The Show Must Go On
We all knew that stealth Groupon show at Lincoln Hall was going to be memorable. We just didn't realize how memorable it was going to be.
The Poster
About 15 minutes before the show was scheduled to start, I found myself milling about in the lobby when I heard the power fizzle. The entire city block went dark as the back up generators kicked on, keeping the venue illuminated. Blowing a fuse is one thing, an entire grid outage is something else entirely. I headed upstairs to inform the band of our predicament and start plotting a plan B. Waiting on the power company to fix things in a timely manner is like waiting on the rapture, it just ain't gonna happen.
We determined that we could muster enough juice from the generators to power 4 amps on stage allowing all 6 guys to at least play something...no PA, no monitors, no vocal microphones, and 4 lights (soon to be 3). My thoughts immediatley turned to the recording as we certainly couldn't afford to miss this. We back lined (rented) all the gear so all of the usual tools weren't at gig which left us with few options. So Chris Mitchell grabbed our FOH microphones and I roped in the Groupon camera guy to give up his battery powered recorder and help us out (THANK YOU). I dropped the microhpones at the down stage edge and off we went - recording the band exactly as they sounded off the stage, no mixing.
Day Nurse - One of my personal highlights from the evening
Ryan's bass amp was fried in the outage so Jake, Brendan & Andy kicked things off with some trio material. After a back up amp was snagged from our office, all 6 guys made their way onto the dimly lit stage to play the hand they were dealt. The set list was scrapped and replaced with an impromptu set of instrumental material.
The Original Plan
The power decided to join us around encore time so the guys took a brief break while the crew hurried to put the stage back together. The monitor board was also fried during the outage so the band could not hear themselves or each other for the entire encore. At that point, the recording switches back to a direct sound board mix with zero ambient microphones...one extreme to the other. It was one for the books and we're glad that we we're able to capture it at all. The easy thing to do would have been to shelve it as it's far from perfect but what fun would that have been? It's a once in a lifetime (god willing) experience that was too crazy not to share. It's not your usual UMLive but certainly a gem for the collection.
On that tip, we are making the entire show available for only $4 by extenidng the Groupon Now! deal today. Yea, we know we're crazy but we love you. GO GET IT NOW before it's regular price.
I'd personally like to give everyone involved a tip of the cap for rising above and just making it happen. Our crew was phenomnal (as usual) and both the Groupon & Lincoln Hall peeps kept on plugging away. What a night!
-Kevin
POWER
P.S. Did I mention that The Haunt was slated to be the original version? :)