My Exciting Life In ROCK (part 1): 2/9/01 - Firebug, Leicester

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Soundchecking! We've heard a lot about it in these little articles, but what IS it? How does it work? How long does it take? What would be the best way to go about it, and is it possible to get small children to do it for you instead?

The answer to that last question is "You'd think so, but the so-called 'parents' OBJECT to you BORROWING their children, plugging them into a keyboard, and then nipping to the pub whilst they try out the PRE-SETS. IT IS POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE MAD." The OTHER questions have slightly longer answers, as follows:

It's a chance for the sound guy to check that everything's working and everything is roughly the right sound level. It's also a chance for the guitarist to wander out in front of the stage to show everybody that he has bought EITHER a radio-mike (which theoretically allows him to dash out into the audience but ACTUALLY just means he can get the local bhangra station as soon as the gig starts) OR a really really long lead that he will fall over any minute... NOW.

The time it takes depends upon a number of facts. Partly it's to do with how fenickity the sound guy is - some will spend HALF A RIDICULOUS BLOODY HOUR making the drummer go "BANG BANG BANG" on each and every drum, cymbal and Big Hitty Thing, TUNING the SKINS so it is JUST right for when the gigs starts and he hits EVERYTHING AS HARD AS POSSIBLE. Partly it's to do with how complex your set-up is - a solo folk act, for instance, will usually take considerably less time to work out than a fifteen piece ska band with backing singers and BRASS section. MOSTLY it is to do with how many, and how MASSIVE, are the wankers in the band concerned. If LOTS then it can sometimes take longer than the gig ITSELF.

The reason I bring these questions up with reference to this particular gig is that they are questions that the then owners of Firebug seemed never to have asked themselves. They had obviously SEEN gigs before and despite have absolutely no further involvement that that had decided HEY! it looks easy, it looks sort of COOL (which is why I say "seen" - it'll have been "The Commitments" or a Live DVD or something), and, according to the ROCK BOOKS they had read, you could make MILLIONS OF CASH MONEYS out of it, so why not have a go?

THUS it was that the owner and lackey got us to do an entire soundcheck BACKWARDS. We started to set up our gear as we normally would, Tim sticking the drumkit together while the rest of us looked for sockets and plugged in, but were stopped by the HUGE and HUGELY POMPOUS proprietor. "No no no", he said, "you sit over there while we get everything ready."

By this point we'd played, between us, about half a THOUSAND gigs, but we POLITELY assumed they had some knowledge we didn't, so sat back and watched in growing amazement as they spent about 45 minutes setting up and testing all the microphones. This may seem SENSIBLE, but bear in mind this was before we'd got out the things we'd ACTUALLY BE PLAYING like, you know, THE DRUM KIT. Still, we continued to hope for the best, and when they got me up to do my vocals I thought maybe it was an TEST.

Next they got Frankie to set up his bass amp, which involved the movement of several microphones and some extensive twiddling before they could get him to play. He played quite a LOT of stuff before grinding to a halt and then looking around a little hopelessly, CONFUSED. "Could you hear yourself on stage mate?" asked the lackey. "Well, yes," he said, "there was nobody else playing."

He then got the bass players from the other two bands to do THEIR soundchecks. This was somewhat perplexing.

And so it went, with each of us being called upon individually to set up, each time necessitating a LOT of moving things around (especially when the drums were FINALLY set up), with our counterparts in the other bands then doing the same. By the time everything was DONE we prepared for a full band check, only to be greeted with DISDAIN. "We do have to open to doors at SOME point you know!" said the fat wanker, who then wandered off for half an hour leaving the bar unopened so we couldn't even get a drink.

Needless to say the gig started VERY late indeed, and when we DID get to play the only reason the stage wasn't INVADED by OUTRAGED Validators fans, appalled at the shoddy sound, was that we didn't have any. What audience there was was made up of confused Goths who'd wondered in thinking it was the Heavy Metal Disco night and about eight people I'd known several years before who I'd fallen out with. THUS I decided that we would play a set made up ENTIRELY of new songs that we'd not played live before from the new album which nobody had ever heard through a sound system that made only one noise, and that noise was "WAAUUUGGHH".

HA! We showed THEM!

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