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Post by duckbarman on Oct 25, 2022 14:21:43 GMT
When you support a headliner, you do not get equal opportunity to effect the crowd. You are limited in how loud you're allowed to be, the headliner will always be quite a lot louder than the support acts. Of course you don't get to use the headliner's lighting and video effects either. That seems to have always been the prevailing mentality in the live music business and it's always seemed to me to be a short-sighted attitude because they are short-changing the crowd of a full concert experience when that happens. I appreciate that there will, by necessity, always have to be some curtailments on the support acts eg their massive stage backdrop or whatever will have to be left back in the lorry as it would interfere too much with the changeover, etc, but let them use the headliner's lights, and for gawd's sake leave their sound alone... Here's a tale from George Geranios on the subject: I did a second Donington in 1987, the infamous "all-American" festival. The headliner was Bon Jovi. I was there with Anthrax. Metallica played also. The sound companies were Rocksound (from Germany) and Malcolm Hill. Hill had a huge (and very good sounding) system flanking the main Rocksound speakers.
I remember reading a telling article in Kerrang! the day before the show. The essence of the piece was an extremely perceptive winge about the Donington show sound. The author had attended many a show there and wondered why, given the virtual mountain of speakers, all the opening acts sounded weak and puny whilst the headliner sounded massive. What if you didn't give a toss about the headliner? Your favorite(s) sounded lame! Shouldn't every band sound good? You paid your hard earned pounds to see and hear all the bands. The author had heard this at all the Donington Park shows and was quite fed-up.
Though I feel the situation in 1981 was certainly not deliberate sabotage on the part of either AC/DC or the Malcolm Hill company, the show in 1986 was quite another story. As usual, we arrived the day before and did a good sound check. The same system engineer was there from Malcolm Hill, we reminisced about the '81 show and I remarked how good the current iteration of the Hill system sounded. The vibe was pleasant, everything sounded fine.
The next day, of course, everything was different. I had high hopes for a fine show, but as we began I noticed that the system sounded much quieter than the day before and the dynamics were limited. Nothing sounded quite right. At one point I became quite disgusted and took a little walk to my left, the center of the mixing platform, and took a look at the system drive racks. Yes, there it was, a DBX 165 Stereo Limiter, and, by golly, it was kicking back about 12db on every peak. And it was attached to my mix!
I turned to the Rocksound system tech (the sound man for the Scorpions, by the way) and asked, "What the hell is this?" I got a reply burned into my brain even these many years later: "You know how it is!" (Imagine a German-tinged accent and a condescending smile).
Just in case you are thinking, ahh, the Malcolm Hill people were engineering a payback for '81; not at all. Malcolm's system tech was quite embarrassed and upset. Remember, his system is attached to the Rocksound array. If it sounds like ass, his system will sound like ass. And ass it was, through every act until Bon Jovi. Then it was all it could be ("You know how it is!").
After Metallica's less than audible set, Peter Mensch (Metallica's manager with Cliff Burnstein) came up to Big Mick (Metallica's super-fine soundman) and me and he was livid. He knew that his band had been badly treated, but alas, there was nothing he could do. So it goes in the wonderful world of big-time sound.
Attitudes like this limit audience enjoyment and essentially rob the audience of what is rightfully theirs: a full and effective show. It's also a pussy move. It implies the headliner does not have the confidence to carry the show without kneecapping the competition.
Does this always happen? No, but it happens often enough to be a real problem for touring professionals. It is an unfortunate part of the politics of the music business. These decisions are almost always band decisions implemented by management with the complicity of the sound company.
Are there bands that make it a policy of not doing this? I can name at least one: Iron Maiden and their soundman Doug Hall. For years they challenged any band to blow them off the stage and would provide them all the watts they needed to try. As a matter of fact, the 1988 Donington featured Iron Maiden and Doug assembled a huge sound system. Doug gave everybody everything and our Big Mick attested to this. He was once again in attendance (in what capacity I don't recall). I saw him later at another festival and he gave the sound system his highest accolade: "Raging." The 100,000 plus music fans got their money's worth that day.
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Post by warrior21 on Oct 25, 2022 22:36:17 GMT
Thanks for posting this, DB. Great insight. Interesting that this even goes on at festivals. If I’m a fan at a festival and the sound was ass for 90% of the day, I’d seriously consider not attending the following year.
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Post by joe on Oct 26, 2022 1:42:34 GMT
Joe that review is so spot on. I live in Glasgow and I have been to several sold out gigs at that venue with no hassle. It was a bit of a shambles. Was told by email that first band (BOC) would be on stage at 7.30. They weren’t, they hit the stage at 7.15 and with an ensuing shambles trying to get into the venue it meant when BOC hit the stage the place was only about a quarter full. By the time they had finished the place was heaving so I reckon a lot of fans missed a fair chunk of their set. The reviewer saying the DP sound was fantastic was spot on, sadly the same wasn’t the same for BOC. Certainly not crystal clear and certainly on a far lower level to DP. This has been explained to me by someone in the know and it just baffles me! Anyway, the guy got his review spot on. Two rock behemoths were great on stage but one definitely got a raw deal and it wasn’t Deep Purple!! On the one hand I'm glad that the review was accurate - sometimes I'll post one hoping that it's not fake news. On the other hand, if it had been exaggerated then maybe things would have been better than the review implied. I'm glad to see that some others here have spoken up on the sound issues. I know I've learned a few things that I didn't know about venue/artist sound, lighting, etc.
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Post by joe on Oct 26, 2022 2:25:48 GMT
Thanks for posting this, DB. Great insight. Interesting that this even goes on at festivals. If I’m a fan at a festival and the sound was ass for 90% of the day, I’d seriously consider not attending the following year. Yea, that was a great explanation that DB gave. I didn't know that kind of stuff goes on, but then why in the world should I be surprised? This is "in general" and should not be considered directed at the concerts we're talking about:I can see some logic for "support" bands not having equal access to EVERYTHING. Buck brought some of this out. If I was the support I wouldn't expect to have equal access to things that the headliner owned or paid for on their own. Like special lighting effects or other "stuff" that is somewhat a trademark of their show, like BÖC's lasers way back in the day.
But for a sound system owned by the venue that both bands are paying for, one way or another, one band should NOT be charged more by the dB of sound than the other! NOT implying that's what happened here, just a general statement from previous comments. To me at least, that would almost be like a bribe to the venue/sound manager to screw the other guy. Or maybe I'm very naive (which I admittedly am on this subject). I remember as a young engineer at a computer show - we didn't have any electricity at our booth. I filed multiple complaints with the head electrician, he said there were some severe problems in our area. Other nonsense was going on with other things too. Finally my boss pulled out a wad of $20 bills and handed it to me. I knew what that was for! So I went back to the same electrician, handed him a 20 along with the same complaint. He turned around and flipped a breaker on and said "go see if that worked". Yep. Got a bunch of other "problems" fixed here and there with those 20s. So just a similar situation - "You know how it is!". I could see a lower legit sound level in some cases, like for a very new starter band that was told the drill ahead of time and was glad to perform at all, so then maybe the venue might want a lower level to get people seated, food orders taken, and so on. But BÖC and DP are BOTH long touring, world class, bands! I'm not in the business, so what do I know. All I know is that if I bought a ticket for two world-class bands I would want to get two great experiences, sound included.
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Post by deegee777 on Oct 26, 2022 16:33:38 GMT
> This has been explained to me by someone in the know and it just baffles me!
I'd be interested in hearing that explanation, so feel free to baffle us as well... Buck has explained it all Ralph. Eric sent me a PM after he saw my comments about the sound on FB. He said he found out DP has somebody beside Woody on the desk and if the sound went above a certain level during the BOC set he was told to turn it down. Now if this was an up and coming band headlining I could understand but dear God why do this at this stage of their career and to a well established band that have a very good following in this country. I mentioned it to Buck after the gig but he had no idea it was happening as he hadn’t stayed to see DP after the BOC set! Honestly the sound difference was staggering. DP sound was fantastic, probably one of the best I have heard. Crystal clear, loud, heavy and you could hear every instrument. In contrast BOC were way down on that level and clarity. It was so noticeable that my son said it to me after DP’s second song. Sad that DP resort to that trick at this stage of the game but hey ho we all know what goes on in this business!! Didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the BOC set thankfully!
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Post by joe on Oct 27, 2022 2:14:14 GMT
> This has been explained to me by someone in the know and it just baffles me!
I'd be interested in hearing that explanation, so feel free to baffle us as well... :) Buck has explained it all Ralph. Eric sent me a PM after he saw my comments about the sound on FB. He said he found out DP has somebody beside Woody on the desk and if the sound went above a certain level during the BOC set he was told to turn it down. Now if this was an up and coming band headlining I could understand but dear God why do this at this stage of their career and to a well established band that have a very good following in this country. I mentioned it to Buck after the gig but he had no idea it was happening as he hadn’t stayed to see DP after the BOC set! Honestly the sound difference was staggering. DP sound was fantastic, probably one of the best I have heard. Crystal clear, loud, heavy and you could hear every instrument. In contrast BOC were way down on that level and clarity. It was so noticeable that my son said it to me after DP’s second song. Sad that DP resort to that trick at this stage of the game but hey ho we all know what goes on in this business!! Didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the BOC set thankfully! Interesting. I wonder how the sound level was "turned down" (e.g. just the level out to the final amps, compressor, limiter, something else that lowered the dynamic range or made the sound go REALLY non-linear)? I ask because of your "clarity" comment. Or was the level just so low that it was barely above the ambient noise level where you were seated? Doesn't need answering at least for me, just curious. The what, the how, and the who isn't my battle to fight and is probably none of my business anyway.
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Post by eastmark on Oct 27, 2022 10:22:18 GMT
They seem threatened by the live prowess of BOC. Makes perfect sense to me. This BOC band is rocking.
How we respond to all things in life, threats, challenges, successes, sharing, otherwise….shows who we really are..
So Im no DP fan right now. Seems pathetic at this stage of DP’s career to me. Very weak. Id be embarrassed if I were them.
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Post by Alessandro on Oct 27, 2022 12:58:37 GMT
for something completely different... does anybody know whether the harmonica on True Train is sampled and driven through the mixing desk or actually performed by somebody from the crew behind the curtains? Buck?
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Post by Buck on Oct 27, 2022 20:23:30 GMT
Don't blame Deep Purple!
UPDATE to this thread..
This is one of those things that are generally not discussed publicly, and the whole discussion should stay here, so don't run and tell it elsewhere. It turns out.. The whole "Volume" thing about our UK dates, was NOT intentional on Deep Purple's part. Apparently, one of the system engineers on the PA company that did Purple's UK run, took it upon himself, and was the person responsible for the throttling of BOC's sound.
When the promoter of the events, and Deep Purple were notified, by BOC management, Purple relieved the person responsible and allowed BOC to rock in a manor fitting with our history and pedigree, in the post Glasgow dates. They never intended to give us a hard time.
Although DP was STILL 'WAY louder than BOC. I watched most of their set in Manchester, they were great, but if I didn't have my earplugs, I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much. Fact, I might have had to bail.
You young folk, do you really want to hear a live concert that loud? Is that part of the experience, that you can't make it that loud at home?
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Post by Buck on Oct 27, 2022 20:24:43 GMT
for something completely different... does anybody know whether the harmonica on True Train is sampled and driven through the mixing desk or actually performed by somebody from the crew behind the curtains? Buck? For the UK/Europe run, we feature the original harmonica intro as recorded on "The Symbol Remains" performed by Phil Castellano.
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Post by Cheryl on Oct 27, 2022 22:29:15 GMT
Don't blame Deep Purple! UPDATE to this thread.. This is one of those things that are generally not discussed publicly, and the whole discussion should stay here, so don't run and tell it elsewhere. It turns out.. The whole "Volume" thing about our UK dates, was NOT intentional on Deep Purple's part. Apparently, one of the system engineers on the PA company that did Purple's UK run, took it upon himself, and was the person responsible for the throttling of BOC's sound. When the promoter of the events, and Deep Purple were notified, by BOC management, Purple relieved the person responsible and allowed BOC to rock in a manor fitting with our history and pedigree, in the post Glasgow dates. They never intended to give us a hard time. Although DP was STILL 'WAY louder than BOC. I watched most of their set in Manchester, they were great, but if I didn't have my earplugs, I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much. Fact, I might have had to bail. You young folk, do you really want to hear a live concert that loud? Is that part of the experience, that you can't make it that loud at home? Thanks for the explanation Buck.. Makes me feel a little better about DP. After all, BÖC was the opening band for DP at my VERY 1st BOC show in OC Calif Aug. 2014. To this day Blue Öyster Cult is my go to most favorite band. A toast for all the shows I’ve been to so far. 😎
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Post by joe on Oct 28, 2022 1:14:00 GMT
Don't blame Deep Purple! UPDATE to this thread.. This is one of those things that are generally not discussed publicly, and the whole discussion should stay here, so don't run and tell it elsewhere. It turns out.. The whole "Volume" thing about our UK dates, was NOT intentional on Deep Purple's part. Apparently, one of the system engineers on the PA company that did Purple's UK run, took it upon himself, and was the person responsible for the throttling of BOC's sound. When the promoter of the events, and Deep Purple were notified, by BOC management, Purple relieved the person responsible and allowed BOC to rock in a manor fitting with our history and pedigree, in the post Glasgow dates. They never intended to give us a hard time. Although DP was STILL 'WAY louder than BOC. I watched most of their set in Manchester, they were great, but if I didn't have my earplugs, I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much. Fact, I might have had to bail. You young folk, do you really want to hear a live concert that loud? Is that part of the experience, that you can't make it that loud at home? Thanks for the explanation Buck.. Makes me feel a little better about DP. After all, BÖC was the opening band for DP at my VERY 1st BOC show in OC Calif Aug. 2014. To this day Blue Öyster Cult is my go to most favorite band. A toast for all the shows I’ve been to so far. 😎 Somehow I didn't think the DP band itself had anything to do with this. Just from comments and interviews I've seen, BÖC and DP seem to have a long standing friendship and respect for each other. Good to know generally what happened. As long as it was clean audio, with my way over-sensitive ears I probably would have LOVED the lower volume level :)
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Post by robreich on Oct 28, 2022 1:38:40 GMT
Don't blame Deep Purple! UPDATE to this thread.. This is one of those things that are generally not discussed publicly, and the whole discussion should stay here, so don't run and tell it elsewhere. It turns out.. The whole "Volume" thing about our UK dates, was NOT intentional on Deep Purple's part. Apparently, one of the system engineers on the PA company that did Purple's UK run, took it upon himself, and was the person responsible for the throttling of BOC's sound. When the promoter of the events, and Deep Purple were notified, by BOC management, Purple relieved the person responsible and allowed BOC to rock in a manor fitting with our history and pedigree, in the post Glasgow dates. They never intended to give us a hard time. Although DP was STILL 'WAY louder than BOC. I watched most of their set in Manchester, they were great, but if I didn't have my earplugs, I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much. Fact, I might have had to bail. You young folk, do you really want to hear a live concert that loud? Is that part of the experience, that you can't make it that loud at home? That is outstanding. And I’m with you, BD, I don’t need it that loud. I appreciate not wearing ear plugs at BOC shows and getting excellent sound without pain.
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Post by joe on Oct 28, 2022 1:38:54 GMT
Article about the BÖC/DP concert at the First Direct Arena, Leeds, U.K., October 23, 2022The article starts off: "Now this is what you call a tasty bill. Two of Hard Rocks legendary names on stage together with over a century’s worth of music between them, this was a veritable feast. For those lucky enough to have caught Blue Öyster Cult on one of their own headlining shows earlier in the week, tonight was an opportunity to catch them again....."
www.metalexpressradio.com/2022/10/24/deep-purple-blue-oyster-cult-live/
Pretty much equal coverage of both bands and all positive! Photos of both bands on their webpage.
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Post by robreich on Oct 28, 2022 1:43:31 GMT
They seem threatened by the live prowess of BOC. Makes perfect sense to me. This BOC band is rocking. How we respond to all things in life, threats, challenges, successes, sharing, otherwise….shows who we really are.. So Im no DP fan right now. Seems pathetic at this stage of DP’s career to me. Very weak. Id be embarrassed if I were them. Nice to see BD explain it wasn’t Purple. Does remind me of two cool memories. The first is the great Behind the Music series, this one featuring Styx. Tommy Shaw is talking about his frustration with their Kilroy was Here show, with Broadway play like elements. The worst moment for him was when they did their act at the Texas Jam, and then “Blue Oyster Cult came out and kicked our ass.” Indeed. I’m also reminded of a talk with BD years ago about being an opener. His (quite accurate) comment - “You follow us at your peril.” Hell yeah! OTF Rob .
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