After the first show, you will be riding high. People will know that you may have made some minor mistakes, but they will brush it off as your first night. No one can expect you to nail it on your first big show. Your client will be ecstatic because the show was a success. The artist will be so glad that the audience loved them. The crew will be elated to tear down the rig and get it to the next city. However, the second show will be terrible. You will try and fix some of the minor issues only to turn those minor problems into major headaches. The reality will set in and people’s minds will change. They will review some of the things that happened during the first show and they will want to completely revamp a perfectly good song. They will come to you with last second revisions that need to happen right now. The artists’ aunt from Phoenix will have watched the show on the Internet. Aunt Nosey-pants will make a comment about how dim your artist was during the ballad and she needs to be brighter than the other vocalists. Your artist will ask you to make changes even though they have no basis in reality or the overall look of the show. Your minor mistakes will be overlooked with decreasing frequency every subsequent performance. Be ready for this level of buffoonery.
– Chris Lose, from “LD at Large,” PLSN Jan. 2019, page 84
