Live T.V.

[Eric Grossman]

I got hired to do a live TV show here in St. Louis. It was shot last week, and it started in the most auspicious way.

The singer brought in a few hired guys to play. The band was really good, and with just a quick rundown of the tunes, we were ready to go.

The producer gave us the timeline of the show, and her hand signals. She would hold up her hand which meant "be ready", and then point to say "go". Our drummer would begin each segment with a pick-up, so we would not have to count when cued.

We were going to start with 2 minutes of "Ain't Nobody", by Chaka Kahn. Remember, this is live TV. As the announcer was telling who the guests were, the producer held up her hand, and then she pointed. We tore into the song, and it sounded great. Apparently, however, the producer wasn't pointing at us. The drummer's view was obscured by the singer, and he misread the signal.

So there we were, completely drowning out the announcer, while the entire crew was giving us the "CUT!" sign. No hard feelings of course, as the rest of the show was fine, but it was an interesting way to open our night.

[FriscoBassAce]

Whoa! Sweet about the gig.....sorry that there was a mixup! Sounds like it all ended okay anyway. Hopefully they had the mix working so it didn't interfere with what the announcer was saying.

Question for you: Did they make you dull down the shine on your instruments? My guitarist was telling me his dad used to do tv shows all the time and they always made them dull down the finish so that it wasn't too much glare for the cameras. Of course that was years ago, so technology may be different now. Just curious.

[Woodchuck]

It's cool that it worked out. The very first live TV gig I did, me and the bandleader caught a SEVERE case of the giggles. It was a bad one, too. I remember this very muscular cameraman giving us the look of death.

[Skel]

Just curious. Was it one of those "CUTS" where each instrument kind of dropped out one by one, and sounded a lot different than the beginning of the song? LOL

Skel

[Eric Grossman]

Originally Posted by FriscoBassAce

Whoa! Sweet about the gig.....sorry that there was a mixup! Sounds like it all ended okay anyway. Hopefully they had the mix working so it didn't interfere with what the announcer was saying.

Question for you: Did they make you dull down the shine on your instruments? My guitarist was telling me his dad used to do tv shows all the time and they always made them dull down the finish so that it wasn't too much glare for the cameras. Of course that was years ago, so technology may be different now. Just curious.

It makes for a good story. I always keep that in mind when things like that happen. Oh, and we kept our instruments shiny.