Gig report: Southern Roots with Cedar Creek at Rockahock

Mercy me, how I love doing outdoor concerts when the weather's nice. Last Saturday the weather was about good as it gets for midsummer in the VA Tidewater.

This was a new experience for half the band. George (our drummer) and i have done large crowds and venues before, but the rest of the band was a bit nervous as they eyed the line at the gates and the crowd covering the football field sized expanse under the "Rockdome,", which is a steel and nylon roof covering the concert area.

We were actually doing two nights at the Roadhouse here. Friday night we performed 9 PM to 1 AM. Saturday we were asked to do about an hour set outside to open for Cedar Creek, then moving our amps back in the Roadhouse and cranking up after Cedar Creek was done to finish out the night.

I did give the band tips on how to make the sound techs love us and want to make us sound the best they could, which I'll list here:
1) DO Be polite. There are several "suck" knobs they can twist if they have a mind to. You won't like them if they're angry.
2) DO Let them handle patching in to the PA if you use direct outs, and miking the amps. If they need a spare pair of hands, they'll ask. They need to make sure they know who is on what fader.
3) DO let them know if you have any special needs, like the vocal processor our other guitarist uses and our drummer's electronic kit works best with a passive DI as opposed to active.
4) DON'T make random noises with your instruments at sound check. If the tech needs you to play to get a level, play. Try to give him a maximum (lead) volume, and a normal volume. Then be quiet while he moves on to the next person.

If you do these things (which we did) the techs will fawn and gush all over you and want to have your babies. Seriously, it will cut down on the time a sound check takes tremendously. In our case, we set up and had sound check done in a third of the time alloted, which meant the guys that had been working since noon and were hoping to have time to grab a quick sandwich before show time found themselves with time to unwind a bit and have a nice meal (So did we . . . a nice FREE meal!).

So . . . how was the show? As the lead singer for Cedar Creek put it, "Man, y'all got those folks ALL fired up!"

Then we moved our stuff back to the Roadhouse, hooked up everything, and spent an hour troubleshooting a bad connection on an equalizer (That wasn't as bad as it sounds - we could have bypassed it if need be). Murphy's law in action - it "unplugged" on it's own during the night. Still we, had plenty of time, and fired up again when Cedar Creek finished up at 10:45. We had wall-to wall people and a packed dance floor until last call when we shut down.