Bidding A *#!& Farewell

Years ago, I was on tour with an extremely successful rock band from the ‘70s and early ‘80s. After they had been off the road for some time, they resumed touring, claiming that it would be their “farewell tour.” (They had previously made the claim at least three times.) After four or five shows into their stadium tour, they and their management decided, at the last minute, to do a production videotape of their show, without filling the crew in on all of the details.

Load-in was well under way for this show. The truss canopy was already built, and the lighting was well on its way to being completely hung. The floating stage was built (it was not connected to the canopy) and covered with monitor gear, the mains yet to be hung, lighting truss and road boxes from every department.

First, there was a panic from the crew, then anger set in as we were told that, because of sight lines, the stage would have to move three feet stage-right. Apparently camera angles, seats sold and building con- figuration were the determining factors. Everything came off the stage, and it was moved with the help of every department’s crew, local stagehands and lift-trucks. Eighty plus people murmuring curse words as they shoved. The one and a half hours it took to move the stage put us all in a scramble to complete the load-in. Corners were cut teching for the show, but the show went off alright. Later, I found that all of the “key” camera position footage was cut from the video because the offset stage looked ridiculous. What a terrible waste of time, manpower and money. I look back at this incident and still get pissed.