Manchester, For Real This Time

A complete and total disaster on all fronts. Tonight was the first show with the full lighting rig, full pa and on a proper sized stage. The day went as planned. I was in at 9am, hung the lights and had some time to fiddle about with a hazer (again, I'm becoming quite adept) and program some stuff for the songs that the band surprised everyone with. I was really looking forward to the show. Sure there was the usualy 2 hour soundcheck where every conceiveable form of feedback was directed, at full volume, towards anyone on the stage, but that is to be expected. Everything was set up. Everything worked for the most part. Our video guy had a total shitstorm on his hands by the time the venue opened doors. It would appear that the catalyst was crashing. It sounds like some stargate-type nonsense, but it's really just a means to manipulate and control video playback, much in the way that a lighting desk controls lights, except when it doesn't work. I skipped dinner to help re-focus the projectors (8 in total) and get everything going. I don't really have much to do with the video on this one, and I must say I'm pretty glad. I have nothing to do with content, set-up or running it, just have a say in what goes on in relation to the lights. I have, however, been the video guy and the lighting guy at the same time. It's pretty rough, but I hate to have the variable of another person involved in running a show with me. Even being a second off on a cue totally ruins me. That aside, I have slaved over video content. Getting it to be the right size, stripping audio, cutting and looping it. It's meticulous, boring work, but I have derived some satisfaction from a finished product before. It absoultely takes ages to do. By the time doors opened we had successfully gotten the projectors and screens set-up, but not the show programmed. The video rendering began at 7pm when the crowd entered the building. During our two production days nearly a week ago it was the same scenario. Spend ages getting the hardware side of things up and going and then sort of slack when the actual running the show part takes place. Thus was the case tonight. As the designer said to me the other day, this show is 70% video. That's a lot to assume. I had my reservations about a lot of things. The design is great, but lacking in a few things like, say, lights, for the most part. It is different, I know, and that's the intent, but it can also look great as well. This is truly and excercise in restraint, and an opportunity for me to let go a little and have someone else design the show, have a hand in programming it (or at least a say) and have someone else who is responsible for 70 % of the actual show. I hate to say that I was right in my apprehensions, but I was right in my apprehensions. The shit didn't work, and wasn't ready even if it did. What do you do if the cue (the single cue) for a song is 2 white lights on either side of the stage while 2 massive projectors lay a huge image onto the band and backdrop, and there is no video. Suck, that's what. I did my best to compensate, but the whole show was truly based around the idea of mostly video. There were meant to be a number of cameras on stage, both wired and wireless, that never panned out. There was a projector for the kick drum head that never made it to the stage, and while I think he's immensely talented, our video guy totally lost the plot when things stopped working and just threw in the towel a few songs into the set. Not so great. So tomorrow I get to go back in to the same venue that I've spent a number of days in in the last week and try to salvage a show in the event that tomorrow night the same thing happens. I don't really know what else to say. I'm pretty bummed that it didn't go down very well, but those are the breaks. The most frustrating part of it all is that most of it is out of my hands. At least I can say that I did my best. It may have looked awful, but it was all that I had.