New Orleans, Part 2

I’ve been on the road, 13 years, and I have never once, done a good show in New Orleans. I don’t know what it is, but for some reason, New Orleans is a breeding ground for bad shows.

I every time I’m in New Orleans for work, I’m hoping it will be different. But it never is. Even on my very first tour, New Orleans left an impression.

In 1995, I was just a youngish buck who wasn’t planning on touring. But some how, I ended up on tour with Primus that summer. Our show was in an old theater that was now basically used for rock concerts. Most of the floor seating was removed in favor of an open floor, conducive for crowd surfing and mosh pits.

It was a union house, one of the few in New Orleans, so it was populated by many of the “old timers”. Guys who have been stage hand since theater was a popular form of entertainment. Probably got their start in the very building we were loading in. As load-in in progressed, I was assigned two stagehands who were well into their 60’s. I handed one of them 5 female plugs labeled 1 thru 5, and I also handed him the male plugs, labeled 1 thru 5. I told him to plug them in 1 thru 5 and I’ll run the rest of the cable out. He stood there for a moment, looked at the plugs and then dropped them all on the ground. I came up and asked him why he didn’t plug them together and he responded, “It’s not my job.” But you’re assigned to me as an electrician, these are electrical plugs, “It’s not my job, I’m THE electrician, I just tie in the power.” I was a newbie; I had no idea what to do. I just stood there dumbfounded and plugged the plugs in myself.

Years pass, it’s now 1997, and I find myself in New Orleans again, this time at the arena on the campus of the University of New Orleans. This too, is a union house. But this one is populated by a younger generation of stagehands. For me, at any other venue in any other city (including overseas) if you have a job that is repeated, say, hanging 20 lights the same way, I would simply take my stagehands, show them how to hang it the first time, and then have them do the next 19 the same way while I went and started another project. Not in New Orleans. In New Orleans you have to stand there and watch them hang each light and then follow behind them fixing what ever it is they do wrong. It’s almost easier to hang everything yourself.

On this same tour during load out, I was pushing cases to the truck to be loaded, all the while, the stagehands were standing there smoking cigarettes and watching me. It wasn’t until one of them yelled at me, “Hurry up, I want to go home!” That’s when I lost it. I’m a pretty patient guy, and I have a long fuse, but after that comment, I started yelling at them, “THIS IS NOT MY F**KING JOB, IT’S YOURS. YOU WANT TO GO HOME? START PUSHING F**ING CASES AND LOAD THAT F**KING TRUCK!” My stage manager, who was in complete shock, because he’d never heard me yell before, had to pull me aside and send me to the showers.

I’ve done many shows in New Orleans, and never have I had a good one. Often, stagehands show up drunk or smelling of booze.

I was working for Luther Vandross when we did the Essence Festival in the Superdome. It was a festival, so I didn’t have to program or run any lighting, but I did have to call followspots, and Luther was a stickler about his followspots. I was in the middle of his set, when one of the followspot operators, who was obviously drunk, tells me on headset, “I gotta go pee,” and walks away from his followspot. I’m screaming into the headset for him to come back, but one of his compatriots tells me, he’s already out the door. And there’s Luther, on stage walking back and forth, while one spot sits there, center stage, unmoving. How do you explain to Luther that the operator, “Had to go pee”? Thankfully his manager came out to ask me what was going on and I told him, so he delivered the news.

Yesterday’s show was no different. I spent the morning listening on the radio as my crew people would tell each other, “I’m sending you 2 stagehands, they need EXTRA attention.” Before the show started we had one followspot that was very dim. Thankfully, they replaced it, but told no one, so when it came time to change colour, the colours weren’t there! They were in the followspot they had removed! Two Blue Men in a lavender followspot, and one in bright white, good times.

In the New Orleans Arena, where we were yesterday, there is a video panel that surrounds the balcony edge. Prior to the show, they run advertisements on the panels for the crowd to see. I told the video panel operator, to turn the advertisements off on my command and to leave them off for our short intermission.

Intermission comes and he turns the advertisements back on! I get on headset and tell him to turn them off and he tells me the contract says to turn them back on. “Not my contract, not my problem,” I respond, “Turn them off now.”

“I can’t it’s in the contract.”

“I’m about to run video clips and I need them off now.”

“Just tell me when you are about to run the video and I’ll turn them off then.”

ARRRRGH! I called my production manager who called the house manager to get the advertisements turned off. And he called her, and called her and called her. No answer for the longest time, very typical of the day. When she finally answered she told my production manager, “It’s in the contract,” At which time he laid into her with more force then I’m capable off.

Needless to say, the advertisements were soon turned off.

I have never done a good show in New Orleans, and I suspect I never will.