The Smashing Pumpkins
The more lights the worse the band....
That's the idiom here on deck....if you have a killer lighting rig the band will suck... But, what happens when it's a band that so seminal in a 90's sort of way? Does the audience just deal... and enjoy the light show. Really, it was an amazing light show. We did a master grid with 8 triangular lighting pods on inverted speed motors. The pods were festooned with VL and Mac 2000 movers. LED Syc bars, Spacey / colored florescent tubes. And for me the newest cool gizz lights... LED movers. ) At times the show looked like a huge 80's style video game ( and the Deluxe bar version ) screen of Pac man. With the LED lights chasing away while Billy emoted to the crowd. The Lighting crew on the show were all " Don't think.. just do... guys. Which I have to admit I kind of hate. Especially since they weren't going any faster then we could if they'd sort of involved us. At least we got T-shirts...Which I gave to one of the parrot regulars as a sort of hi, your brunette and cute and I'm drunk....
An odd crowd to say the least... I expected all the audience to be my age. I actually arrived early for the strike call just in hopes I'd see some familiar faces in the crowd. ( As I was cut from the show crew, due to no spots being called at the last moment....) But, the crowd was full of really young girls. And my fave type of years past... the artsy, depressed, crazy girls. You know the ones with permanent tears in their eyes and attention scars on their wrists....I didn't realize this band had still a revolving following. I guess Billy's like one of the iTunes dark horses.
The band didn't look,like the S. P.'s of the yearly years... As the drummer was one of rock casualties. I didn't expect him. But, it was really Billy and a bunch of mercenaries who sort of looked like James Ida and kinda like an amalgamation of the hot female bass players of yore. I'm firmly in the Elizabeth Auf Dumaur camp... As hot redheads are a classic default environment for me. Which explains the OTT lighting rig to cover the non event, as a reason to pay whatever people pay for shed shows these days... ( sadly, I have no idea what a Ticket to a rock show costs now... I'd probably be incensed if i knew....)
On the out I ended up on backline crew, which were much cooler. These days I'm having too much fun with my SG and my Vox amp... I really like boxing up band gear and collecting guitar picks for friends who would like a souvenir of some of the shows I work.. And my wall of shame at home kind of bores me.
The audience loved the show, and stayed for the encore. And as I found out last night, one of the really attractive servers down at the parrots was really bummed that I gave my zero guitar pick to a friend who works at the Cecil...( Any value added connection to strippers is a good thing for a guy like me...) So I pulled my Motley Crue pass, Nikki Sixx signed set list and his pick as a pad for future free shots of tequila and hugs.....
The more lights the worse the band....
That's the idiom here on deck....if you have a killer lighting rig the band will suck... But, what happens when it's a band that so seminal in a 90's sort of way? Does the audience just deal... and enjoy the light show. Really, it was an amazing light show. We did a master grid with 8 triangular lighting pods on inverted speed motors. The pods were festooned with VL and Mac 2000 movers. LED Syc bars, Spacey / colored florescent tubes. And for me the newest cool gizz lights... LED movers. ) At times the show looked like a huge 80's style video game ( and the Deluxe bar version ) screen of Pac man. With the LED lights chasing away while Billy emoted to the crowd. The Lighting crew on the show were all " Don't think.. just do... guys. Which I have to admit I kind of hate. Especially since they weren't going any faster then we could if they'd sort of involved us. At least we got T-shirts...Which I gave to one of the parrot regulars as a sort of hi, your brunette and cute and I'm drunk....
An odd crowd to say the least... I expected all the audience to be my age. I actually arrived early for the strike call just in hopes I'd see some familiar faces in the crowd. ( As I was cut from the show crew, due to no spots being called at the last moment....) But, the crowd was full of really young girls. And my fave type of years past... the artsy, depressed, crazy girls. You know the ones with permanent tears in their eyes and attention scars on their wrists....I didn't realize this band had still a revolving following. I guess Billy's like one of the iTunes dark horses.
The band didn't look,like the S. P.'s of the yearly years... As the drummer was one of rock casualties. I didn't expect him. But, it was really Billy and a bunch of mercenaries who sort of looked like James Ida and kinda like an amalgamation of the hot female bass players of yore. I'm firmly in the Elizabeth Auf Dumaur camp... As hot redheads are a classic default environment for me. Which explains the OTT lighting rig to cover the non event, as a reason to pay whatever people pay for shed shows these days... ( sadly, I have no idea what a Ticket to a rock show costs now... I'd probably be incensed if i knew....)
On the out I ended up on backline crew, which were much cooler. These days I'm having too much fun with my SG and my Vox amp... I really like boxing up band gear and collecting guitar picks for friends who would like a souvenir of some of the shows I work.. And my wall of shame at home kind of bores me.
The audience loved the show, and stayed for the encore. And as I found out last night, one of the really attractive servers down at the parrots was really bummed that I gave my zero guitar pick to a friend who works at the Cecil...( Any value added connection to strippers is a good thing for a guy like me...) So I pulled my Motley Crue pass, Nikki Sixx signed set list and his pick as a pad for future free shots of tequila and hugs.....