News Behind the Blues
Monterey Bay Blues Festival 2004
Have you ever wondered what goes on backstage during a music concert? Maybe you’ve imagined some non-stop party with wall-to-wall groupies, international celebrities, accompanied by the free flow of booze and mysterious chemicals. Well, maybe when Led Zeppelin goes on tour. Here at the Monterey Bay Blues Festival it’s all professional know how and technical expertise.
Truth be known, not very many people are even allowed backstage. With very few exceptions, only musicians, sound and light technicians, and a small stage crew are given backstage credentials. The reason is simple enough. Anyone else is going to be in the way.
When the curtain goes down, and the next act prepares to take the stage, there’s a flurry of activity taking place that the audience never gets to see. Though maybe they should. They might appreciate the behind-the-scenes work that goes into putting on a smooth show.
Besides technical know-how, preparation is the key to a good performance. Everything is labeled with masking tape—instruments, sound cables, amplifiers—everything is identified as to who it belongs to, where it goes, and what act it’s for. Much of the equipment has already been set up beforehand with clamps, and brackets, and attached to wheeled structures called “risers” which can be moved rapidly on and off the stage.
On the stage itself the same sort of preparation takes place. Stage crew “spike” the stage surface with masking tape, indicating where the risers are supposed to go and showing the exact placement of microphones.
Once the equipment is in place, and the curtain goes up, the light and sound crews go to work. Nowadays stage lighting is mostly computerized. The light board operator controls the lights with a pre-entered lighting scheme that’s electronically synchronized to all of the songs in the set.
The sound board operator still mixes the sound the old fashioned way—manually. But part of having a well balanced sound has to do with the placement of speakers. A sound engineer will tell you that speaker placement is the most critical aspect to achieving a good quality sound. When done properly, the listener should be able to hear the vocals, and all of the instruments clearly, and be able to hear the same thing from anywhere in the arena.
But it doesn’t always work out that way. Last year the sound crew had to deal with an unexpected problem. The installation of the new giant video monitor on the main stage required that speakers be moved from their usual location. The new configuration changed the sound balance and it took some trial and error to finally get it right.
The Monterey Bay Blues Festival production staff may run a tight ship that’s all business and stagecraft, but that doesn’t mean that performers can’t get a little show-biz-type pampering. It’s not unheard of for an artist to have a plate of their favorite food waiting for them backstage after they’ve finished their set.
Then there’s the Green Room; just another little perk the festival staff has provided for their performing guests. The room, near the stage, is available to performers who want to hang out and relax before and after a show. It’s also available to executive staff and to the media. Typically you’ll find performers in the Green Room after their performance, availing themselves of the free drinks and buffet, which as one might guess, is the Green Room’s most notable feature. (By the way, many people attribute the term “Green Room” to NBC studios which actually had several green rooms adjacent to their television studios. In fact the term goes back to the time of Shakespeare, and is a reference to a room that usually contained green shrubbery, where actors could relax between scenes and performances.)
The Green Room here at the Monterey County Fairgrounds is also the place where the media can meet some of the featured artists for press and broadcast interviews. In fact Festival Master of Ceremonies Ray Taliaferro did just that last year. He does a regular radio show in the evenings on KGO radio, and one night he set up a live remote broadcast and managed to get some of the evening’s talent line-up on the air.
Life behind the scenes at the Monterey Bay Blues Festival may not have the appeal and drama of your average Hollywood tabloid, but then the blues isn’t about trendy styles or the latest fashion. It really is about the music, after all.