Man, what a weird time to be in the live music business. And by ‘weird’ I mean ‘terrible.’ Me and most of my friends have completely had our livelihoods taken from us, and it happened over a timespan of hours and has lasted months now with little to no real relief in sight.

But I’m not here to complain or to dread on the doom and gloom of the state of the world. I’m going to talk about those now rare, coveted, precious things we completely took for granted before the coronavirus lockdown. Gigs. Specifically, one I just had this week at the Ryman auditorium and maybe, just perhaps offer a little perspective along with it.  

Just to bring you a little up to speed, my current main client is country artist Scotty McCreery. I had my first gig with Scotty back in October of 2018, went on the road with them for a little while, did some other things in 2019 but at the end of that year was asked back and I’m happy to say it’s been really great to be with this camp. Good people on so many professional and personal levels, and holy smokes a great band. So around rolls March of 2020. We did a sold out show at the Ryman Auditorium on the 11th and that was incredible. My first experience doing FOH at the Ryman and one I will never forget. We pack up that night and go to North Carolina on the 12th. That day, the NBA shut down, the NHL shut down, college sports, tours and shows around the world and countless other events - like dominoes - all came crashing down. We played that show to a half full room. And the next day rather than going on to another show elsewhere in the state, the bus drove back to Tennessee and we all went home for the next 6 months.

Fast forward to August, the Ryman Auditorium is doing a series called “Live at the Ryman.” Thinking about it, pre-COVID that would be a completely redundant name for a show, but we’re here now, and live music being performed by live musicians in the most famous venue for country music is a precious thing. Scotty McCreery had another single top a few charts and was invited to be a part of the concert series.

When I got the call that we were actually doing this show my first and immediate reaction was, “Great! Sooo what am I doing?”

In my limited experience doing production for TV taping there is almost always a separate engineer who is an employee of the venue, mixing the show specifically for broadcast. Maybe it is and maybe it’s not a different skill than doing front of house over loudspeakers for a crowd of adoring fans. But it does require a different touch and will certainly yield -at least slightly- different results.

So the 1st answer (you’ll need to keep track of these) was that there were going to be a very limited number of people in the audience, socially distanced and some small fraction of the actual capacity of the Ryman. I would run sound for those folks, we would have a really overly complicated system of splitting all of our signals so that the broadcast engineer, most likely an employee of the Ryman, could have all our inputs and we will all mix the show separately.

Well a few weeks goes by and just a few days before we go into 4 days of rehearsal, we get the call that there will be no one in the audience at all. Round 2 of “soooo what do I do?” Well idea number 1 pitched to us was I could stay home, no one to mix for right? Thank goodness for my production manager who simply told them ‘dude, my FOH hasn’t worked in months. He’s coming, he’s going to do something, he’s getting paid. Figure it out.’ Bless you Adam. So we made the decision that I would set up my console in a dressing room off stage and I would mix the live broadcast feed. I was really excited! Something new, something different, and something I could really stretch my creative and technical mind about.

Over the last few days in August, we setup in the big “Room A” in soundcheck Nashville. We get loaded in and for those precious few days, things felt normal.

While we were loading in, I turned to my production manager more than a few times in a slight panic thinking “how the hell does this thing work?” It’s funny how the things we used to do everyday can get so rusty over just a few months of no use. Eventually it came together, and I soon settled into a rhythm of tweaking the show on my in-ear monitors preparing myself for the broadcast mix which was a nice change. I felt like I had a lot more freedom effectively not having to worry about feedback at all. Let me tell you, that vocal was squashed! Also just interesting how much I rely on stage volume. I had to actually reach for the hi-hat mic! Weird.

The last day of rehearsal comes and we get another call from the Ryman. Turns out there will now be about 150 people in the audience. And they want to go back to arrangement 1. (Or was it 3? I couldn’t keep track) At this point we had maybe another 3 hours with the band, we didn’t have any of the cabling or hardware to implement the complicated analog split required to make that situation happen and that would just throw a huge wrench into our workflow. We decided that was not in the best interest of the show and ended up with the final configuration: I would continue with the plan of mixing the show offstage on nearfields, primarily for the live-stream audience. That left-right mix would then simply be piped into the room for the live audience with a member of the Ryman production team monitoring volume and tone.

The day of the show finally arrived. We loaded in, and it was amazing to feel like I was back at a show. In all honesty the day goes a little blurry. I think my brain went into full autopilot and filed this under any other show day. Even though I was in a funny little green room off stage left rather than in the main room with a powerful PA and screaming, adoring fans; it felt more-or less normal. My heart rate was through the roof for the first few notes of the show and by the third song it felt completely natural.

The show ended right on time. We loaded out of the Ryman. It felt normal. And it was around that time that some notes about the show had started to make their way back to the tour manager and some other folks in the band. I cannot begin to tell you how much it meant when the tour manager looked up from his phone, turned to me and said “dude, you absolutely killed it tonight. People are asking this to be put straight to DVD.” The band then started to echo this sentiment over a number of texts, including one from the drummer complimenting the tone of the snare drum. Who does that?!

And here is where it really clicked for me. These past few months have been hard. Of course financially, but especially emotionally. I’m sure I’m not alone in recounting far more complete emotional breakdowns in 2020 than at any other year in my life. At some points thinking ‘is this ever coming back? Is this/has this ever been worth it? Is this music thing I have invested my life into worth all this heartbreak I’ve been experiencing? Am I worth it?’

 How badly I wish I could give you all in the events industry one really great gig like the one I had at the Ryman auditorium in early September.

The answer to all those questions is yes. That thing you absolutely love to do, that thing you do that keeps beating you down over and over again and you get up out of your bunk to do it again the next day with a smile on your face. The days are dark now, but yes.

The music will play again. It’ll come back louder with louder more vibrant fans.

And yes, you are worth it.

 I don’t know the status of being able to buy the whole show, but here is a little taste of it. Enjoy, and hang in there friends.

Here is also a little writeup from the Tennessean.