Life on the road with All Time Low.

Home at last! No wait… It’s only been 8 days. Home too soon?

7/18-7/19:
One of the most hyped up and talked about shows of the year. Ok, maybe not, but it’s still a big show! 2 nights at Rams Head Live in good ol’ Baltimore. All Time Low is the first band to ever sell this venue out 2 nights in a row. 1825 tickets sold for Friday and Saturday night. Holy crap! These were going to be some big shows! Thanks to the awesomeness of selling out 2 nights in a row, everyone at Rams Head Live gave us the super A+ treatment. I’ve never seen the staff at this place in such a good mood! Even with the task of loading in a 20’ trailer packed to the roof and a box truck, everyone was in good moods.

Anyway, since this was such a big event for the band, and us I decided to make it the best show of the tour. I hired in a ton of extra production for this show. Yup, nothing like a 14’ box truck loaded up with extra sound stuff just for ATL. Speakers, consoles, amplifiers, mics, and more! Oh goody!

Caution: Sound nerd stuff, EXTENDED VERSION!
Normally Rams Head Live is a terrible sounding venue. There are 2 main reasons that cause this. The first, and the biggest reason is the house PA. Someone really screwed up with this. It seems like the people installing the sound system said to each other “Lets take all the most expensive gear we can find and put it into this venue, even if it’s entirely wrong for this place.” That basically boiled down to 6 JBL Vertec 4888’s and 2 JBL VT4880’s flown per side in this club. Somewhere along the way, they also decided it was a good idea to put some EAW SB1000z’s on the floor.

Now, this venue is not very deep, and is pretty wide. It also has 3 balconies. So basically, you end up with a PA that doesnt cover the first 10 feet of the audience, and in order to get it loud enough on the floor, you have to kill the people upstairs. It’s not uncommon at all to see SPL levels around 120dB upstairs, while only being around 106dB downstairs. Their solution to the crap install is to supply 2 JBL VP series front fills to cover the front bit of the crowd. Sadly, they are run in full clip/limit all night just trying to do their job. But, thats only issue one.

The second issue with this place is the lack of any low end. 4 EAW SB1000z’s and 4 JBL VT4880’s supply bass. The SB1000’s are on the floor, on an aux. 2 of the subs fire into the crowd, and 2 of the subs fire into a wall 10′ away. Not what I’d call ideal at all. They destroy subs weekly at this place trying to get enough bass.

This room also has some very weird summing issues with the PA. The VT4888’s seem to sum right down the middle of the room and create a massive pit of 630hz. Feedback comes quick if you don’t EQ it out in advance. The room is also very bright sounding. Concrete walls, floors and metal everywhere doesn’t help either.

So, I had a pretty fun task ahead. My goal was to use the least amount of the house rig as possible to make ATL’s set sound better then this place has ever seen before. So, with the help of Jim Bowersox, we brought in 12 Turbosound 21″ subs to cover the bass, and 4 Turbosound flashlights for “front fills.” I also had 3 Community RSJR’s as lip fills across the front. Finally, I brought in my own console for FOH, as I hate mixing on Midas Legends. We fed the house vertecs with a Matrix out on the Yamaha M7CL and only really used them to cover upstairs.

The end result, was a much better sounding, bass heavy sound system that was ready to rock. And rock is exactly was it did. During sound check, it was around 107dBA on the floor, and a comfortable 103-105dBA upstairs. Though, I did have to EQ out the usual 630hz death trap in that room, and the 6-8k harshness of the JBL’s…

/Sound Nerd stuff..

Once 1825 kids piled into the room, I realized it was going to be an amazing show!

Night one offered a few minor issues. I expected some problems, as they can be quite common. The first one was that mixing monitors from Front of House was not as ideal as we thought it would be. The second issue is that some band members in certain bands are basically deaf, and require monitor mixes beyond any reasonable level… The result of that was a blown horn in one of the wedges… After talking to everyone, it was decided that the openers would be left to RHL’s house staff, and we would only worry about ATL. Night 2 went much smoother. Well, at least in terms of getting the bands up and running. Since the openers were only using the house system, it was quite harsh! I forgot how bad it sounded…

But, All Time Low’s set ran very smoothly both nights. Everything sounded very good, and I had plenty of PA. For the first time in a long time, there was more sub then I needed.

ATL played a few older songs both nights, since it was their hometown. Circles and The Party Scene was crowd favorites both nights.

In the end, I couldnt have asked for much more. I was very happy with both nights, and the crowds were just amazing.

The RHL Crew. From left to right: Tom Manchester - Matt Moser - Jim Bowersox - ME - Roxanne

A BIG thanks to the amazing TOM MANCHESTER for driving down from DE to help out, and Moser and Brianna for helping with stage changes and load in.

7/20- The National, Richmond VA

This was my last stop with the boys for this tour. And, I picked a good day to call my last. I had a very nice theatre, and a very nice L’Acoustic V-dosc rig to work with. Sound check went very well. I only had 2 complaints- Going from 12 21’s to 8 18’s is not fun. I had “enough” sub for this gig, but man, I missed all the extra PA. The V-Dosc’s were also almost too “dull” sounding to me. This was a very reverberant room, and the extra HF could have helped a bit. But, I still managed to pull of a very good sounding mix.

This was a smaller show, crowd wise. As of the show day, there were only 374 presales. Luckily, the total crowd topped out around 800 kids for the night. Since it was a smaller crowd, I took it easy on them all and mixed around 101dBA most of the night. I had a very solid, lower SPL mix going. There were many compliments on how everything sounded.

No pictures from this show yet. Coming soon!

I cant believe this tour is already over. Just as soon as it began, it’s already over. Oh well, thats the way it goes. Look for BIG things in the fall!

Back to the world of Rock and Roll…

Another day, another dollar.

7/14/08: Tennessee- Rocket Town.

This was a rather unique venue compared to most. The combined a skate park, restaurant, and 2 venues all into 1 venue. This place is a completely non-profit complex, and all the money goes into the building and Community. I walked around and explored most of the venue throughout the day. It seemed like a great place for kids to have a good time and skate. Though, I also got a good laugh watching all the 14 year old kids attempt to act like Tony Hawk in the skate park. They would attempt some random trick, and end up sliding down the ramp on their back… It was awesome.

Caution: Sound Nerd stuff-

It seems EAW KF850’s have become the standard rock and roll club install box these days. Sound companies are ditching them left and right because they are big, heavy, old cabs. Not to mention most guys are following the line array route these days. But, the good news is, that makes these boxes very affordable for clubs across the country. No one wants to haul them around anymore, so clubs can pick them up for a pretty good price. That gives the club a pretty affordable, good sounding, loud speaker system. 90% of the venues on this short tour have all had the KF850’s. It’s amazing though how one night they can sound amazing, while the next night they just suck out loud. I find that the venues where they suck all have come up with their own “presets” for the speakers, and while it may sound good to the half deaf house sound guy, they just end up sounding horrible for the common mixer person. I notice 2 things with these boxes when they are setup wrong: They need a huge cut around 160-250hz or, they need a huge cut around 2-4k. I believe mot of these issues could be solved by simply turning one of the band passes on the cabs. But oh well, what are you going to do?

Anyway, back to the show…

I fired up the rig at Rocket Town to find an extreme lack of anything below 100hz. And I mean an EXTREME lack of ANYTHING. I asked the house guy if the subs were even on, and to my surprise, they were in fact on. I walked up to the subs, and they were in fact making noise. Normally, I wont say anything to the house guy, but this was just too unbearable. I had him turn the mains down by 12dB, and that seemed to do the trick. Everything was a lot more balanced sounding. Though, the W-Bin style subs were not the greatest sounding. They didnt have a lot of impact and were really boomy. But, with some EQ, they ended up sounding good enough. At least the mains sounded pretty good.

Sound check ran pretty smoothly. So, it was off to the bus to take a quick nap before the show. Come time for ATL’s set, a solid 1100 kids had packed into the venue and things were sounding very good. ATL’s set went very smoothly, and the night was issue free. Another great set from ATL.

7/15/08: Cleveland: Peabody’s-

Wow, talk about a small, crappy venue. The say it’s a 700 cap venue, but it looks more like 400 to me. Any lack of real lighting in the venue made load in and setup pretty fun too… Come show time, it was PACKED. It was hot hot hot, and the kids were packed in. First song kicks in and Im into the red. Yep, it’s going to be one of “those” nights. I was in solid red the whole set just trying to get on top of the crowd. The little mains were not loving it, nor were the subs. The low amp thermalled about 4 times during their set as well. It was not a fun night. I left my camera on the bus, so you dont get any pictures.

7/16/08- Detroit: St. Andrew’s Hall-

We hit this venue on the AP Tour back in April, so I already knew what to expect here. When the AP tour came through, half the PA was not in working form. Subs were blown, and a few horns were out on the mains. 3 months later, it’s no better. Normally you walk into a room and see 8 KF850’s and 12 SB1000e’s and think to yourself “SWEET!” Not the case with this system. 4 of the 12 subs dont work at all, and a few more rattle and sound like they are on death row. It also sounds like 2 of the horns are dead and possible a mid driver…

Anyway, sound check rolls smooth enough. The venue has absolutely no Air Conditioning, and once 800 kids pack into this club, it becomes quite the oven in the main room. Come time for our set, I’d say the ambient temperature in the room was hovering around 100 degrees, with 80% humidity. Not fun at all. I was breaking a sweat just standing at FOH. I felt sorry for Danny and the band on stage. It must have been even more miserable on stage with all the lights. The humidity was doing wonders for the already bad sounding PA too. It was killing the highs and making a muddy mess of everything. I ended up going for a slightly brighter mix just so people could understand everything. It wasnt the best show, but I made it through the show, and I think the PA did.

Load out was another story. About 20 minutes into load out, the skies opened up and it started pouring down rain. So, all the gear and the crew got soaked during load out. Alex on the other hand, along with a few other band members used the time wisely, and took a “Shower” out in the rain.

PS- You can thank our light guy Ben for the amazing lights.

Back to the world of Rock and Roll….

7/13/08- DAY OFF
Having an off day at Myrtle Beach is awesome. I rolled out of bed around 1pm and stumbled down to the beach to relax for a few hours. The water was great, and the weather was better. At a nice 86 degrees and not a cloud in the sky, it was a great day. Not to mention, the water temp was around 80 degrees as well.

After a few hours at the beach, we went up to Matt’s condo and chilled for a while. The night before we had ordered 10 pizza’s for everyone, and there were still about 3 boxes left in the morning, so that ended up being my lunch for the day.

I walked around for a few hours checking out the area. It’s a nice area down here and makes for a great resort town. We couldn’t have asked for much more for a day off. I didn’t do any work all day, and it was awesome. But like everyday, it has to come to an end sooner or later, and I watched the sun set on a perfect day off.

Back to the world of rock and roll.

Back on the road again, but this time it’s only for 11 days. Im out with All Time Low on what is now being called the “Shortest Tour Ever.” We’ll be hitting a bunch of cities all over the east coast. This time, we are also heading out with an amazing lighting engineer named Ben. He’s bringing the show to life with a pretty amazing light show.

________________

7/10/08-
The first show of the tour was a pretty smooth one. The Lincoln Theatre in North Carolina- a smaller venue with a cool vibe. This room was smaller then a lot of the AP Tour venues, but it wasnt too bad. 800 capacity, and a balcony. The PA consisted of a dieing Yamaha M3000 at FOH, 4 EAW KF850e’s and 4 EAW SB850e’s. A nice little PA for a nice little room. When I first fired the PA up I noticed that things were very out of balance. Way to much high, not enough mid, and too much low mids. I had to pull 160-250hz about 10dB to even things out.

The show itself went pretty smoothly. No major errors, except Danny tripping on the power cable for the lighting and unplugging it a few times. Other then that, the show went very smooth. Sadly, I forgot my camera and was unable to take pictures at this show.

7/11/08-
Greensboro, NC: The Green Street Cafe: Another small venue. 600 cap, a tiny stage and a PA not up to the task at hand. I had an ancient Tac console at FOH, and a mix of Community and Electro-Voice mains. Bass was provided by a pair of JBL SRX728’s. Sound check was pretty rough, and I was hoping the show would be better. Once 600 kids piled into the room, things did tighten up a bit, but the PA still sucked. I was solid into limit the whole time. The horns ran out of gas first, followed by everything else. It was worse then the night before.

But, all in all, everyone still had a good time, and the venue even gave us a DVD of the night.

7/12/08-
Myrtle Beach, House of Blues: Wow. You dont realize how much you miss quality PA and staff until you go 2 shows without it. Another KF850 rig today, but at least this one sounds good. 8 EAW SB1000z’s under the stage and a Midas H2000 out front. Talk about a good PA. Sound check was a breeze, and I got a good mix up and running very quick. I love House Of Blues shows. They are just so easy. Great staff, great PA and they treat you right. Since presales were a little low, they closed off the balcony so the bottom would be full. We had a solid 1000 kids show up and it was a great show. You just cant beat HOB shows.

Everything was going great until the final song of the set. Alex’s guitar went silent right as they went to start Dear Maria. Hmm… What could be wrong… Bad wireless? Nope. Bad cable? Nope. Bad guitar? Nope! Crap. What’s going on… While Matt and Danny are trying to troubleshoot, Alex has to keep the crowd entertained. 5 minutes passes, still nothing. They decide to play a song without Alex on guitar to kill some time. Another 5 minutes pass and still nothing. They decided to play Dear Maria acoustic to end the night. After the show, we looked at Alex’s head, and sure enough, it stinked like burning electronics. Yep. The head’s dead. Luckily we have a spare head and will be able to do the rest of the shows while Alex’s head is off being fixed.

Oh and an extra bonus: Matt has spelled my name wrong in the tour book 2 times in a row now. During the AP Tour he spelled my name as “Evan Kirkland” and now during this tour, it’s “Eva Kirkendall.” So, just for fun, Matt left me this at FOH:

Back to the world of Rock and Roll….

Hey check check 1 2. Is this thing on?

Man, it feels good to be back. After a month of local shows, I finally get to do some real shows again… We had 2 in a row this week(6/7). Thursday in St. Louis and Saturday in Philly.

Our trip out to St. Louis was quite the journey. Even my drive from my house to Rian’s house was an adventure. I drove through a massive thunderstorm on the way to his house. It was so bad, that I couldnt see the road at some points. Our flight was scheduled to take off at 7:35pm, but thanks to the various thunderstorms rolling through the area, it was delayed 2 hours and we didnt get off the ground until 9:15pm. I was very happy to have access to WIFI, otherwise I would have lost my mind.

We arrived in St. Louis around 11pm and checked into our hotel. Our hotel was literally about 500′ from the park. It was a pretty cool/spooky hotel. Matt and myself had the task of getting the bands gear from the parking lot, up a tiny ramp, around the building, into an elevator, through a hallway and a few doorways, all the way to the hotel room. We had one cart to fit all the gear on. It was quite the adventure. We wondered around looking for the room for a long time… This hotel was pretty big and easy to get lost in…

Anyway, we got to the park around 2pm and started setting up. We didnt bring most of our own gear because of the plane ride, so it was fun trying to hook our stuff up to the provided gear. But, after a little bit of work, all was up and running.

The amphitheater at this place was huge. It holds around 10,000 people. The sound system provided was also pretty much on spec with what I wanted. I had 6 EV x-array series mains per side, 10 EV MTL2 subwoofers in the middle and a Yamaha PM5D at FOH. After firing up the rig it was clear that it was going to be a good night.

We started soundcheck around 3pm and already had a crowd of about 100 watching us. They was quite happy to hear some of the songs the band played during sound check. We finished around 4pm and took a much needed dinner break. We all pretty much collapsed after a long morning of work.

The gates opened at 6pm and the crowd slowly filled up the theatre. Come show time we had around 2,000 kids. Its no 10,000, but we were all very happy with the turnout. They played a solid hour set. Everything ran pretty smoothly. Well, except for the fact that they had to keep the set clean. Alex slipped up about 5 times in between songs. Other then that, the show was pretty much issue free.

We had a 6am flight out of St. Louis and that pretty much sucked. I rolled out of bed half asleep around 3:45am to start getting ready. I arrive home around noon and went to bed.

Saturday: Journeys Back Yard BBQ

You know those days when you just don’t want to leave the house? Yeah… This was one of those days. I woke up at 7am to catch the van call at 7:30am. We were driving up to Philly to do an outdoor show. I usually love outdoor shows, but this one was nothing to be happy about. It was over 100 degrees with very high humidity. As soon as I stepped out of the van, I was sweating. It was that hot. And to top it off, the provided PA was nowhere near enough for the expected crowd. The band didn’t have to show up until around 3pm, so we were stuck out in the heat all day. I retreated to the mall close by a few times just to cool off. I don’t know how some of the kids do it, but a very dedicated few braved the heat all day just to see the band.
The show time temp was around 110 and probably even more inside the mob of people. As soon as the band took the stage, I was into the system’s limiters. I normally mix them around 106dBA, but this PA couldn’t get past 97dBA. I watched the sub and low limiters on the DSP stay full on during their whole set. The crowd was basically overpowering the band for the first few songs. 6 KF750’s and 4 SB750’s is not enough PA for 1600 kids… Plus KF750’s just sound bad. But, whatever…. We made it through the show. We took our sweet time packing up and finally got on the road around 9pm. It felt great to be out of the heat…

6/12- Thursday: Six Flags GA

ATL is in ATL. Another fun day of flying… Thanks to Matt’s awesome booking skills, we flew out of BWI at 6:30am, landed in Tennessee at 10am and we on our way to GA by 12:30pm. We arrived in GA around 1pm and made our way to the park. Wow, this place was huge! And I thought the last one was big…

The stage was massive, and the seating section was even bigger. The PA looked to be decent as well. I had 2 hangs of EV XLD218’s with 10 elements in each. I had 6 EV XLC118 subs per side on the deck as well. I also had a Yamaha PM5D out at FOH- just as I requested. I love when production companies actually fulfill riders. I fired the rig up and noticed right away a lack of mids and a ton of low mid gunk. It was even more apparent when I started line checking the band. There was almost nothing in the 2-4k range and waaayyy too much in the 200-400 range. I ended up dumping everything in the low mid section a ton to smooth things out. I got a pretty good mix up and running, and then went off to the dressing room to sleep. Everyone was dead tired after getting up super early and transferring between 2 flights.
This show was a real rock show. The other 6 Flags show was just ATL playing. Tonight’s show featured 2 openers, which were quite good. They were different then the usual stuff and I really enjoyed their sets.
We had a much smaller crowd this time though. Thanks to the crappy weather, there were only around 800 kids at this one. The place looked quite empty.

The stage at least looked good thanks to the backline company. They provided us with 4 guitar cabs and 1 bass cab for each side of the stage. It really filled things out, and made the stage look a lot fuller.

In the end, it turned out to be a fun gig. The crowd was energetic and as always, I had a blast mixing the band. After the gig I went back to the hotel and crashed.

Back to the world of Rock and Roll…

Wow, I forgot how boring home life was. Im completely bored out of my mind during the day and have to come up with new things daily to entertain myself. I miss the road. I miss waking up in a new city each day, facing a new challenge and dealing with new people. I miss the screaming fans and the sold out shows. I’ve done a total of 2 local shows since Ive been home, and Ive been pretty bored at both of them. The smaller crowds, with much less energy just isnt the same.

The AP tour was one of the most fun things Ive done in a long time, and at the same time one of the hardest things Ive done in a long time. It was a ton of fun with the guys, but it was hard being away from home and the ones I love. Would I do it again? You know it. I had a blast touring the country and doing what I love every night.

This time 8 weeks ago I was counting down the days until I left for tour. It was going to be a new experience with a lot of new things for me. And just as fast as it came, it’s over. I cant believe how fast this tour flew by. I had so much fun throughout the tour and met a lot of great people along the way. We all became a family over the tour, and it was weird not seeing them on the last 2 days. I really hope I get to cross paths with everyone again in the future.

Im really looking forward to future tours. All Time Low is really getting big, and I jumped on the train just in time. I have a great band to work with, and a great crew to support them. Matt Flyzik really runs a tight ship and keeps things running smoothly. Alex Grieco is a great drum tech as well. For the fall tour, Ben will be joining us to do lights for All Time Low. Who knows what else the future holds. I really hope I get to bring my own console on the winter tour, and future tours. These guys have a ton of potential, and I just hope I get to stick around for the rest of the ride.

This is what I’ve wanted to do all of my life. I feel like Im living my dream right now. I’ve watched these guys grow up over the years, and always got excited when I got to work with them locally. It’s been a dream come true for me. I never thought this would really happen, but it finally is. Life is great.

Back to the world of Rock and Roll…

The final 2 shows with All Time Low.

I woke up today and things felt different. No Rocket Summer, no Sonny, no anyone. I walked off the bus and wondered over to this massive stage. Yep, it was HUGE. This show was pretty big too. Camera’s everywhere, crew talking, the works. This was the filming for MTVu’s campus invasion. Over 4,000 ticket presale. However, thanks to the crappy weather, we only had around 2,000 kids show up. It was a little bit of a bummer.

Anyway, we had all morning to soundcheck and get everything up and rolling. All Time Low played 4th, right before Cobra Starship. It was pretty cool how everything was set up. Each band set their drums up on a rolling riser and it was left pre-wired. When your set time came along, you would just roll your drum riser out, patch in a multipin snake and be good to go. Sound checking each band in advance seems like a good idea in practice, but in reality, it takes a long, long time… The 2 acts after ATL went an hour over their time, and caused our sound check to be cut short. We ended up rushing, and really making life hard for me… FOH was a DigiDesign D-show, and I had never mixed on one before. And, to top it off, since we were rushed, I didnt even touch the board during sound check.

The crowd was at it’s peak right before ATL’s set. We had around 2000 kids there. The band strikes their first note, and bam. Silence. I had my faders way to low, or so I thought. I push everything up, and something still doesnt seem right. Yup, only half of the PA is working… The house sound dude, scrambles and figures out that the dbx 160a for the right side of the PA was not working… It somehow lost power during the set change… So, he gets it up and running and everything is going smoothly. Well, as smooth as you can be with 9 JBL vertecs per side. Wow, it sounded like an AM radio! To top it off, we had 30mph winds blowing the sound everywhere. It sounded like the mix had a phaser on it ah FOH… I was not having a good time. I just dealt with it and did the best I could…

The set went fairly smooth though. No failures on stage. But, since this was going on TV, ATL couldnt cuss at all. It made for quite an interesting set. They had to change the words around in some songs to make it work, and they couldnt use their scrims on stage. I was laughing at them as they tried to keep it clean on stage. But, if you want to see their set, it will be on TV May 12th!

BAMBOOZLE!

The best way to sum up this show is simply: wow. We had over 15,000 kids watching ATL’s set. Now, they werent just watching, but they were rocking out. EVERYONE in the crowd knew the words and was singing along! I was completely baffled. It was an amazing experience and I really enjoyed it. We had a great day for the show.

But, as always, something had to go wrong. Since this was the last time I was mixing ATL for a few months, I decided to crank ATL’s intro! I had the fader maxed out and everything was rocking out. Then, just as the band kicked in, I lost all bass. I asked the house guy “where’d the bass go?!” He was a little confused, and proceeded to check my EQ settings. Yep, everything was fine. He radioed the monitor guy, and figured out what was going on. I managed to take out 12 sub amps all at once. Blew the breakers all at the same time. Man, I rock! But, we got the amps back on mid way through the first song, and all was good. The rest of the set rocked.

And thats it! 8 weeks of touring has finally come to an end. I look forward to waking up in my own bed tomorrow morning!

Tour Wrap up and pictures coming soon…

Today marked the final day of the AP Tour 2008. It was quite the bittersweet end to an amazing tour. We played the Cleveland House of Blues, with a sold out crowd of 1300 kids. We couldnt have asked for a better end to an amazing tour. The kids were amazing, the show was amazing and everything went very smoothly. PA, as with any HOB was quite nice. I had 8 Electro-Voice XLC127 mains per side, and matching EV subs. I have become quite fond of this rig. It sounds great, and really gets loud. It was a great system to end the show on. I hardly had to touch the EQ, except to dial some of the highs out.

This show had a lot of twists and turns as we did one final show together. During All Time Low’s set, we had a guest singer come out on Coffee Shop Sound track. He did a pretty good job, and interacted with the crowd quite well:

Then, during All Time Low’s cover of “Umbrella,” Sonny Moore came out and sang. Talk about a rough song. he forgot just about every word to the song, and Alex had to help him out. But, it made for an interesting song.

Finally, during All Time Low’s final song, just about everyone came out on stage to rock out one last song. They all grabbed guitars, mics, or whatever else they could find and jammed one last time. It was quite a site to see everyone on stage. Though, the song was a complete mess. Not to mention, since they dont run any monitors, no one could really hear anything on stage…

Overall, it was a great show. I had a blast. The show went very well, and everyone had a great time. We couldnt have gotten a better venue to end the tour…

This tour was a complete success, and probably the most fun I’ve had all year. I’ve met so many amazing people over the past 8 weeks, and we’ve all become a family. It was tough to say a final goodbye to some of the guys. I really hope to cross paths with everyone again. It was fun working with everyone, and we all got along great. I sometimes wish this tour could keep going, but at the same time, Im kind of happy to finally be going home. We have 2 final shows this weekend before we finally head home. MTVU campus invasion on Saturday, and Bamboozle on Sunday. It’s going to be a fun weekend…

Picture time!

Forever the Sickest Kids:

Sonny:

The Matches:

Our homes:

AP bus:

Matt Flyzik:

Myself and Brent(TRS Sound):

Kyle(TRS guitar Tech):

Myself, Danny(TRS Guitar Tech), Kris(FTSK Guitar Tech):

Bryce(TRS):

RH(Sonny manager):

Seth(TRS Guitarist)

Alex(ATL):

And thats it. This time 8 weeks ago, I was sitting at home waiting for this tour to start. Now Im sitting on the bus wondering what happened to the tour. I cant believe that its already over. You know what they say: Time Flies when your having fun. Well, I must have been having a ton of fun, because time just flew by! I had a blast, and I cant wait for the future tours…

Off to the festivals…

And we’re back. The final shows of the AP Tour. Everything is coming to an end…

So, how have some of the past shows been? Some great and some OK.

Sat/4-19 Ft. Lauderdale, FL Revolution - SOLD OUT

This was a cool place. Sadly, we were treated like crap all day by the crew. It seemed like everyone was in a bad mood that day. Anytime someone would ask a question, they would basically yell at us for asking a question. It took them 30 minutes to patch in my split snake for monitor world. The whole time I was listening to them say “this is a stupid idea, this is such a pain, you guys need to get your act together” and blah blah blah. If you cant deal with a simple monitor split, then you shouldnt be in this business IMO.

But, come show time everything went pretty smoothly. I had 6 Turbosound Floodlights per side and 8 21″ subs to fill out the low end. I was hitting the subs pretty hard all night, but the rest of the rig was just sailing along.

Sun/4-20 St. Petersburg, FL Jannus Landing- SOLD OUT

Another cool show. It was our second outdoor show of the tour. I had 4 EAW KF850’s per side and 12 EAW SB850’s for PA. It did a surprisingly good job for the crowd. We had over 1300 kids there, and they were really into it. I had a great time. Everything went very smoothly.

Tue/4-22 Little Rock, AR Juanitas - SOLD OUT

Ah, the smallest show of the whole tour. A whopping 374 people packed into a little room. We tried so hard to make this an acoustic show, but in the end, everyone ended up playing full band. We somehow packed 5 bands worth of stuff onto a stage smaller then anything else on this tour.

The PA itself was pretty decent for the room, but nothing to brag about. EV MTL2’s, and matching mains. It got loud enough, but because of the small room, Rian’s cymbals were just killer. Thats the only thing that sucks about playing small rooms with a loud drummer. The cymbals just get so loud, and it becomes white noise…

Otherwise it was a pretty decent show. Better then I expected!

Fri/4-25 Milwaukee, WI The Rave - SOLD OUT

Welcome to the haunted mansion of this tour. My camera was dead for this show, but I wish I had it. The vibe walking into this place was pretty creepy. The room had a single light in the middle of the room that cast an erie, orange glow over the whole room. There was one window all the way up at the top of the room that cast a single ray of light into the room. The room was very cold, and all concrete.

Downstairs was the showers. To get to them, you had to walk through a long, dark hallway. There were a few dim lights lighting the path. Upstairs was a massive ballroom. It was almost pitch black, except for a few lights casting weird shadows in the room. You could hear it creaking as you walked around. I had to leave pretty quickly. In the basement is an empty swimming pool. People say ghosts live down there.

Everyone has stories about how the place is haunted. The stories are easy to believe, just because of the vibe of the place.

But, in the end, it ended up being one of the best shows of the tour. I had 4 EAW KF850’s(everyone loves these boxes) flown per side and 8 EAW SB1000z’s. The rig slammed. I had a crufty old Yamaha PM4K @ FOH though. There were a few scratchy pots and faders, otherwise it was pretty solid. I wasnt prepared for the crowd though… I always try to start off the set a little on the quiet side, but that wasnt happening. The crowd was completely over powering the band during the first few songs. The PA was hitting 106dBA, but the crowd was easily over 110dBA. I ended up running with the crowd and keeping it around 110dB at front of house. It was one of the loudest shows of the tour. The crowd was awesome though…

Sat/4-26 Columbus, OH Newport Music Hall - SOLD OUT

This was another good show, however: If you think putting 6 60x40 JBL cabs per side is a good idea, then you shouldnt be in this business.

Caution: Sound Nerd Talk: Wow, what a mess for a PA… I forget the model PA, but it was JBL’s venue series speakers. 6 boxes per side, stacked 3x2. No splay, no EQ, no nothing. As I walked across the floor, I could hear all the comb filtering going on between the speakers. It was a mess. It sounded entirely different in each spot of the room. At Front of House, I could move my head around from side to side and hear all the different horn patterns combining right at my location. It was pretty bad. I wish I would have gotten pictures of the stacks. Sure it got loud, but man, it didnt sound good at all.

Tue/4-29 New Haven, CT Toad’s Place - SOLD OUT

We went back in time visiting this venue. I had a mono PA cluster in the middle of the room. Wow. Mono? Yes, I said mono! If you’ve ever been to this venue, you also know how small it is. The capacity is 750. However, we managed to fit 1004 kids in this place… It was hot, sweaty and crowded. You couldnt move at all if you were buried in the crowd.

Poor kids:

Now, if you think this was just going to be another smooth show, you are completely wrong. Just about everything that could go wrong did. It all started in Jasey Ray. About 30 seconds into the song, the right side of the stage lost power. No, we didnt blow any breakers, Alex Greico, our wonderfuly clumsy drum tech pulled power out of the wall when he was wondering around behind the cabs. Luckily we got things back up and running pretty quick. But, it didnt stop there. Next up, the other side of the stage lost power! One of the fans on stage managed to pull the power cord out of the wall on the other side of the stage! It took Matt a little while to figure this one out. Alex ended up singing the rest of the song alone, and it turned out pretty cool.

But wait, theres more still! All of the power amps for the PA were located at Front of House. Directly under the mixer, and right in front of my knee. Yup, you guessed it. I turned off about 4 different amps throughout the set… I kept kneeing the amps and hitting the power switch. That sucked…

Otherwise, the show went pretty smoothly…

Thu/5-01 Pittsburgh, PA Diesel - SOLD OUT

Night clubs gone rock. Not exactly what you’d expect, right? This room was clearly a night club with a stage tossed up at one of the room. It was a very small room, with 2 levels. Upstairs was only 21+, while downstairs was all ages. Well, seeing that 99.995% of ATL’s fans are under 21, the downstairs was PACKED. Meanwhile, we had about 100 moms and dads watching upstairs. Now, it would have been great if I was downstairs with all the kids, but NO! I was crammed upstairs at the ledge of the balcony. And the best part is, I couldnt even hear the PA downstairs. Now, a smart club would put the same model fills upstairs to cover the top. But again, no, my life cant be easy… EAW KF650z’s downstairs, and EAW LA460’s upstairs… They sounded completely different… Now wait, to top it off, the downstairs was sooo packed, that I couldnt even get down there to listen. Right at the bottom of the steps was a wall of kids. So, I was stuck upstairs all night guessing what it sounded like down there… Not a fun night at all.

Fri/5-02 Cleveland, OH House Of Blues - SOLD OUT

This is the final show of the AP Tour. I’ll tell you about it next time…

Back to the world of Rock and Roll…

Ah, the joys of sitting around all day doing nothing. We have been busting our butts for the past week, and its nice to relax. Today was supposed to be a tech day of fixing things, but thanks to the weather, we are stuck inside all day while it pours outside… I guess Ill be running around before the show tomorrow trying to do everything…

Since we were stuck inside, it was a good day to clean the bus, so thats exactly what we did:

Oh, and we’d like to welcome another fish to the family:

We call him the Professor. You can also see the other 2 original fish in the background as well. All of them are alive and well…

Well, back to my day off. Another, more detailed update will be coming soon. Hang tight!

I have determined that the “door close” button on elevators does absolutely nothing. If I do nothing, it takes the door 15 seconds to close. If I press the button a few times, it takes 15 seconds for the door to close. If I press and hold the button, it takes 15 seconds for the door to close. I believe these are just there to entertain people and trick them into thinking that they are getting things done quicker. But, elevator gods beware, as I am onto your dirty little tricks!

But anyway, onto the shows!

Tue/4-08 Worcester, MA Palladium - SOLD OUT

This was by far the largest room of the whole tour. With a balcony that goes on as far as you can see and a multilevel floor, it was sure to be a pretty rocking show. The “house” PA system consisted of 8 EAW KF750’s and 5 EAW SB1000z’s per side. Im normally not a big fan of KF750’s, but these sounded fairly decent. The company that owns the boxes basically came up with all their own DSP settings to get rid of that nasty horn honk that the boxes are famous for. And they did a good job. I was able to hit around 108dBA @ FOH before they started breaking up. Sadly, because of the room size, and the crowd volume I was hovering around 108-112dBA @ FOH during ATL’s set… This was one of the loudest rooms too. The architecture in the room was pretty stunning too. This is a very old theatre, and it shows it’s age. The only downside to a room of this size and age, is that the sound sucks. Once the room filled up, it sounded great on the floor. But, upstairs was another story. There was a solid 3 second reverb upstairs that would not go away. Even with a full house, upstairs was very “live.”

But, overall it was a pretty killer show.

Crowd shot one:

Crowd shot 2:

Band shot:

Wed/4-09 Washington, DC 9:30 Club - SOLD OUT

Home sweet home. One of my personal favorite gigs. Basically everyone I knew from home came to this show. It was a great night.

Caution: Sound nerd stuff:
EAW SB1000z’s at 8 ohms a driver rock. When you can deliver a clean 2,000 watts to each driver, you get some serious bass. Combine that with 6 EAW KF850z’s(4 flown, 2 on the ground) and it makes a killer rig. Not only was it loud, but it was clean. The bass was so strong, that at FOH the hair inside of my ears was tingling. It was around 120dbC @ FOH, but only 108dBA. Now thats what Im talking about.

/sound nerd.

I think the best part of this gig was that I got to go home after it. It was so nice to spend the night with Roxanne and my family. I got to go home, see my puppies and my parents. That alone made me very happy. You also never realize how much you miss your own bed until you sleep in it for the first time in 5 weeks.

And how about a pic of someone else for a change:

Fri/4-11 New York, NY The Fillmore, Irving Plaza - SOLD OUT

Rough show for me… We werent allowed to make noise until 5pm. So, basically our day consisted of this phrase: Hurry up and wait. Our sound check ended up being rushed, and I was not happy with my mix at all. Everyone said it sounded great, but I guess Im my own worst critic.

Oh, and ATL had a friend come out and do lights for the show. He rocked.

But, for some reason, this is the only picture I have from the show:

Sat/4-12 Lancaster, PA The Chameleon - SOLD OUT

Another good show. My parents came out to this one. It was nice to spend the day with them. We went out to lunch(great pizza place), and spent some of the day together. I also got to see Roxanne again, which was quite nice. It’s always nice to have your loved ones come out and see what you do.

The actual show went pretty well. This was a smaller club and a smaller stage. The club itself was 3 stories tall. Pretty cool if you ask me. There was no where near enough PA for the place though. I was into the limiters all night trying to get loud enough.

Oh, how about a glamor shot of me for once:

Sun/4-13 Norfolk, VA NorVa

If you havent been to this venue, I highly suggest stopping by sometime. It is a dream venue for artists. Not only is there a full dressing room, but it also features 7 shower stalls, a hot tub, full sized game room, basketball court and more. The whole second floor was basically ours. I felt like I was staying in an apartment for the show.

Have a look:

Catering:

Game Room:

Hot tub:

And the fun doesnt stop here… The venue itself was packed with all of my favorite gear.

Yamaha M7CL @ FOH:

and

L Acoustic V dosc:

Such a great combination. The only thing that bummed me out was the lack of subs. They only had 2 v dosc subs per side, and it was not enough to keep up with the mains. Everything else was great. I love how those boxes sound. And the M7 is a great touch too. Compressors and gates everywhere rock. Speaking of comps, I tried something new sine I had some many comps. I usually dont do much with the over head mics on the drums, but I decided to have some fun at this show. I went ahead and threw a comp on the overheads. I used a slow attack and a very fast release. So, basically when he is riding on the ride cymbal the comp is not affected, but when he hits the cymbals harder, the comp bring the volume back down and smooths out the overall cymbal wash. The result was less fader riding and a smoother transition from ride to crash. I may use this technique more often at future shows…

Mon/4-14 DAY OFF

Normally a day off for us consists of sitting in the bus/hotel relaxing and just taking it easy. But, today a good friend of the band hooked us up. They took us out to the Melting Pot for dinner in style:

If you’ve never been to the Melting Pot, it’s basically a fondue place where you cook everything yourself. It was actually very good.

Left overs anyone:

It was a great day for us. A free meal, and a sweet ride. As our merch guy says, “Enjoy the fruits.” We certainly did…

Tue/4-15 Charlotte, NC Tremont Music Hall - SOLD OUT

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to 1980:

To sum it up, it sounded as good as it looks.

Thu/4-17 Atlanta, GA Masquerade - TICKETS

This was a fun, hot, crappy show. I had a pile(literally) of speakers to work with. Everything was underpowered and basically needed to be burned. The rig was no where near enough for the 1100 kids that packed into the place. It was a fight all night to get a good mix and not be slamming into the limiters. To top it off, it was around 90 degrees inside. I dont know how they do it, but I was sweating my butt off just mixing.

The only upside of the day was that I got to meet 2 of my good friends. One of which taught me just about everything I know in this business.

Fri/4-18 Lake Buena Vista, FL House Of Blues - TICKETS

Another big show. Right in the heart of Disney. 2100 kids packed into this place. I have decided that house of blues just plain sound good. The PA was a bit small for the place, but it still rocked. 2 EAW KF850’s and 1 KF650 per side covered the room pretty well. Subbage was weak though. 4 of the 8 subs were blown up, so I didnt have much to work with. All in all, good show though. I just love working gigs at the House of Blues.

Sat/4-19 Ft. Lauderdale, FL Revolution - SOLD OUT

Ill tell you about this one next time….

And thats it for this time. Its hard to believe that this tour is almost over. It seems like it just started and now it’s almost over. You know what they say… Time flies when you’re having fun…

Back to the world of rock and roll

And the moment you’ve all been waiting for, the speical, behind the scenes edition. Today will be part one of the special. Ill be covering the different mics that I use and how I position them on the drums.

First up, the drums:

From far away it doesnt look like much, but lets take a closer look.

First up, the kick:

Pretty simple here. I just use a Shure SM91 sitting on a pillow inside the drum. It gives me the sound I want and keeps the front of the drum looking clean. I started the tour using an Audix D6 with the 91, but later ditched the D6 for just the SM91. The SM91 gets the job done just fine by itself and saves me a channel on the console.

Next up is snare. On top I have a Shure Beta 57:

It’s 2″ above the rim and pointed at the center of the drum. This avoids picking up the ring of the drum and gives me a nice tone from the drum. I only compress top snare, never gate it.

But wait, theres more:

Ive also got a Shure SM57 on a D-claw for bottom snare. This is what gives me the snap of the snare. Its about 2″ from the bottom head and normally right below the snares(someone turned the snare before I took the pic…) The combination of the 2 mics gives me a great tone needing almost no EQ all of the time.

Next up on drums is the hi hat. I forgot to get a picture of it, but all I do is take a Shure SM81 4″ above the hat pointed 3″ in on the hat. Sounds great.

Next is the rack tom:

I use an Audix D2 pointed toward the center. It sounds good on its own and requires no gating and little EQ.

Finally on drums, the floor tom:

I love a huge floor tom sound, so this is when the Audix D6 comes into play. It sounds massive on its own and only requires a little EQ to sound good. But, you have to gate this beast or it will get out of control. I have perfected a position that gives me a deep solid tone. The mic is almost parallel to the head and only a quarter of an inch from the head. It creates a winning sound that you have to hear to believe.

And that wraps it up for today’s edition. Next time will be the rest of the band, and some other goodies.

Back to the world of Rock and Roll…

Basically, to sum up the first week of April:

A whole lot of nothing…

Im not going to cover each gig, as some of them were pretty uneventful. Ill just highlight the better gigs.

Sat/3-29 Seattle, WA El Corazon - SOLD OUT

This was a rather small club. How they managed to pack 750 kids into this room, I still dont know… It was a pretty cool show. A ton of kids in a small room and lots of crowd interaction. Pretty easy show.

Tue/4-01 Denver, CO Boulder Theatre - SOLD OUT

What a day for this show… This was the show that almost didnt happen. We had to get from UT to CO, and the only way to do it was to take I-80. However, a bad snowstorm had just passed through and the highway was completely shut down. Road damage, stranded cars, car crashes and a lot of snow. We drove as far as we could on 80 and then played the waiting game. All of the buses lined up at a truck stop 30 miles from where it was closed and we hoped for the best. At 4am, we were still waiting, so I went to bed. The next day I wake up and we are driving. Im thinking to myself, “It’s 1pm, we should be loading in right now.” I ask Matt whats going on, only to find that we are still 4 hours from the venue. Oh crap. Is the show going to happen, or are we not going to make it? 4pm approaches and traffic stops. Theres a 4 car crash and the highway is closed. We are quick to take an exit and get a detour. Ok, it’s getting down to the wire now. 6pm doors, and its already 5pm. We finally arrive to the venue at 5:30pm, only to find out that The Rocket Summer is still 40min away. We get doors pushed back and hope for the best. I also find out that Forever the Sickest kids never made it to the venue. They got stuck in the snow and couldnt make it. So, 4 bands instead of 5. No sound check.

The gig ended up being pretty fun! The PA system was all ohmbru boxes and ended up sounds good. A lot of midrange, but nothing a little EQ couldnt fix. The subs were slamming, and the crowd was loving it. For a show that almost didnt happen, it ended up working out pretty well.

Thu/4-03 Chicago, IL House Of Blues - SOLD OUT

I love the House of Blues. This was a really cool room. We had to drive underground to load in. And then it was up a freight elevator to the stage. The room itself was 3 levels tall, and the architecture was pretty amazing. Everything sounded great, and it was another successful night.

I had an interesting run of events though. When I was walking back from the bus to the venue, some cop starting flipping out on me. He was calling me names, telling me this was a multi million dollar operation, and Im an idiot trying to look all official, that Ill never get away with this and blah blah blah. He basically went on for about 5 minutes before I finally said “can I go back to work now?” He almost flipped before realizing that I was working and not just some random kid. Apparently, there was some other kid that looked a lot like me that was trying to sneak in and cause trouble. He had a fake all access pass too. I stood there and took the dudes crap for 5 min straight. He apologized and we went on with life, but man, that was retarded… He said “I owe you one” and if I ever get into any trouble, that he would help me out.

But, back to the show. I love HOB:

A little off topic, but man, patching 2 splits at the snake head can really get messy:

Sat/4-05 Toronto, ON Phoenix Theatre - SOLD OUT

I hate Canada. No cell service, no internet and customs. The show itself was pretty decent, nothing really special to talk about. I had an Adamson rig in there, and it just lacked the get up and go needed to rock out. Not very thrilled at all…

Tue/4-08 Worcester, MA Palladium

I’ll tell you about this one later.

Thats all for now kids… Look for a special edition coming very soon…

Back to the world of rock and rolll…

Check check one two, hey hey.

And we’re back. I havent been able to log in, so Ive been getting behind on this.
The next update is coming in 2 parts. I have a very special update coming soon. It’s just been taking a while to type up.

Today’s section is more of a reflection session, looking back over the past few weeks of being on the road…

Life on the road is a lot different from living at home, and it’s not as exciting as everyone makes it out to be. At home you form a schedule, where you get up each morning, shower, eat breakfast, and prepare for the day ahead. You drive to work, do your job and come home at night. Sit around the house for a few hours, and then it’s off to bed.

Life on the road is nothing at all like that. Each day is completely different, and full of twists and turns. Basically, I wake up about 20 minutes before load in each day, brush my teeth and maybe find something quick to eat for breakfast. Then, Ill load into a new venue, and go to work. This is the only part of my job that is close to the same each day. We’ll setup whoever is headliner, sound check them, strike the kit, sound check direct support and then backline everyone else. Then I’ll have a few hours to maybe find some food. After the shows, we pack up and I hope that I can get a shower that night. Sometimes we’re not so lucky, and end up going 1 or 2 days without a shower. I come back to the bus wanting to relax after a show, but instead Im stuck listening to loud music and dealing with people partying. And then when bus call comes along, I finally get to relax. Ill jump into the bunk and call my loved ones back home. Then, whenever I get tired, Ill fall asleep as we drive off to another city. Rinse and repeat.

Believe it or not, it gets boring after a while. Luckily, Im with a group of awesome people and they keep it interesting. Ive also found a new love for video games. Im hooked on x-box’s Call of Duty and Golf. I wish we had a Nintendo wii though… Oh well, maybe next tour? But anyway, Im rambling…

One of the hardest things I’ve had to deal with on tour is being away from the people that I love. I miss everyone back home, and I cannot wait to see them tomorrow at 9:30 club, and Saturday in Lancaster. It’s been pretty hard not seeing my Girlfriend Roxanne, and I miss her a lot. I also miss my family, and my doggies at home. And surprisingly, I miss doing local shows at home.

But, with these losses comes a lot of new things. Everyone on this tour is slowly becoming my extended family. We all act like brothers and get along great. Im getting really close with some of the guys in ATL, as well as The Rocket Summer. We all keep each other going and make things very fun. Without the amazing group of people Im with, I dont know if I could keep going. This tour so far has been one of the greatest experiences of my life, and I cant wait to see what the future holds.

Tomorrow night, I get to sleep in my own bed for the first time in over a month. Im really looking forward to that as well.

Oh well….
Back to the world of rock and roll.

Oh yeah… Have you ever wondered what would happen to a can of beer if it got really, really hot?

Maybe it would look something like this?

That is what happens when a can of beer sits in a cooler right next to the engine compartment on the bus. Basically, after 12 hours of driving, and no ice, it got very hot in that cooler…

The past few days have been nuts. We’ve covered all of CA and have moved onto OR. It’s been a while since Ive had time to sit down and write, so this is going to be a fairly long update. Im going to work backwards as well.

Ive been battling a head cold since the start of last week, and it sucks. I wake up not being able to breathe or hear in the morning and that lasts until well past soundcheck. Luckily the past few days my ears have been opening up so I can at least hear come show time.

It’s a cold day today. Low 40’s and it’s been sleeting on and off. It sucks. The venue is cold and Im cold. I am not looking forward to the show. Its a smaller show, with a cap of only 550. The show is completely sold out, which makes it nice. We got done soundcheck a little while ago, and it sucked. No bass at all. Not going to be a good night…

Last night was another small club. The boardwalk in CA. 450 cap. The room had an old, tired PA in there and it needed help. The house dude was also a complete nutjob. He was cool, but man, he was weird. I didnt like working with him. He was a very cocky dude that made sure you knew he’d been doing sound for 26 years. Sadly, his hearing sucks after all these years, and his mixes were painful to listen to… The rig itself lacked any form of get up and go. The mains looked to be from the 70’s, and the subs were JBL MRX528’s. I was running the board into the red trying to hit 98dB @ FOH. Sadly, the crowd overpowered the band most of the night. Oh, and to top it off: 2 songs into the set Alex’s wireless mic died. I had to plow through 400 sweaty, nasty, 14 year old girls to get to the stage. Oh, and on the subject of the crowd, they can be quite rude. I was yelling at them to get out of my way and all the girls were like “no way dude.” If they didnt weigh 20lbs, it would have been a lot harder to push through all of them and get to the stage. After the rush, I swapped out his mic and the rest of the set went pretty well. That club just needs a new system. The currently one is not meant to cover 450 kids…

San Francisco, CA Regency,Grand Ballroom:
This show was awesome. For the first time ever, I had all of my favorite gear crammed into one room. Take a look:

6 L’Acoustic V dosc mains per side
4 V Dosc subs
Pair of Yamaha PM5D’s
Crown MA5000’s
and more!

The show was completely sold out, 1574 kids. But, with all this greatness comes the bad news. They had a lame policy that basically said no noise until 5pm. Normally the headliner has about an hour and a half to soundcheck, and direct support has 40min. Then, the opener gets about 30min to sound check. So, the noise policy meant we had 1 hour to do about 2 hours of checking. That time frame doesnt include the time it takes to set everything up too. The Rocket Summer needs another 30min to setup all their gear, and then we need about 15min to backline everyone. Basically, it was the most rushed setup of the tour. But, somehow we made it!

Also, The room was terrible. During sound check it sounded like we were playing in the grand canyon. Solid plaster walls all around and nothing to dampen the sound. It was terrible, and loud. If the show didnt sell it, the whole night would have sucked. But, once the room filled up, it wasnt too bad. I had a pretty rocking set.

But, I was still not on easy street. During Alex’s solo in Shameless, everything shut down! What happened? Well, the sound guy’s ipod slowly slid down the board because of the bass and during the solo, it hit a button that reset the board to zero. And I lost all of my settings. I was flipping out! But, luckily we acted fast and recalled my scene from soundcheck and I had rough settings to get me through the rest of the night. If we didnt sound check, I would have been screwed! Most of the crowd didnt notice, but man, that sucked. After that, the rest of the show went pretty well…

Crowd shot:

Los Angeles, CA Henry Fonda:
This was a cool theatre. EAW SB1000z’s, Martin W8’s and a Soundcraft series FOUR @ FOH. This show went pretty well, and was a high scale show. Lots of reps from many record companies were at this show. The pressure was on to make it sound good. During sound check, life was not well. There was no bass at all. Now, I know 8 SB1k’s can slam, so something was up. I just blew it off for the time being and kept going. I later found out that only 3 subs were working during sound check and I blew 1 of them up. Sweet… Thankfully, come show time 7 out of 8 were working and it was pretty rocking. FOH was up in the balcony, so I ended up running up and down a flight of stairs about 20 times during the show. It sounded completely different upstairs then it did down on the floor where everyone was… Oh well. The show was pretty un eventful otherwise…

Crowd shot:

Pomona, CA Glasshouse:
Another smaller club. 800 cap, sold out. This place reminded me of Recher Theatre(for you Maryland folk.) Cool little club with a RAT trap system. It sounded good, but lacked the get up and go needed. I ended up mixing around 100dB. Very smooth show. Nothing to really talk about… No pix either, sorry…

Bakersfield, CA Golden State Hall:
One of the lamest shows of the tour thus far. The “venue” was in a shopping mall in a very sketchy area. Smallest crowd of the tour, and not a fun show. To sum it up: Ohmbru mains, dead subs, Midas Venice and a boring crowd. I could have fallen asleep at FOH because of the lack of PA and excitement…

San Diego, CA Soma:
This has been the largest show of the tour thus far. The room holds 2300 people, and we sold 1874 tickets. I’d have to say that it was my favorite show of the tour too. They had plenty of PA for the room, and smart guys working too. The room was basically an old movie theatre that was completely gutted. The room was huge. The PA was all EV, and it pounded. 16 subs per side, and 9 mains per side. Soundcraft MH3 @ FOH, and all the processing you could ever want. I was running the board around 0 and it was plenty. It was just an awesome show all around.

I tried to get a crowdshot, but failed… I couldnt get everyone in the shot. This is the best I could do:

And that about sums up the past few weeks of my life. Next episode will include our fish, more shows and more excitement.

Back to the work of rock and roll…

Another day, another dollar. Over the last 3 days we drove through AZ and played 2 pretty awesome shows there.

First up was the Rialto Theatre in Tuscon, AZ. This show was not looking good from the start. 242 presales the day before the show(ouch). But, we got lucky and ended up with 629 people as a final count.

Caution: Sound nerd stuff-
The PA system for the room was a little underpowered, but sounded great. It was an older Meyer system, with a Yamaha M7CL-48 out front. I love the M7cl, so I was looking forward to mixing on it. While the tops sound good, they are not right for this room. They cover the front bit of the crowd very well, but lack the ability to throw the sound all the way to the back of the room without straining. The end result is that you end up slamming into the limiters trying to get enough SPL at FOH, and the sound just starts getting sucked down. Yeah, not fun. So, I basically tried to keep my mix right on the verge of limiting. It wasnt as loud as I would have liked(98dBA @ FOH), but it worked for the crowd. There is talk of a JBL vertec rig coming into the place pretty soon, and that should solve the throw issues they have currently.

/Sound nerd stuff

This theatre was also plagued with issues. Everything that could go wrong, did tonight. Rian, for the first time ever, went through his bassdrum head mid set. He had to swap it with The Matches drum. Alex also had a ton of cable issues with his guitar. It kept cutting out. Finally, Jack’s in ears were buzzing like crazy most of the set. It was a very, very stressful night.

Sorry, no pics of this place…

Next up in AZ was the Marquee Theatre. We got a beautiful day for this show. So, we decided to throw a pool party.

Thanks to the fans for providing Alex with a pool for the party. We also bought a grill and cooked Burgers after the show.

Anyway, onto the show: This room is huge. The house PA was another EV line array, and it sounded great. Im really starting to like these boxes after mixing on them a few times. They have a very nice sound to them. This was our first “headlining” show, where we got to play last. It was nice to have plenty of time to soundcheck and get everything working before the show. It made life very simple once show time came.

This was another sketchy show with presales. There were only 400 the day before, so we were wondering just what was going to happen. But again, the fans came through and we had almost 1200 bodies in there. It was a very successful show. Everything worked flawlessly, and was much better then the night before.

Oh yeah, here’s the completed in ear monitor rig. We’ve added a few new toys:

We’re at Jillians tonight, and hopefully all goes well… You’ll know soon…

Back to the world of rock and roll.

Wow, Im already losing track of the days… Anyway, it’s been a while since Ive gotten around to updating this. We’ve been very busy, and have covered a lot of miles over the past few days. We’ve gone through a few different time zones, and Im really screwed up right now. But anyway, thats off topic. Lets review the past few days.

First official AP Show: Warehouse live- 1500 cap, 1256 people.

This was a very rough show. Being the first day of the tour, it was complete madness on stage trying to get everything together. It was cool to meet all the other bands. Everyone for the most part is really cool on this tour. Bryce from the Rocket Summer is one of my favorite people on this tour. Anyway, today was madness with the in ear rack. Finding 5 clear frequencies was a pain. I spent a half hour getting them set up. Also, this was the first show that Jon(the fill in drummer) was playing with them. He had no practice beforehand and the only playing he had done was with the CD. Anyway, show time…

Caution: Sound nerd stuff-
This room sucked. Concrete walls all around, and KF850EF’s pointed at the floor. This basically created a death array of 5k in the room. Also add in the fact that the lows were very boomy and it mad for an interesting night. I ended up cutting 160, 250 and 4k almost all the way on the graph, just to get a manageable sound. Now, to top it off, there are a bunch of TV stations that fire up at night in this area. Some of which operate on the same freq. that our ears are on. So, come showtime and the boys are getting static like crazy. It was almost a complete disaster. The good news is that Jon managed to play a very solid set and only had a few mistakes.

Moving along…

Saturday: South by Southwest, 2 shows.

We ditched the in ear rack today. Too much going on, and not enough time to worry about it.

First show was a 400 cap room. Smallish, but it completely rocked. The crowd went insane. It brought back a lot of old memories of playing small venues. The PA was JBL SRX725’s, but have a look at this:

Not what I would call safe…

Anyway, on to the next show: Ernie Ball stage, outdoors. We played at 4pm on the first show, and then rolled all of our gear 412 feet down to the next stage. We set up, and played again at midnight. Talk about a long day. I was completely exhausted after both of the shows. This second show was 18+ and wasnt as packed. It sounded great though. EV Phoenix gear. Didnt take a ton of EQ to sound good.

Finally, last night: Dallas House of Blues- 1625, sold out!

This is my favorite room of the tour thus far. The Pa wasnt anything special, but it really rocked in this room. It was an EV line array, and EV subs. I forget the models, but they sounded really good. I did one of the best mixes of my life. Everything came together, finally. The in ear rack worked flawlessly, and everyone was very happy. Ive gotten stage volume down to nothing, so I now have full control of the sound. Ill show you my secrets soon. But, the show was really good. I had a Midas H2000 out front, and it was a pretty sweet board. A lot cooler then the verona’s Ive had for the last few shows. dB wise, the rig did run out of gas toward then end of their set. I was having issues hitting 105dBA @ FOH. Its really no big deal as it was plenty loud, but I was surprised to see that I was hitting the limiters that soon.

Anyway, Here’s some pictures of the House of Blues. I left my camera on the bus for the other 2 shows, so I dont have any pictures from those shows…

All Time Low

The Rocket Summer

View from my world

And thats it for now…
Back to the world of rock and roll

Well, the band is off doing interviews all day today, so you guys get a special treat. A tour of the tour bus.

So, have a look at our friend…

Come on in…

Here’s our front lounge. This is where we spend hours on our laptops, playing tiger woods golf and more…

Next, is our toilet… This is where we do our business:

However:

Here is the bunk area of the bus. It is currently set up to sleep 10 people, but only 8 of us sleep on it currently. It is pretty comfortable:

Finally the back lounge:

And, thats it for now. So there you have it. A nice look at our home for the next 7 weeks…

Finally, the first show of the tour. We did a spring break show in Texas, and it was pretty rocking. Nothing like a crowd of drunk people rocking out to music they’ve never heard. The crowd last night was crazy, and they really enjoyed the music. Everything went fairly well too. It was an outdoor show, and those are my favorite.

Here’s a look at the stage from my position:

But wait, this is no ordinary stage, it’s actually a barge!

We had to load in over a bridge to the barge, and then carry all the gear up a flight of stairs. It was a pretty cool setup, with the ocean as a backdrop.

The sound system was pretty old school. EAW KF550 tops, and JBL dual 18 subs. It rocked pretty hard, but needed a ton of EQ to sound good. I had to pull 3k all the way down. The limiting factor of the whole rig was the Yamaha M3000 at front of house. That console totally sucks.

But, anyway Rian got a new drum set. It sounds as good as it looks:

It is custom for the new album. I love it.

And just for all you Matt Flyzik fans, heres a view of his world:

IEM monitor console, guitar world and more. He’s got a lot to do during the shows these days.

Next show:
Ware House Live
1500 cap- SOLD OUT

Today:
OFF

Tomorrow:
OFF

Back to the world of Rock and Roll…

Ah, the bus life. The first 2 days of this tour are spent driving from Maryland, all the way to Texas. As of last night, around 1am, we were about 1450 miles from our destination. I assume we’ll be there early tomorrow. As of now, there’s not much going on. All Time Low is still at home, and its just myself and the rest of the crew right now. Its pretty relaxing really. The bus is pretty sweet too. There are 2 lounges with 56″ plasa screen TV’s. They are linked up to direct tv, wtih seemly unlimited channels. It’s a pretty nice home away from home.

More Later…