Time on your hands then everything all at once. First in, last out. This was the lampies' lot. 'Standing by' for days on end at rehearsals. Those long empty afternoons on tour that followed an early load in and quick focus. Nothing to do 'til show time but explore a local bar or crack open a bottle of cabernet sauvignon on the tour 'bus.
Its 1985. The gigantic lighting rig clung precariously to the low roof of the Pinewood rehearsal studio. It was just past pub chucking out time, yet yours truly had been pushing matrix pins into the old Avolites 84 way desk for hours, accompanied as usual by a trusty dimmer man and the client/pop star, Gary Numan.
The pop star in question took a keen interest in his lights and would sit beside me all night as we played the rehearsal tape, pushed in the pins and slowly taught bank upon bank of stage lighting to paint pictures for us.
Gary relished the number of lamps in the air; some kind of penis compensation thing, I think. He would point to any gaps in this already biblical rig and whimper for more. A snap 'full up' made the serried rows of dimmers jump two feet in the air and the runway lights at Heathrow would go dim.
A falling-through-empty-lighting-racks-in-the-dark sound introduced 'Dave' and his friend. They had been drinking long and loudly. Pushing us aside with an oblivious, "Scuse me, hic, me friends gorra great idea!" Dave proceeded to attack the desk with a screwdriver and beery enthusiasm. We humoured him as he exposed the innards of the desk. We pleaded with him as he started to remove modules. Gary, a bemused non-drinker, stood back as dimmer man and I explained that now was not a good time.
Dave, now aware of the pop star's presence, paused in his rambling, incoherent explanation of turning the desk into a super-computer and gushed loudly over the star, pumping his hand up and down in excited recognition.
As I poured the bibacious pair out of the room I heard the star ask, "Who the fuck was that?" Faster than a bulb popping, trusty dimmer man replies, "Oh, that was Dave. He's the rigger." Now the rigger is the man who hangs it all in the air...
Gary looked up open-mouthed at the creaking heavy metal monster swinging gently from its chains, then looked in the direction of the retreating dipsos and turned a colour I had only ever seen before in geriatric wards. Dimmer man, faster than a fuse popping, replied, "Never mind mate, just try and stand in the gaps!" Dave was history by the time I got back to the desk.
It's now 1987. The lighting rig was up and flashed through. The sun shone brightly on to the stage as the sound department moved in. Whilst waiting for God to pull down his great Master Fader in the sky, we did what an LD and his crew did; adjourned to the pub for "something to eat", there being no fayre at this fair Christian rock festival. Sunset and lighting focus was at pub closing time.
Now Robert, my main man, enjoyed a cider or two on a sunny afternoon and anyway sunset was ages away; he'd stop sipping cider way before focus time, he assured himself…
Across the moonless blackness of the field on our way back we all congratulated ourselves in booze induced bonhomie. The rig had gone up a treat; it all worked and a quick focus meant bed, followed by four easy days of pushing faders for a couple of hours a night.
"Next!" I shouted into the wind and darkness of the upstage truss, cursing myself for not getting the intercom rigged. The underhung Sil 30 did not come on. "Next!" I bellowed once more. "It's up, it's on!!" a distant out-front voice replied. The Sil remained obstinately off.
Robert, hanging fifteen feet above me, growled then slurred loudly, "Fuck! Oohh…" This was immediately followed by a deep plummeting sigh, a heavy thud to my right, yet another thud, a few seconds silence, then sustained groaning. Robert had dropped off the truss - an eighteen foot plummet. Fortunately, by cleverly bouncing off the recently set up sound monitor desk onto an up-ended wedge monitor, he broke his fall somewhat before finally arriving on the stage to a sprinkle of applause from two security guards.
Some emergency work light revealed the groaning Robert, too drunk to writhe, on his back gasping, "I'm aww..uuh..right..uuh..I'll..uuh..oww..go back..uhh..up". A quick examination revealed no obvious life threatening damage, but his right arm didn't seem to be quite the same shape as his left. Between gasps for air and gut wrenching groans, he grinned that cider grin that feels no pain. Robert was legless. Still he protested, "I'm..uuh..uhh..OK..uuh..notdrunk..uhh..only..oww..uuh..winded."
Robert escaped with a broken arm, a couple of broken ribs, severe bruising and the loss of his job. The monitor desk was also replaced. The wedge monitor won and the focus was done.
Forward to 1995. Pablo, a young moving light technician on his first tour, was detailed to operate the lighting desk for the support act. This night the obviously distressed opening act soldiered on as two automated moving lights neurotically performed a bizarre and frenetic moving/strobing effect above them. They were the only lights on. The band was singing a slow ballad. There was no 'Pablo' at the desk.
A young sound rigger banged on the door of a back stage toilet yelling, "Pablo! Pablo! You'll have to get outta there. I think the boss has noticed you're not there. I can't run your desk as well. Pablo!" The large amount of gin and tonic Pablo had guzzled during a social afternoon with a rigger, before the dinner he never ate, had kicked in viciously.
The door of the toilet opened. Not 'Pablo', but the large frame of 'Malcolm', a pissed off production manager, was revealed to the surprised young sound rigger. Pablo had crawled to the bus and passed out after leaving the contents of his stomach in pools over the loading bay. The game was up. Pablo, as a new boy, was chastised but forgiven this time. We'd all done it once, hadn't we?
Two weeks later on a day off in a small seaside town in
It wasn't until late the next morning after Pablo hadn't appeared on stage, his boxes of expensive high technology still firmly shut, that a hungover crew chief suggested that Malcolm call Pablo's room. There was no answer. A trip to the hotel was called for. Malcolm was not amused.
Much subsequent banging and kicking on his door did not appear to rouse Pablo either. Housekeeping eventually opened the door to find a bed unslept in and bags unpacked. No Pablo.
Had he got lucky? Was he, even as Malcolm mentally calculated the cost and logistics of flying him home later that day, enjoying erotic delights with a sexually abandoned Danette? Well, not exactly…He was shivering in a Danish police cell after being pulled out of the window of a sex shop in the early hours.
Chased by bloodthirsty young Vikings from a bar after attempting to solicit the favours of a local girl, Pablo, in blind drunken terror, had attempted escape on an old pushbike he had found parked outside the bar. Peddling wildly and looking behind, he had ridden full tilt through the sex shop window. Oh, how the Vikings laughed.
After his arrest he told the police he was the drummer with the big English rock band in town and by the time Malcolm had discovered his unfortunate whereabouts, the story of "Rock Band's Drunken Drummer Breaks Into Danish Sex Shop" had already got back to the
After large amounts of cash were handed over to the Danish 'authorities', Pablo was repatriated with the utmost expediency. He was not booked for the following tour.
But that was all in the bad old days. Times have now changed in this professional, safety conscious 21st century. Or so I've been told. They have, haven't they…?
No comments:
Post a Comment