ‘Godmother of Tanztheater’ (as one review has it) putting on two separate shows and, as always, the show is a sight to behold.
The first piece is set in a cafe and has hard masking on three sides with glass (actually perspex) doors in each wall and a multitude of tables and chairs to be danced into and thrown about. Then once that has finished, the audience get to make the choice between headed to the bar or watching a good ole fashioned live scene change.
The bar’s call is pretty strong but then watching a bunch of guys manhandle 20 foot flats always seems to hold attention. Then you notice the electrics crew around the edges moving 2k and 5Ks on stands at about 12 foot (and every door has a couple of those). Then a floor cloth is nailed to the deck and the audience watch mystified as the crew stretch it out, clouds of dust coming off their steel-toed capped boots. The audience notice the six industrial bins (think recycling bank size) in one wing, with rakes and brooms sticking out of them.
The obvious question is answered a moment later when every bin is tipped up and fresh peat spills onto the stage. The stage crew pick up the rakes and start to evenly spread a 12 metre squared box of the stuff while more floor lights are wheeled into position. The bins go, the black box masking drops in, a final tweak of the focus and the stage is set for the second piece. Checking your watch, you find only 20 minutes have passed.
The scene change always gets a round of applause.
The second piece, set to one of Stravinsky’s finest, is also one of the better dance pieces you are likely to see (and remember they are dancing on peat).
And tomorrow we’ll do it all again!
[shop talk]
For those paying attention to these sections, we tried out d&b F1222 for this one, a pair ground stacked to each side with a single B1 supporting them. They are very nice speakers but the recordings going through them (vinyl re-recorded) are not doing them justice.
The desk this week is a Midas Verona (the Legend having a holiday at the service centre) with playback from a mix of laptop, CD and tape(!) - we had to hire the tape deck as we just don’t have any tape machines in the theatre anymore (excepting the odd boom box
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