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What's your worst nightmare load in story?


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For me it's gotta be playing at the top of the Heavenly Ski Resort in Lake Tahoe.

 

We played this one a few years and it was such a nightmare that we vowed to never play it again. When we got a call a while back to do a wedding up there, we told the client it would be an extra $1000 on top of the regular just because of the venue and they bit.

 

So that enabled us to hire a few guys to help with the load and put some extra coin in our pockets. Here's some pics from yesterday. Top This!

 

Somewhere at the top of this mountain is the venue:

 

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Here's the tram we had to load our gear into. Took two trips.

 

 

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Somewhere at the bottom of this hill is our now empty trailer.

 

 

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Out of the tram onto the loading pad

 

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Push it all around to the other side of a building so we can load it all into this bus. Again, took two trips.

 

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Here's is the actual venue where we are playing. The bus has to drive down there where we unload yet again.

 

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They wanted us to play outside but luckily we talked them into moving everything inside since it poured rain for about an hour as we were setting up. But that did result in a nice sunset from the deck.

 

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And the guests all had a great time. So it was all worth it! Hmmmm....maybe...lol

 

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Worth it for the extra grand to hire a couple of roadies for the grunt work!

I have a few but not as bad as that...the Queen Mary in Long Beach is up there. I should have taken pics. You can't unload anywhere near the tiny and slow elevator, which then lets you off, not at deck level, but in front of a long ramp up to the main deck, then down a narrow gangway until you finally get to the ballroom. And then you still have to park your vehicle almost a quarter of a mile [400m] away...and walk back...truly a joy.

 

Another 'favorite' is the Sawdust Festival in Laguna Beach. No parking near the entrance there either, so you pull up, unload, leave a band member or two behind [one to watch the gear and one to forage for a cart], you go find a place to park, again about 1/4 mile away, wait for their shuttle to take you back to the entrance.

The cart part is the main issue. It is called the Sawdust Festival because all the grounds are several inches thick with woodchips. Rock'n'roller carts, cab/roadcase casters and hand trucks bog down; you need large pneumatic wheels to navigate. They have a couple of carts [30" x 48" /.75 x 1.2m], but finding them is always a challenge as all the vendors and entertainers have to use them. We would play at their 'waterfall' platform which is elevated about 25-30' [7-8m] above the entrance level, so slogging this cart laden with PA gear, amps, instruments, etc up a relatively steep grade covered in woodchips...multiple times :facepalm:

We always did well there, the money was decent, but we finally just had to stop gigging there due to the load in/out pain.

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Our other "favorite" was the Julia Morgan Ballroom in SF. Load into an elevator on the sidewalk that takes you down to a basement. Push the gear around all sorts of narrow hallways and corners to get to another elevator to take you the proper floor for the ballroom which is down a few narrow corridors and corners.

 

Hiring the extra guys yesterday helped but the logistics of all the different load-in and load-out points meant it was still largely an all-hands-on-deck affair. The venue was great in providing 3-4 guys that helped out a lot too.

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That load-in is hard to "top." :badump:

 

Closest I can come to it are the gigs we've done on Bald Head Island (http://baldheadislandferry.com/) in North Carolina. You can only get there by passenger ferry and there are no outside vehicles allowed. So you have to:

  • Unload your gear from your vehicles at the dock
  • Load it onto these special covered dollies (which you have to reserve in advance) that are then rolled onto the ferry
  • Take the half-hour ferry ride to the island (during which you fret about how water-tight your cases are)
  • Transfer your gear from the dollies onto small trucks they use to shuttle people and gear around the island
  • Take a 30-minute ride to the clubhouse on the far side of the island
  • Unload your gear -- again -- tote it into the building, setup and play

When you're done, you get to go through all that in reverse. Whew!

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Saw the Ski Lodge while I was in Tahoe. Not a load in I want to do. Went to the Queen Mary when we reserved the Spruce Goose exhibition for a private party. Don't want that load in either. You guys got me beat. Worst load in I had was we used to play a show on the second floor of a local marina. Only way up was a metal outside fire escape. Keyboardist had a Leslie 147 and a B3. We got decent money for the shows, but I always hated them. I had an OR120 head and both 4x12s at the time (around 1974) and the band didn't care for my contribution to the fun either. Glad those days are behind me.

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i wouldn't call this (worst) nightmare, yep a lot of effort, but i think a cool location and a nice view from the mountain.

 

worst nightmare would be if you havev to carry your stuff by foot up the mountain and you have to do it 3 time cause the tram is broken... :)

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Load outs are always quicker, but usually more dreaded simply because of the late hour. Even more so if it's a cold night.

 

The types of gigs we do, we try to figure in the whole day and effort into the fee. And then at least be SOMEWHAT mentally prepared for the entire event. And often the load-in/load-out are the most work of the entire event.

 

Did a wedding last weekend: Easy load-in where we can back the trailer up right next to the stage. Typical 3-hour load-in/set up time. 1 1/2-hour load out. Only ended up playing one 90 minute set and provided a small system in another location so they could run some background music and have a wireless mic for speeches.

 

Still though---with all the waiting between when we set up and started playing? 11 hour day. And that's not including the hour drive each way to the gig. So 13 hour day. Gotta figure all of that stuff into the fee to charge. As well as being mentally prepared so that you don't end up dreading any of it.

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A couple of fun ones:

 

A gig poolside at the Playboy Club in Vernon NJ. Had to load in from the parking lot, go thru the lobby, down the service elevator to the basement, along appx. 9 miles of skinny hallways past the furnace rooms, boiler rooms, laundry rooms etc, finally to emerge out the back of the building appx. 200 yards from the pool. Drag our gear to the pool, then be told we're playing at the opposite end of the pool, so away we go again. Note: this as July in NJ, about 95 degrees with humidity at about 3000%. We ended up putting a bunch of gear on top of my Sunn 2x15 twin reflex cabinet (I had mounted heavy-duty wheels on the side) and rolled the heaviest gear to the stage.

 

A night-time Blues Cruise on the Hudson River on one of the Circle Line ships. Load-in was interesting but not too bad (ramps, narrow passageways etc). Fun gig. We finished playing just before we docked back in Jersey City. the MINUTE we docked, the ship-hands started hosing down the decks while we were still trying to get our gear off the boat. Ended up almost throwing the gear off the ramps to avoid soakage. We saved the gear but were soggy bandmates for the ride back home.

 

Playing a wedding at a hotsy-totsy hotel in midtown Manhattan. Had to double-park to offload, then leave one member watching the gear while the rest of us hunted for parking. Got back and had to bring all the gear thru a side-door, thru the kitchen (long, skinny and HOT!), thru the basement to the service elevator, up to the 19th floor where the hall was. The room was cut in half by an accordion-like 'room divider'. We set up on one side of the divider, but had to do it silently as the wedding was taking place on the other side. Funniest thing in the world is watching a drummer try to set up silently. I'm sure the wedding party heard our snickering on the other side of the room. Great gig, lots of fun - the bride and groom still keep in touch.

 

Last story (not a load-in or load-out, but sort-of on topic)

Had spent the day at Kamen Audio studios in Manhattan. Left the studio, went to our cars, loaded our gear and moved out towards the Lincoln Tunnel back to scenic NJ. Approaching the tunnel entrance, we see that the lead car's hatch in back has sprung mostly open and one of the guitar cases is slowly vibrating out the back. We start honking and flashing our lights (no cellphones at that time) and finally get their attention. The guitar player in the passenger's seat swings around and, in a blind panic, grabs the butt-end of the case just as it's starting to swing down onto the road. Hasty pull-over to the side of the road and reloading and to stop shaking.

 

Good times, good times.

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I( play a gig like this twice a year, on one of the world's longest Gondola rides at Silver Mountain (25 minutes to the top). And they won't pay more than 375 dollars. You end up handling the gear at least 8 times. Usually, I play it as a solo with a minimum amount of gear.

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I once played in Chilliwack, BC where we had to park down the street, carry all the gear down the sidewalk and up a fligfht of stairs that were over 30 steps to the top, then across the bar to the stage. And we did a ski resort in Idaho (Schweitzer Moutain) where you drive to the back of the building, put all the gear into a 4 x 3' x 5' dumbwaiter, schlep it up 3 floors to the kitchen, and carry it all through the kitchen behind the bar and to the stage clear across the bar. I will never play there again.

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I once played in Chilliwack' date=' BC where we had to park down the street, carry all the gear down the sidewalk and up a fligfht of stairs that were over 30 steps to the top, then across the bar to the stage. And we did a ski resort in Idaho (Schweitzer Moutain) where you drive to the back of the building, put all the gear into a 4 x 3' x 5' dumbwaiter, schlep it up 3 floors to the kitchen, and carry it all through the kitchen behind the bar and to the stage clear across the bar. I will never play there again. [/quote']

 

 

You can almost always guarantee that the more beautiful the venue, the worse the load-in. Since the majority of our gigs are in Lake Tahoe, Napa Valley, or San Francisco we play a lot of GORGEOUS venues--- where the load-ins almost always suck.

 

The one you describe here sounds like a ski resort up here we end up playing a couple of times a year where most of the gear has to go into a tiny dumbwaiter --- which is bad enough except we have to traverse through a tiny kitchen to get to it, which means we are completely in the way of the people trying to do THEIR work preparing the meal for the event. Only thing worse than an awful load-in is doing it while everyone else around you wishes you were dead. lol

 

Not to mention that the Tahoe load-ins will have that extra-added fun feature of ice-and-snow in the winter. I'm sure you know about those up there in Idaho. Slipping and falling ain't as fun as it used to be at our age!

 

 

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Top of the Mark in San Francisco-played this gig weekly for a year. You go to the loading dock and unload your gear. Then you drive down a huge hill and try to find parking. Get there just after they stop towing cars for rush hour and you'll get a spot. Arrive later and it could take 15-30 minutes. Then you hike up the hill. SF is famous for it's hills and this one is no joke. It's long and so steep they cut stairs in the sidewalk. Then back to the loading dock, haul the gear down a narrow hallway into a small elevator, then up to the 30th floor, where you find yourself in other small hallway. Make your way to the stage, and set up......not nearly as bad as the ski resort, but after a year, I wasn't crying when it ended. It was, and is, an amazing room though, and being able to say you had a regular gig there was a huge plus.

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My worst was the Knitting Factory in NYC. We had to double park our van and unload everything on the sidewalk in front of the club. My bassist and drummer stayed with the gear while I drove around for 30 min trying to find a spot an about 5 blocks away.

 

After walking back to the club, we had to carry everything down 3 flights of steps down a narrow spiral fire escape that was barely wider than a person's shoulders.

 

We had to repeat the process in reverse upon loading out..

 

 

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Gigging in Manhattan has always been bad. I remember using a shopping cart [one of those 2 wheelers your grandma used] to put my Princeton, LP Jr., cables and pedals to take on the subway because parking was so impossible...in the early 70s!

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