My worst in memory was, recent, at a casino that's close to a two hour drive from Portland. Keep in mind , this is a smaller native casino and the lounge, as we quickly found out, has a maximum occupancy of 60 people, nice looking and well spread out, though. Our first time playing there , most of the band got there a little early and set up a half hour before the email said to. Then, comes the sound man. He told the guitarists to get their gear off the stage so he can run lines with nothing on the stage. So, he makes the three 60- 70 year old guys take their rigs off. I forget what one of the guitarists asked him but he answered with " I told you once , I don't like to repeat myself ".
We start the show and after the 1st song our singer asks the audience how it sounds and if we're were too loud ( he's gone from not saying much too where he's working on talking to the audience , so anything is a good start at first ). The sound man, walks up to him at the front of the stage and lectures him for 10 seconds about how he's in control of the sound , not the audience and for him not to do that. Robert, our singer, got a little pissed because he's just learning to communicate to our audience.
After our first set, two of our guitarists mentioned to me that they couldn't hear themselves. I walk over to the sound man and asked if we could make the adjustment on their two monitors. He tells me that a.) he only communicates with one band member and b.) he gave them the chance earlier, three times and if they couldn't get it right then , the opportunity has closed. I looked at him like he's an idiot and I repeated myself and he did the same and it escalated to me walking away shaking my head. He walks directly over to our drummer to inform him that I have an attitude problem. As I walked passed our singer I muttered , " what a d@#K". He said , yeah, got on my ass , earlier. The sound man turns around and say's that he wasn't on his ass. Singer says , " I don't appreciate you lecturing me when I'm on my stage , talking to the audience." Sound man, " it's not your stage because I can have security come and throw you out." Again, this is in a smaller native casino, 60 person max capacity. You know how we found out it was 60 people max ? They roped off the entrance once they were at max, which happened almost immediately. The thing is that the tables and chairs are spread ,so far apart, it didn't look all that busy, even with all tables full. I lived in Las Vegas for 20 years and after I heard the sound man , I motioned for the casino VIP to walk over to me because two of them were standing no too far but far enough to be unaware. She walks over and I told her that we're about to pack up if the sound man doesn't change his attitude.
The next thing I know, he's on his phone for ten minutes and then sits for the next 2 sets in the corner, away from his soundboard. Plus, it was a $100 a man gig in a casino lounge that's designed to not get very busy. Casinos have the money to pay twice that , at least, for good bands.
