Gigs upstairs

witzendoz

Senior Member
Don't you just love gigs that are upstairs. Against my better judgement and because I wanted the money I took a booking for a PA in an upstairs venue in the middle of town, not far from where I lived.

First thing is that you get there and there is no parking outside, so I double parked to quickly unload into the foyer, no sooner then opening the rear door of the van and a bus was trying to turn the corner so I had to move, I then found a park round the corner across the road that was a 15 min park.

So wheeled the gear across into the venue (ground floor) and then loaded into the lift. Because I had brought my compact system (new gear is great for this) I managed to load the whole PA in one load. Problem was that the floor with the gig (2nd floor) was still locked out of use as they only had the 3rd floor venue open during the day. So no worries, I'l run upstairs and get it unlocked . Go to stairs and guess what? The doors to the stairs are locked and the only access was the lift to the 3rd floor. Run back to the lift but that has disappeared with the PA inside. By now the 15 min parking had run out so needed to move the van. Some all night free spots had opened up by then but had to do a lap on the block due to the one way streets.

Parked the van and headed back to the venue. The doors to the stairs were now open and some very exhausted people were walking down from the 3rd floor (6 flights), because the lift was full of PA and they could not get in :D went up the 2nd floor to get the PA but now the lift was heading down with the PA in it, however it soon returned when the people downstairs found it full :D:D

A staff member helped empty the lift (thanks :thumbs up:) and all was good.

Loading out from the show was easier as everyone had left by then the lift was free and late at night I could park on the footpath. Don't you just love this stuff, reminds me of why I like studio work.

Alan
 
One upstairs gig was a club on Rte 1 at the main entrance to U of MD. No elevator. About 30 steps up. Nice place, had their own soundboard at
the end of a long ass saloon-like bar, where the place opened up to tables. We were 2 guitars and a drummer, with one guitar amp.. I was DI on
the bass.

We did a quick soundcheck with the sound man, then the guitar player and drummer went downstairs and disappeared for almost an hour. I'm left on
stage with my... BASS in my hand shooting the breeze with the sound guy. The guy said he wanted to check some adjustments while we were waiting
and asked me to start playing.. anything. Well, I played half our first set solo before the gang returned. The sound man asked me what bass I was
using and I said it was a Fender Precision, brand new, just bought it earlier that day. He said it was the best sounding bass he'd heard since
starting his gig there. Then our guitar player and drummer told me the gig was off. Not one customer had wandered in. They said they
were tied up waiting on the manager downstairs and he told them the dates were all mixed up and see ya later. The End.
 
funny storys, dripping in sarcasm...

my short lived "live" career had a upstairs story, 1977 or so.

Gig was up some very skinny stairway, we had rock band fake large PA speakers to look like Led Zepplin...etc..etc..a lot of large pa cabs and speaker cabs.

After painfully unloading the moving truck/ uhaul size of gear.... a very old man approached the bass player/booking manager and said "there must be a mistake....we wanted a Polka band"

So we carried it all back down the stairs to the truck.

stories like these is why "flight of the concordes" and "spinal tap" are so funny...with some cheech and chong sprinkled in...
 
Here's one that's upstairs related..

Early 80's, our band got a gig playing a "hot spot" in downtown Alexandria, Va., just off the water. The area was (is) full
of 18th & 19th century buildings - homes and shops. The young crowds were "yuppies" back then. We're to play for the door
@ $4.00 a head.

We unload from the street into a downstairs area so spartan as to have been a possible soup kitchen/ministry - nary a piece of
furniture nor hint of restaurant-bar was visible. Upstairs however, a thriving night spot full of patrons in semi-formal attire
seated on high chairs at cafe tables, sipping wine as soft jazz from a live trio filled the room. Imagine the four of us in our
street clothes meandering about as we tried to connect with the person who booked us.

Once connected, we're told we don't play the upper room.. we play the empty downstairs room, and we get to keep all the door money.

We set up and played to an empty room for about 25 minutes - watching patrons come and go from the upstairs spot (they had to walk
through our room to get to the stairs). At this point, our lead guitarist said **** this!, let's pack up and go home. I suggested
since this would have been one of our regular practice nights we should continue with a practice session. I was quickly voted down
and we split.
 
I'm getting so old and decrepit when we do this one gig up a flight of stairs the Mark V head stays home and the back-up Quilter Aviator goes up.
 
OK, slam if you must. But with these new interfaces and DAW plug ins, would it not be possible to run a live session through DAW, everyone DI except for drummer, get the mix set, run it through a PA. Only thing needed would be cables, laptop, interface and decent PA.

What is wrong with the above description as I have been thinking of playing out, but I really want to keep the setup simple.
 
Possible but the more inputs the less practical it is. Also there is the KISS rule: Guitar/bass +cable+ amp/sim box is simpler by far meaning less to go wrong. Plenty of location recordings go down cuz a computer that "was just working a second ago" decides to freak out. For a singer/songwriter with a guitar and maybe a midi keyboard it's doable, I have seen it myself. I would want to check out the venue ahead of time to see if there is stable power , proper monitoring , etc before I tried this though.
 
OK, slam if you must. But with these new interfaces and DAW plug ins, would it not be possible to run a live session through DAW, everyone DI except for drummer, get the mix set, run it through a PA. Only thing needed would be cables, laptop, interface and decent PA.

What is wrong with the above description as I have been thinking of playing out, but I really want to keep the setup simple.

My original point was that I had to set up a PA system 2 floors up with a hard load in, not talking about recording or DAW systems, I was the one mixing the live sound for the audience. Also in your post where did the decent PA system appear from?

Alan
 
My original point was that I had to set up a PA system 2 floors up with a hard load in, not talking about recording or DAW systems, I was the one mixing the live sound for the audience. Also in your post where did the decent PA system appear from?

Alan

I was just wondering for simplicity of loading in/out, would the use of such a system work. I wasn't commenting so much on your post but it made me wonder about some way for this to be easier.
 
The easiest way to track a live gig is to use a QSC Touchmix 16, I have one and not only mixed the PA on it but multi tracked every channel before effects and EQ, and recored the stereo mix as sent to the speakers.

Alan.
 
I was just wondering for simplicity of loading in/out, would the use of such a system work. I wasn't commenting so much on your post but it made me wonder about some way for this to be easier.

..run a live session through DAW, everyone DI except for drummer, get the mix set, run it through a PA...
I would counter.. Every gig I've done inevitably needs dozens of adjustments -from one gig to the next, on the instrument amps and throughout the whole PA side of it.
If you're doing sound for someone that would be one thing. But doing our own, I want as much quick clear direct access as I can get.
A digi mixer, ok.
A DAW for a solo/duet might fly..
 
Hmmm. I've never complained about any gig that I could use an elevator (lift). I've schlepped more gear up and down more flights of stairs than I care to think about! However, it did make me think about the gear I was using ... SVTs and 8x10's no more! ;)
 
Hmmm. I've never complained about any gig that I could use an elevator (lift). I've schlepped more gear up and down more flights of stairs than I care to think about! However, it did make me think about the gear I was using ... SVTs and 8x10's no more! ;)

Same here. With what's left of my knees gigs up stairs the Quilter looks pretty good over the Boogie' :>)
 
Hmmm. I've never complained about any gig that I could use an elevator (lift).

I usually don't as it's always better than stairs but the lift in the original story we nicknamed "The Time Machine" if you get in on a Monday you get out on a Wednesday" :facepalm: Sure adds a lot of time to the load in and out than a ground floor gig.

Aside from that, how many gigs do you do that have that annoying couple of steps that the road case wheels never seem to be able to get up and down. :facepalm::facepalm: You would think that when people design a venue they could have thought this out, thank goodness venues are retrofitting wheelchair access ramps.

Alan.
 
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