Loud Park 2007

October 21, 2007, 12:30 a.m.

Loud Park Festival was very cool, yet very different. Because of the time limitations, I had 40 minutes to set everything up. However, the workforce provided was, once again, beyond our expectations. As I was setting up “guitar world,” I had no fewer than three young men or women standing there holding flashlights, while others were handing me cases, or stowing cases, or asking me if they should hand or stow my cases. Unfortunately, I was never informed that Brian had already configured his amplifier settings, so my fiddling with the settings didn’t help the situation. But Brian calmly reset them and I was able to have everything ready to go with about 1 minute to spare.

While I was in a state of controlled panic, the crowd was in a state of controlled rock rage. 14, 000 were chanting Tesla, followed by three claps, over and over, in perfect, and I mean perfect, unison. This was punctuated by periods of complete silence, while waiting for the band to take the stage. (Note to the band, if you hear a Japanese announcer speak for a minute or two, the calmly say the word, Tesla, that means your on!!!) Despite the initial hesitation, the band did what they do best, rocked!! Everything went smoothly until Brian began playing his pink (it was supposed to be red) bass. The signal started cutting out, so I pulled out a spare cable. Brian believed it was the battery inside the bass, and let me know in no uncertain terms to “change the *#@&-ing battery because the bass is sounding like @#*%.” Fortunately I was able to change it out during the next song in about 30 seconds, and further, changed the cable. I kept the battery to have Steve and Static test it later. The battery was good and was not the problem, thank God for my sake. In fact the cable wasn’t the problem either, as Steve and Static had good signals on their “direct box” channels. That only left one answer, the amplifier rented was bad. The band ended on time and the crowd gave their approval with one last cheer. Then, silence, again. Luckily, I was able to have Eriko take a picture of me at “guitar world” during the final song.

After the show, the Japanese workers quickly cleared the stage for the next group and took our equipment back to the staging area. About two bands later, the 80’s metal band, Saxon (“she’s got Wheels of Steel,”) took the stage. I decided to take a walk around the arena, which was covered by a large tarp to keep the floor clean. The audience was having a great time, and all were polite and controlled. Evidently, Saxon has a large following in Japan (despite a virtually non-existent following in America,) as the crowd enthusiastically responded to every “Ari-gato Tokyo” from the singer. (Note to Saxon: request the video team to refrain from close ups, as the Jumbo-Tron shows the wrinkles of aging rock stars.)