When a Band Member Ticked Off the Sound Man...

Don’t tick off the sound guy.

I recently saw what happened when a band made this fatal error.

I was playing a show with an original band I play with often, and we were opening for another band traveling through from out of town.

The venue asked us to arrive at 2pm for sound check for a 7pm show. This kind of schedule definitely isn’t ideal, but we’d scheduled our day around it and it wasn’t a big deal. We arrived, set up our gear, and we started soundcheck. We have a good relationship with the front-of-house engineer at this particular venue, and he’s always done his job well and gone out of his way to make sure everything’s working well for us. We checked every instrument, got monitor mixes fine-tuned, and we played through a tune. This was a super thorough sound check, and we were glad. Everything sounded and felt great, and we were pumped for the show that night.

Something seemed weird though... Where was the headlining band? Where was their gear? Shouldn’t they have already set up and line-checked since they’re playing after us? The venue reassured us that the headliner was just gonna do a quick check right before their show. Ok... we thought. Seems weird, but maybe they’re just running behind.

We got off the stage and ordered some food. (I love and appreciate venues who offer the band plenty of free food. That kind of thing takes a gig to another level. :)) While we were sitting there eating, however, the other band rolled up. They began hauling their gear in and setting it on the stage. Things started to feel a little awkward when we heard their dialogue with the engineer....

[musician] “Why is the opening band’s gear all setup on stage?”

[sound man] “Well, we didn’t know you guys were going to sound check right now.”

[musician] “Wow, this is really inconsiderate of you guys, making us set up to soundcheck then tear down again.”

The sound man said nothing in reply as he went about his business of doing his best to accommodate this sound check that he didn’t know was going to take place.

Of course, this band also had to come ask us to remove a lot of our gear from the stage so they could get their stuff on. This was awkward, but we did our best to be positive about it and just go with the flow.

Now I don’t know whose fault this was and who dropped the ball. Whether it was the band or the venue, it doesn’t matter. The band chose to blame the sound man and be rude to him as a result, and this was the fatal error. The headlining band’s soundcheck was shockingly short. Once the engineer heard that everything was working, he gave them the thumbs up. No fine-tuning, no getting the monitors perfect. They were done in 60 seconds.

As my band sat at the table eating our late lunch and listening to the other band’s sound check, we all looked at each other and agreed that we just might end up sounding better tonight than the headlining band. We were at least happier with our on-stage mix for sure, and it certainly seemed more likely that we’d be given a more expertly mixed front-of-house sound.

The show went great, and we had a blast. And as far as I could tell, everything went fine for the next band, too. There’s no way to really know if we received truly preferential treatment from the sound guy, even though we joked that he probably sabotaged the other band’s mix. Honestly though, I don’t think he did. He’s a professional and he does good work no matter the circumstances. Ultimately it doesn’t matter whether one mix sounded better than the other.

The point is, the sound guy is not your slave. He’s not your scapegoat. Every audio issue isn’t necessarily his fault. He’s not your servant who should tend to your every whim, and his job is not “lesser” just because he works behind the scenes. Really, the front-of-house engineer is an essential member of the band. Without him or her, the band’s not going to sound great. I don’t wanna know what a band might sound like through a large PA with no engineer to run it.

Treat your audio guys well. You’re all in this together, even when audio issues arise and sound checks don’t go the way you planned them. These guys are working hard to make things easy for you and to help you sound good. Show them your appreciation, and don’t ever be rude to them. You really don’t know when one might be ticked off enough to straight up mute your drums. ;)

God Bless,

Stephen