Special Treatment for the Headliners

[Bogdan]

1 hour ago, TheRev said:

I honestly think it's mostly that light engineers can't be arsed until the big boys come out to play. Where you have one person doing sound and lights, then he or she is more likely to focus on getting the sound right via the support bands and don;t have time to play with lights, but they make an effort for the main act - because they're the main act.  

I think you're spot on! It's a psychology thing and you can see it in any working environment. When a VIP client walks in a bank, everyone is all of a sudden polite and helpful  Sound/lights guy focuses on the main band he's paid to get right and for the others - well, they get less effort in 90% of the cases. Also, it's questionable if those guys are paid for those "supporting band hours" before the show, so lights go on autopilot. 

[paul_5]

I think as long as there’s adequate time for sound checks then in the age of digital desks with recall etc... there’s no need for poor sound, provided that there aren’t’ equiment failures/ overruns/ lateness/ apathy/ earthquakes/ fights etc...

[steve-bbb]

always thus wasnt it? i recall the volume level increase between utopia (main support) and zepp in 79 was about as subtle as a flying sledgehammer

[Passinwind]

On 24/09/2019 at 05:18, cheddatom said:

I always thought that as most of the audience are there (or should be) to see the headline act, then they would see it as a climax anyway.

Not if their ears are all used up by the time the headliner comes on. Which is one of many reasons that I've always  preferred single band shows in clubs.

[Bluewine]

I've heard some functions of the PA are only turned on for the Headliner.

 

Blue

[cheddatom]

oh well, it seems it's just a fact of life and I'll have to live with it. I'd still prefer if the sound for the support acts was "acceptable" IE drums audible to the audience, but then if they want to turn the whole thing up and put on a light show for the headliner - fine. 

I have to say we've headlined quite a few shows and it's never happened for us, but then we don't take our own light or sound engineers

[SteveK]

On 24/09/2019 at 15:05, cheddatom said:

If a promoter said to me "Would you like us to do terrible sound and lights for the support acts before you come on?" I'd say no, and I'm pretty sure that's the case for 99% of other musicians, so I just wondered where this practise comes from

It comes from a small number of narcissistic, insecure artists.

I had an experience with Ritchie Blackmore, at 2016 "Monster of Rock" at Loreley, Germany (Rainbow's reformation debut).

We were "guests" at this show. During our set Ritchie said that he could hear too much "bottom end" in his portacabin dressing room, and sent word to our FOH engineer to reduce it. Our man, needless to say, made a token knob twiddle (?), but basically ignored him.

It's fairly common practise to reduce power to the subs for support acts.

[EliasMooseblaster]

14 hours ago, Bluewine said:

I've heard some functions of the PA are only turned on for the Headliner.

 

Blue

I can believe that. I got really annoyed by the quality of the FOH sound when I saw Joanne Shaw Taylor a few years ago at Shepherd's Bush. I think the seat I had must have been positioned in a bit of a bass trap, but it wasn't a problem when the support act were on - King King sounded great, I thought the sound was really well balanced.

As soon as JST came on, I was being assailed by some horrendous booming bass from the subs that just ruined the rest of the mix for me. I wondered at the time whether her bassist just insisted on having plenty of low end in his FOH sound, but now you mention it, they might have left some of the subs turned off while the support were playing.

[pigface]

I saw the Dandy Warhols supporting Bowie in Frankfurt in (about) 2002. Their sound, overall, was poor. When Bowie came on, the sound was near perfect.

As an aside, I once had a chat with a chap who did sound for Juluka when they were supporting Men at Work in Ozzie. The MaW crew told him that, were he to touch the desk, they would break his arms ...