[Dixielandjazz] Festival disasters--` drowned out--Brad Terry writes

Norman Vickers nvickers1 at cox.net
Fri May 13 12:31:45 PDT 2011


To: Musicians and Jazzfans list;  DJML
From: Norman Vickers, Jazz Society of Pensacola

Clarinetist  and whistler extraordinaire Brad Terry of Bath, ME writes about
performance disasters.  This is in conjunction with other anecdotes about
being "drowned" out by extraneous sounds and literally being "drowned out."

Thanks .Brad.  Great stories!

Norm

-----Original Message-----
From: brad terry [mailto:brad at triologyjazz.com] 
Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2011 8:20 PM
To: Norman Vickers
Subject: drowned out

Hi Norm,
 Years ago John Basili  and I had a gig at the Rockland (ME) Lobster
Festival. It was bad enough that they set us up in the food tent but the PA
system was pretty good and I guess it sounded OK. We started about 2:00 PM
But....about thirty minutes into our first set we heard this incredible
sound, drowning out everything;  helicopter rides started at 2:30 and the
take off area was about 200 ft. from our stage. They came directly over the
food tent and the down draft shook the tent and was blowing paper plates and
napkins all  over the place. The rides were10 minutes long and of course
they had to land.
As I remember we gave up but I think we got paid anyway.
 
Another similar time was a gig with more of a swing/ dixi band at Portland
Head light house for some political gathering. The governor or someone
important was going to speak; we were on a flatbed truck with a PA system.
It was foggy and about every 90 seconds the fog horn let out a blast that
reportedly could  be heard 15 miles out to sea. It kept on going during the
guy's speech too. 

OK...one more disaster... I booked a band for  a very, very fancy wedding;
big tent, manicured lawns down to the sea shore and on the stage, a really
nice Steinway baby grand which we used with joy for the rehearsal dinner.
We were to play for the reception the next day but someone forgot to turn
off the automatic lawn sprinkler system and the Steinway became one large,
soaking wet totally destroyed lump.
Talk about getting drowned out!
brad=
	
--end--




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