Pet Peeve - loading in/loading out

[Raw N Low]

Making a big deal out of a set in stone setlist. Changing the setlist, tweaking songs, or adding songs the week of a gig.

Another one that gets on my nerves is when I'm told that we won't add my songs because they are obscure. Then the band adds weird one hit wonders from 80's bands I've never heard of. Mind you, I'm the youngest guy in the band at 35.

 

[guy n. cognito]

Making a big deal out of a set in stone setlist. Changing the setlist, tweaking songs, or adding songs the week of a gig.

Another one that gets on my nerves is when I'm told that we won't add my songs because they are obscure. Then the band adds weird one hit wonders from 80's bands I've never heard of. Mind you, I'm the youngest guy in the band at 35.

These are issues for you during load in / load out???? Because that was the topic.....

 

[Bassngtr]

Drummers who show up late. I play drums in a gigging band and I always try to be the 1st one there to set up and establish my footprint.

 

[matthewbrown]

Loading out the back door at night in the winter without lighting, stepping on a nail sticking out of a board that was left lying about in the snow and having to get a tetanus shot.

 

[DirtDog]

I finally told her to always bring her own microphone stand.

Oh, what would I give that each vocalist was able to carry this out. I did the same thing and it usually ended up being: "Oh, it's in the car, do you want me to get it"? only to have them retrieve said stand about 5 minutes before downbeat. I would withhold sound check for them in those instances.

 

[Raw N Low]

These are issues for you during load in / load out???? Because that was the topic.....

Wow. It's been a very long week.

I have had setlist changed as we arrive at a venue. With that being said, let me pull an experience for load in/load out...

Band goes over what we need to do to setup quickly and play on time ahead of a scheduled show. Around set up time, drummer panics because he forgot his mics and cables (again), and lead guitar gets anal about mixer settings and decides to mess with the levels making things worse.

At our last show, the lead guitarist had his brother in law on the stage "tweaking" or mixer in the middle of the song. The guitar player would stop playing to turn around and mess with the mixer as well. Mind you, we got to the venue two hours early with ample time for a decent sound check.

 

[soulman969]

This reminds me of a Spring Fling party gig I did at Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI back in the 80's when I was playing full time. They booked us to perform in an auditorium on the fourth floor of an old building with no elevators, escalators, dumbwaiters or anything that could possibly help facilitate getting heavy stuff up there. We were absolutely dumbfounded when our impending schlepping plight became apparent. We debated bagging the gig, but ended up doing the professional thing and sucked it up and did it. We had some really heavy stuff including a Yamaha Electric Grand piano in an Anvil case and 3000 watts of Crown DC-300A poweramps in two racks. My lunker of a rig was a '71 Ampeg SVT head and a Sunn Concert Bass 2x15 cabinet loaded with a pair of JBL K-140s. I was young back then and still had it in me. However, I am very confident that some of the back problems I suffer from today stem from that lame-ass gig.

I hear ya' brother. Mine was in a band that did a ton of weddings. There was a rental hall on the upper floor of VFW post in Longmont, CO and we seemed to be booked there about every other month. It was a very old building and the only way up for us was a steep, narrow, rickety wooden stairway at the back of the building. Must have been 30 steps or more at a 45 degree slope.

God I hated that place even after I left that band when I drove by it some years later. I don't think the building exists any longer. We shoulda charged double for those gigs and told them it was hazard pay. If one of us or a piece of gear had ever slipped the sidewalk would have been the final stop.

 

[Charlzm]

• Bringing your amp to a show when you were informed by the venue there would be no backline and... there's backline when you show up. And it's not as good as your gear.
• Loading out after your set and having nowhere to secure your gear but your car. So you drive home and don't get to hang with friends/fans or see the headliner because you don't trust the neighborhood and you have to park on the street two blocks from the venue if you want to stay. In a sketchy neighborhood.
• having to travel literally blocks because there's nowhere near the stage door to load in/out to a vehicle.
• When it's raining and they won't let you bring your gear in because another band is playing.

 

[bwoodman]

Guitar cases put on stage before anything else gets laid out.

Stairs.

STAIRS!

 

[RickyWoo]

Venues that don't put down some damn salt or traction sand in their walkways/parking lots when it's icy! They only use that stuff on customers.

 

[Jason Hollar]

Outdoor backyard summer wedding gigs schlepping gear by hand over hill and dale sweating to death under direct sunlight in your suit & tie, sharing the same extension cords as the roast beast heat lamp and string lights, ants crawling up your leg, watching the spider drop on top of your amp then disappearing, high winds blowing the 5 page “intermediate piano arrangement” sheet music you just got for the one song you don’t know backing up the dreaded “guest singer/cousin of the bride”, imminent torrential downpours, loud stinky generators that always seem to run out of gas at the high point of the evening, blasting tent heaters when it finally starts to cool off, disease-infested mosquitoes buzzing everywhere and not a thing you can do about it, dew soaked load-outs, and finally DUI checkpoints on your backroad shortcuts home.

 

[Fight4Bottom]

Seriously, what do you mean “over-under”?

dheafey posted a great answer, complete with video. I would also add that the same goes for power cables. If you've ever seen extension cords that look like Twizzlers, it's because somebody coiled it by whipping it around his arm or some other similar manner.

In my day job of video production, coiling cables improperly will get you yelled at pretty quickly.

 

[Altitude]

The drummer showing up last.

 

[Bassman Spiff]

Here's another one...

This one happened a couple of weeks ago. Get set up and go to set the house lighting (with difficulty) - only to be told that the lighting panel was inoperative.

We played without actual stage lighting until the end of the gig when an employee comes up, fiddles with a cord, and turns ON the full lighting system during load-out.

 

[RustyAxe]

As a fill in, being expected to help setup mics, cables, monitors... I don’t know any of that stuff. I’m just a bass player

I know all that stuff. But as a sub that's not what I'm getting paid for.

 

[Spidey2112]

Seriously, what do you mean “over-under”?

I think it's the odds, as posted in Vegas, as to whether or not someone will trip over all of them...

 

[bloobass]

I could name a million, but a lot have already been mentioned.
Playing 10-2(AM), and having "dance" music start blaring while you're tearing down...mind you the bar closed at 2.
Other members of the band that don't have enough cables to properly run their gear. I had a guitar player that only had 2 guitar cords, both about 12'. He would pull his amp as far out onto the stage as he needed to so the cord would reach his pedal board. We played a really nice venue with a huge stage, about 20' deep. Yes, his amp was forward further down stage than the drum kit.
And finally drummers that insist on setting up 4 or 5 feet away from the back wall of the stage, only leaving 3 or 4 feet for the singer to stand in front of them.

 

[dheafey]

dheafey posted a great answer, complete with video. I would also add that the same goes for power cables. If you've ever seen extension cords that look like Twizzlers, it's because somebody coiled it by whipping it around his arm or some other similar manner.

In my day job of video production, coiling cables improperly will get you yelled at pretty quickly.

When my daughter was in high school, I used to volunteer during the 2 plays per year. I'd setup my PA and help with lighting. We rented the lights and I got yelled at by the old geezer who owned the rental company until I got real good at coiling the 100' socapex cable from hell.

Good times...

 

[jnsnj]

Backlined cabs with blown speakers

 

[pfschim]

Hammonds...

yes, back in the day I had to help a keyboard player haul his full-on Hammond and Leslie rig into/out of gigs. At least back then, we were often doing week long stands, so it only happened at the beginning and end of the week. Of course, that band also had all its massive PA mixer and power amps in steel cabinets (!) and the PA mains were massive Voice of the Theater style cabs that could only be moved with 2 people. So happy that great gear is so much lighter these days

These days, I am once again working with Hammond player, but he has cut down the keyboard so significantly that hauling it is pretty easy.

I love the sound of a Hammond in the hands of a good player though, so I am willing to put up with helping.