Bright Lights and Colorful Buttons

“Why the fuck did he leave?” I hear the tour manager screaming in the other room. After a pause from waiting for a much calmer reply, the tour manager continues the shouting. “They are too much to handle? Too much? They are good old style rock! That isn’t too much to handle!”

I sigh. Derrick, my band mate for many years looks at me. “Are we too much to handle?” He asks sarcastically.

I shrug. “He left in the middle of the tour. He didn’t get fired. He quit.”

“We were treating him like shit. But he kept on forcing us to do things his way. We don’t do that. We explained that to him. Tough break. He didn’t do the job he was hired for.” Wren, the practical, said while staring at his phone.

“But guys, that was the last one from the company and I heard he didn’t just quit us. He completely quit. He apparently tried to just drop the assignment and they wouldn’t let him. That’s the only reason he worked last night.” Jared runs his hands through his hair pulling at it while he talks. “What if they can’t find a replacement? That’s the third engineer we have run off in so many months. We might not find another one willing to work with us.”

“You are being a worry wart again. Look. We are on the rise. We’ll have one by the show tonight.” I tell him, trying to comfort him and dismiss his fears.

“Felix, while you have a point, and while we ran off all of them for the same reason, and be it that the reason is good, Jared has a point. We are going to be dropping a caliber in experience and quality from the bad reputation and that means we are going to have to run more engineers off. Which will end up making us drop another caliber or have to raise the payrate significantly. While a newer engineer might listen to us, our quality will take a hit.” Wren says, actually deigning to look up from his phone and into my eyes for the comment. It means he is serious. He doesn’t seem worried though. I don’t think any of us (except Jared) are entertaining the possibility that we will be dealing with worse right now.

“Follow a newbie’s conditions! What is this madness? That’s not how the world works! I can’t ask them to do that!” Our tour manager yells so loud it interrupts us. We all look towards the noise. Whoever is on the other end of that conversation might need to be worried about their job. “Fine! You want to put your job on the line for this newbie you walk in there and tell them!” He yells after a second. A door slam marks his exit. Eric isn’t a bad guy, but begging the label to send staff mid tour is taxing on him. Understandably so.

We all look at each other. This is going to be interesting.

The door opens and our front of house engineer, the guy that makes us sound like a Grammy winning band to thousands of people, despite not being Grammy winning, walks in. “Hey. Hear me out. If you don’t like it, don’t fire me, just tell me and I’ll shut it.” We look at each other and then all nod at him. Todd isn’t going to get fired. He’s really good for our sound. He’s always protected during the tour. “Okay. I have an old acquaintance that has a promising monitor engineer. I don’t know much about the engineer, but my friend refuses to do much without - Cal is the guys name. I’ve never met him, never spoke to him. But this is the guy that taught me a lot back in the day and I trust his opinion. He says Cal hasn’t been on a tour of this caliber before, but has worked with Gammy winners and Emmy winners before as well as international talent. He approached me about sending Cal out here to take the position-said Cal would have four conditions to be said on site when Cal meets you guys. If you deny any of the conditions, Cal walks. Cal apparently also has a condition for me, if I deny it he walks. But he will come and walk at his own expense and my friend laughed at me when I asked if the conditions were unreasonable. He says Cal would be perfect for my “picky prickly primes”. And he would be able to fly out today. If you give the go ahead, he would be here by the afternoon, in time for a couple hours before a late soundcheck. The only condition that was laid out before hand-Cal is there for sound check after a block of time he could meet with you guys.”

We all look at each other. “This guy is a newbie and is laying out conditions for us before he even starts?” Derrick asks Todd, outraged.

“I doubt the conditions are actually that bad, but yes.” Todd responds.

“We aren’t going to fire you. But pretend we would if we didn’t like the meeting with this asshole. Would you want us to tell you green light? Would you stake your job on this new being worth it?” Wren asks.

“I would. Patrick knows me. He said I would love working with Cal. Says Cal is a quick study and would soon be an integral part of setup unless I put a stop to it. Said you guys would love Cal. Said Cal is a utter sweetheart.” Todd says, grimacing. Todd dislikes feminine nicknames being used on guys. He hates venue staff in the south and complains about it after every southern show.

We look at each other. Jared nods, Derrick glares, Wren flicks his eyes to Jared, I recross my legs looking directly at Derrick. Derrick glares at me. I maintain eye contact. Derrick glares at Wren, who shrugs. Derrick sighs. I look to Todd. “We are in agreement. We don’t like it, but we need someone tonight. Bring this Cal in. It won’t be your head that rolls if we don’t like him. But you are on the line. If Cal doesn’t work tonight, you have to pick up the slack.” Derrick grins. Thought he might like that.

Todd sighs. “That is fair. But it can’t be a regular occurrence. Two shows max. During the entire time I work with you guys. I don’t do monitors.”

“Deal.” I hold my hand out to Todd. We shake. We will have monitors tonight. It’s just a question of how much we will compromise to have them.