Sao Paulo Part 3 - The Eminem Show

It's 4 hours before the show. The entire crew is stuck in traffic (imagine that) on our way to the show. One hour and 15 minutes to get from the hotel to the venue, 4 miles away. Derek, the video engineer sitting next to me exclaims, "Oh! Lightning!" Dusk is upon us and we can see storm clouds brewing ahead. Soon after, the rain comes, we're stuck in traffic listening to the rain pound the van like fists. This can't be good.

As we drive by the venue (you have to go past to cross a bridge and cut back) we notice that the main stage where Eminem is to be playing is dark. This can't be good.

We get to the venue at 7PM, the start time for the opening band. We walked through the dressing room area to the stage to discover darkness with 100 flashlights running back and forth. No opening act on stage. This can't be good.

I figure the best thing to do is stay off stage and sit in the lounge area. Eventually, the lighting designer for the festival came by and told me what happened.

The part of the storm we didn't experience while sitting in traffic was the wind. Caio, the lighting designer, was telling me that the wind was so strong, the lighting trusses were blowing around, and the video screen on stage was practically horizontal. The rigging roof was creaking and twisting under the weight and he was sure it was going to fall. Thankfully it didn't.

There was a small explosion and sparks came from the video screen on the left side of the stage, so they were pretty sure that wasn't working. The rain had come in sideways and soaked our center video screen, so that wasn't going to work for sure. Lights sparked, breakers broke, no one knew what would come back when powered up.

There was an hour and a half delay while they sorted and tested to see what was working. We got sound back, we got the side screens back, and we got all but the floor lights back. The first band went on, with a little static in the mikes but all went fine. They cut their set by 1/2 an hour as did the next band, all the while the skies remained quiet.

Eminem's band came on stage, and got into position. The tested their instruments, checked their headsets and were ready to go. Eminem got into position under the stage and got on the elevator that took him to the stage in glorious fashion. All departments checked in ready to go. And then, the sky opened up again, and the rain came down. And when I say rain, I mean, cats and dogs and mice, and cows. No joke, at one point there rain looked like golf balls hitting the stage. It didn't stop until... The end of the show. Like clockwork, as soon as Eminem sang the last notes of his encore (Lose Yourself) the rain stopped.

The video screens worked, the microphones had some crackle and static every now and again. Eminem and all the band got soaked to the skin. The worst victims were the band members who's instruments and gear got soaked. A keyboard was flooded, the backup singer couldn't hear in her headsets, and the bass and guitar players lost their amps.

The lighting rig went down in parts. First I lost the front truss, then parts of the mid truss started doing their own thing. Nothing like having a blue look up and then have 4 lights go white and ballyhoo. By the end, I had 1/2 a rig and 3 out of 4 follow-spots.

But none of that mattered, 50,000 fans stuck around and sang every word to every song. Which sort of amazed me, since they all speak Portuguese as their first language. I can't even rap in English, which is my first language. Have a look and listen:



Not the greatest quality video, but you can hear everyone sing along. Pretty cool. You also get a great idea of the rain that was coming down. That particular song, "Way I am" happens pretty early in the set. Hence, I still had most of my lights.

Here's a better quality video:



Also a song early in the set. But at least that guy wasn't being bumped around, and could focus his camera.

A little side note to the show, The LD before me for N.E.R.D., I don't think quite has the hang of loading his show onto the console because he did something (I won't go into detail here) that basically knocked my user profile out of the console. I had the show, and I had all the cues, but I had no "personal touches" to the console. Anyway, I had to load the show back in from my USB thumb drive, which I forgot at the end of the show, and left in the console. I hadn't realized it missing until I the next afternoon when I started to pack for home. I frantically tried to get a hold of someone who would have seen it, the crew chief or the promoter, but no one was available or answering emails. I guess no one works on the weekend in Sao Paulo.

So I came back to L.A. without any hope of ever getting it back. The real bummer was that I had a number of other shows on there that I hadn't backup up to my computer. The one show I think I was going to miss the most was the file I had for "Million Dollar Mind Game". Only because if that one ever came back, I'd need the file.

Then, a miracle. 10 days after I returned from Brazil, a package shows up at my door with a lot of Portuguese writing on it. It was my USB thumb drive! They found it, got my address from one of the numerous emails I sent to the promoter and crew chief and sent it back!

I wish I could say the same for local companies. I forgot a USB stick in a console for a show here in L.A. and no body at the shop could find it. I think somebody found it and thought, "Cool, a USB hard drive, I've always wanted one." But the joke was on them, it was only 256Mb.

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