Up North...

It's pretty interesting up here in Waskaganish. Scenery is beautiful, especially on James Bay. Sunsets are amazing. Then today it was raining and people were walking around wearing cardboard boxes as raincoats. It's hard to explain the vibe here. The locals are great, the food is good, so everybody's happy so far. Bit of a culture shock nonetheless.

 

We spent all day today setting up the show. We get the PA stacked, monitor world set up, lighting rig flown, looks great. Go to tie in for power. Power? What power? Then things got interesting. We rewired all our gear to plug it into regular 15A wall circuits and there's still no power for lighting. It's turning into quite the story. There may or may not be someone flying in from Val D'Or tomorrow with speacial breakers. No one really knows right now. More later...

So anyways...

Sorry if it seems like I whine alot in some of these posts. I just like a neutral setting to get things off my chest, and maybe some of it could be interesting or useful to a few of you out there. If it actually helps in any way, please let me know in the "comment" section. I'd love to hear about it. If you think I suck, you can tell me that too.

 

As far as happy thoughts go, I'm pretty excited about going up north this week. I've been reading alot about the reserve on their website (there's a link in the Latest News section at www.tompambrun.com) and it looks like it will be a fun trip. I've never been anywhere like that before so I'm sure I'll learn alot and it will be a nice change of pace from work around here. Hopefully I'll have enough time to go exploring in the area. If you haven't heard from me by August, go polar bear hunting on my behalf...

 

The Bluesfest was a great experience. I'm happy I can sleep again, but I kind of miss it though. Once you get into a certain rhythm it's weird to fall out of it. (I don't miss the chork. They really have to shake up the hospitality menu next year. Well, they can keep everything but the chork.) Anyways, it's really refreshing to work with all the great bands, one after the other. It really keeps you on your toes, you learn alot and you look forward to going to work everyday. I don't think there was one band I didn't like. How often does that happen in this line of work?

 

It also feels really good to be offered a job like that. The monitor gig on the Main Stage is, so I'm told, the most important gig at the festival. It's the HQ/nerve centre of the largest stage and you really get thrown into the hot seat dealing with artists and touring crews of that calibre. There's really no room for error when dealing with acts like ZZ Top, Alison Krauss, Daniel Lanois, Black Eyed Peas etc... To be trusted with that responsibility really means alot. It's a far cry from volunteering in the clubs a few years back...

Doing it right

This is something that I've learned the hard way and something I wish other people could understand: Don't take shortcuts in your work. Take the extra time to do something right the first time so it only has to be done once. Why run around with your head cut off later because of a stupid mistake that could have been avoided?

 

I guess it all comes down to experience. We all make our mistakes at a certain level in our careers, but after a while there shouldn't be any issues. When in doubt, stop, think it through and do it the hard/long way if you have to. It pays off in the long run and everything runs smoothly in the end. You'll be happy you did it right.

 

I got the blues...

Been working at the Ottawa Bluesfest the last few days. Pretty good so far. I mixed War the first night, and we've since had Alison Krauss, Daniel Lanois, Simple Plan, K-OS and right now ZZ Top is setting up on stage. Pretty insane how much stuff a 3 piece band can have. Especially the 6 buses. Wild. I know none of these bands are blues. You have to live here to understand...