Last month, I wrote about the projects and events that keep me busy when I am not out on the road working behind a mixing console. However, over this past weekend, I participated in a project at home in California that truly got this year off to a great start. My friend John Ondrasik, from the band Five For Fighting, invited me to mix three local shows that would be performed by John vocals, piano and acoustic guitar and a string quartet.
John Ondrasik is a brilliant lyricist and creator of hauntingly beautiful melodies. His writing is both emotional and cerebral and displays the empathy and insight of a man who is comfortably grounded in the world as a musician, a singer, a husband and a father.
The shows were scheduled at three Southern California venues that were small enough to maintain the sense of intimacy of an evening with John and the string quartet. In the past, Five For Fighting has often appeared with large orchestras accompanying the band. But cutting down to piano or acoustic guitar complemented by only four string players represented a whole new direction for all of us.
We would be carrying no production with us for these shows. Consequently, we would be using house sound and lighting systems plus in-house monitor engineers and lighting directors. In addition to my duties mixing FOH sound, I would be functioning as tour manager, production manager, backline tech and merchandiser. On these show days, I work non-stop from the minute I walk into the venue until the time I get in my car and drive away.
One can easily become rather complacent on well-funded tours with well-known artists. I actually like the reality check provided by participating in one-man-crew gigs. When I was asked to participate in this project and given the production parameters, my first thought was that we should at least carry our own microphone package.
