Cadillac Sky

Most of the work we are doing at the Civic Center right now only requires our labor. (By "our" I mean Rob and Kurt!) We use the sound system that is already in place and have full use of all of their microphones, cables, monitors, etc. Occasionally, we'll need to bring in a larger system in order to fulfill the "rider" of an incoming band. Friday's concert was one of those occasions. We have flown our speakers there in the past, most recently for the Natalie MacMaster concert, so we knew exactly what needed to be done. It's not an easy process considering it requires 2 Genie Lifts going about 30 feet up in the rafters and plenty of muscle and maneuvering to get them into place. Neither one of these guys enjoys the ride but they are starting to get used to it. I think.

The lifts have a weight limit as well as limited space so each man/lift takes 1 speaker and all of the necessary rigging:

I can't go into all the details since (thankfully) I was on the ground looking up, zooming in with my camera. . .

But I do know that there were a couple of cables that looped over a beam. . .

. . . and through the rigging hardware that they attached to the top of the line array (speaker):

The other two speakers then had to be attached in the same way using the slim latches on the ends. . .

. . . and all the while, the stack is only held in place on the cable that is attached to the beam. . .

It looked a little precarious and, from the sounds I heard from up above, it must have felt pretty precarious, too!!

When the array was firmly attached, a couple of straps were used to pull the speakers back to the desired angle as well as adding the stability necessary to keep them from swinging freely from the rafters. The guys also had to plug in the speaker cables that would run from their position in the ceiling down to the amp rack on the sides of the stage.

Then the whole process had to be repeated on the other side!!

This is what the final product looked like. It was so much work and I doubt very many people even noticed they were there!!

The set up took less time than I had predicted it would, but not by much. We were ready in plenty of time for sound check and the band's 4:00 arrival (which turned out to be closer to 5:00).

All of our hard work was worth it, in my opinion, and Cadillac Sky put on a great show:

I took a couple of videos that actually turned out pretty good. I think they're worth watching. The first one gets a little distorted when the bass kicks in at the end but gets clear quickly when the vocal starts up:

This is the very talented guitar player. I was disappointed at first that it wasn't the same guy they had at Roseberry, but I got over it:

When the concert ended, everything had to be taken down, including the speakers in the ceiling. Hayden was hoping for a ride but the genie wouldn't operate with two people on it. Probably a good thing.

Hayden and Gloria got to watch the whole process in reverse:

Hayden took this picture of me and Gloria in our new matching Cadillac Sky t-shirts- just one of the many benefits of running sound for concerts like this!:

He wasn't quite as excited about Gloria taking his picture. . .

She did manage to take this one, though:

It was really nice having Hayden's and Gloria's help on the tear-down. I've had several "favorite" concerts during the last 12 months or so and I'm definitely adding this one to the growing list!