A story about a lack of reliable power.
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The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.
Want to use this image for something else? Great! Click it for the link to a high-res or resolution-independent version.“I need the [REDACTED] generator here, now!” called the production director over the radio. It was dark on Utah’s mini-playa, and not simply because we were just that much more removed from substantial bits of civilization in Tooele county. It was dark because the main-stage generator had just died for the third or fourth time in quick succession, and even a person with only marginal experience in portable power would have recognized the sound of an engine that was running with difficulty.
In fairness, the generator had been just fine for some hours before. DJ and hip-hop sets had gone off without any perceptible trouble. Now, though, the time had come. It was irrelevant as to whether or not the failures could be directly attributed to running more dynamically now that bands were in the picture, or to the extra, big-ticket lighting fixtures now in play. All that mattered was a stopped show and a gennie that wouldn’t stay up.
(…and yes, it was a “real” generator. Real generators sit on trailers that are pulled by cars and trucks, and this unit was one of those.)
We had all the big, cool toys. We had completely solid power distribution boxes at both steps from the generator – the first step being the primary distro, and the second step being our audio distro that tied into the primary. We had Lab Gruppen amps driving a really substantial pile of JBL noise-louderizing cabinets.
We had it all, yet we were poor, because there was no electricity we could count on.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I don’t worry about production very much anymore. The artistic part of a show of any scale is simply an act of doing your homework, then sourcing the right equipment and deploying it in accordance with what amounts to basic rules of physics. What I DO worry about are the “supports” which make that possible:
Where’s the power, and how much of it is there?
How are we going to get all the pieces and people to the location in question?
Where do we park?
Who can get us into all the things we need to get into?
Do we have enough execution time available?
If you don’t have electricity, you don’t have a show. If you don’t have reliable electricity, you don’t have a show. Supply electricity is the source of all PA activity. If that goes away, nothing else carries any importance whatsoever.
The arrival of the new generator was a wondrous thing. The unit was very clean; Pristine, when compared to the original. It started right up and hummed along without a care in the world. FOH would dig into a solid peak and the engine wouldn’t even throttle up noticeably. After about an hour, we didn’t have to expend any mental energy on worrying over the power situation.
Now, we were rich.
The desert doesn’t care about sound reinforcement. It was fine without it before you drove up, and it will be fine without it when you leave. Pro audio is a feature of civilization, and when you go out into the boonies the only civilization you get is what comes with you. If that piece of civilization is shaky, everything up the chain is shaky to the same degree.