Journey - LIVE in concert.

For those of you, that got me on Facebook, you had to see that I was getting ready for the concert of the year - Journey in Oslo. So I sat my ass into my car, and drove into Oslo, a one hour trip. When I entered the venue, I immediately took place alongside of the mixing console. After 15 years behind a desk, I know where, supposedly, the best sound at a concert is.

Then I heard the well known sound of Neal Schon's guitar coming through the PA system, that by the way was a D&B Audiotechnik system. And the band starts with "Never walk away". And normally the first one or two songs might not have perfect audio, since you tune the rig and do the sound check in an empty room. Wait a minute here.. Gotta do this right. Let's split this into sections of: Band, lights and sound.

The BAND:
Well, if there is a band in the world, that can break mountains before breakfast, this is it. They got three and sometimes four harmonic vocal lines. Neal Schon is THE god playing the guitar. Jonathan Cain is just terrific on the keyboard, and who else will haul a red grand piano on a world tour?? Deen Castronovo not only plays the drums like almost nobody else, but the dude can sing like an "angel" at the same time. I bow my head in pure admiration. Ross Valroy stands there like a rock solid groove guru, with his Music Man bass. And Arnel.. Arnel.. Arnel.. What can I say. Steve Perry IS the voice of Journey, sad but true. Arnel do a very good job, indeed, and then some. But sadly, he is No: 2.
And the hits just keep on coming, and sure as hell, the band got a few hits to present. "Only The Young", "Ask The Lonely", Stone In Love, "I'll be alright without you", you get the picture. Time and time again, both Arnel and Schon proves why they got their respective jobs. And I keep thinking; Damn I'm glad I'm here right now. I would have given a lot to be able to get 10 minutes with Schon, just to tell him that he IS THE god of guitar. Forget Steve Vai, Frank Gambale and Joe Satriani. Sure, they all can play fast 'n wild. But Schon does it with tone, feeling and style like no other. I would have given my soul to have hte talent he got in his left little finger in my entire body.

Character 10/10

The LIGHTS:
When I watch "Live 2001 Las Vegas" or "Live in Chile" Journey got enough lights on stage that the total power consumption could have powered up Manhattan for app 24 hours. And here they use, after what a in-house crew member told me, the in-house light equipment. Not a lot of "Pro Spot", "Pro Wash", moving heads, blinders or PAR62 lights. But he did a great job with what he had to work with. Personally I do not like white, bright tracking lights all that much, and when it's at the top four of them moving across the stage, it kinda wrecks the moods that filtered lights can provide. I can understand the reason on a 10.000+ venue, but in a venue that has a limit of 1700 people inside, it's a bit overkill. But still, I really liked his work.

Character 8/10

The SOUND:
Well, here's the Achilles heel of the evening. As I stated at the beginning the first songs might not be "all there". But sadly, it went from bad to worse. App 30 minutes from show start, the sound tech comes out, pops a handful of Aspirins' or whatever the Americans eat when they got a big headache/hangover. Shoots it down with energy drinks. That tells me that last night might not have been his best night. And really folks, that's no job you should do if you're drunk or got a severe hangover. The reason for this is the way that alcohol, if it's fresh or from last night, affects your ear. When you drink, you tend to loose focus on high pitch sounds and the same could happen if you did the same yesterday, and what came out of the speakers proved that. Ok, it could have been technical issues, working with a digital FOH mixer. But I do not think so. To my left, there's two Americans standing. And as I talk a little with them, I soon realize that this is not their first Journey concert. And from what they tell me, it's a normal thing with Journey - "relative" sound. And to make matters worse, the dude suddenly locates the main faders. And then the shit really hits the fan. Until the mid section of "Separate Ways (worlds apart)", I did not hear nor notice that the sub-woofers where working. But when Cain hits the lowest E on his Ensoniq keyboard, the floor starts dancing. And one of the earlier mentioned Americans turns to me and says; "Hell, did they just now find the main power switch to the sub amps"??. But then, as suddenly as the magic came, it was gone. the rest of the night was spent in a 6KHz and above hell. I'm not kidding, all that much, when I say that I've could have cut glass in front of the speakers. A total absence of mid-low frequencies'. No sub, what so ever.. And it's a lot of volume, estimated app 115 - 120 db.

It's not to brag about my own capabilities as a sound tech, thou more to state the obvious. If I had a Midas, Soundcraft or Allen & Heath analog console, with enough channels. Some dbx 2231 equalizer to FOH, Klark Teknik DN540 and DN530, three TC Electronic M3000 and a couple of D-Two's, I should have done a better job. And given a chance, I'll, as sure as you can hear "Amen" in a church, prove it!!! It's a damn shame.

Character I gotta put something here, but what? Well, 1/10, for the efford of showing up.
Character for his work 0.0/10.


Overall character 7/10.

What happen

Sorry folks, I just gotta get back to this.
I can’t let everything go. As I said I would not get into the 11.th September issues. But there are way too many things to let it go. I’m not gonna debate the terrorist involvement of that day, in honor of all the people that have given their lives and their health on that day, and later. But I have to talk about some incidents that can all be reviewed in the news archives of CNN, FOX News, NBC and others.

Pentagon, was it hit by a plane or was it something else that hit that building? Let’s just look at a few examples that the official report can’t prove. If a plane hit that building, where’s the skid marks that has to be present after the underbody of the plane across the lawn? Where’s the structural damage after the impact of the wings? Where are the engines? On the last subject, the officials claim that the heat caused by the burning jet fuel caused the engines to evaporate. Should we believe this? No. to enlighten a lot of people, jet fuel is in fact a mixture of naphtha and paraffin. What Rolls Royce officials said after the 11.th of September, jet-b will not burn at such a high temperature that the titanium fans inside the jet turbine would evaporate. Titanium has a melting point at 1668 degrees Celsius or 3034 degrees Fahrenheit. Titanium will boil at 3287/5949 degrees C/F. The open air burning temperature of JET A-1 is 287.5/549.2 C/F. Will this cause the titanium parts to evaporate? No it will not. If you still add a possible chimney effect, you still won’t gain enough temperature. And as a group of civil engineers already made a point of. A Boeing 747 hitting Pentagon in that angle would leave impressions after the wings, and the point of impact and penetration would be bigger.

I know that FBI released some photos taken from surveillance camera overseeing the parking lot outside Pentagon that clearly shows a plane. The only problem is... It’s not a high speed cam, or a normal 25 frames/sec camera. After what I’ve found on the web, it’s a cam that shoots 10 frames/sec. And the getting 3 frames that clearly shows a mid/tail section of a 747 doing app 900KMh is pretty amazing. But I’ll leave that, for now. Just think about it for a while. And just not approve of anything the government tells you to believe. Ask the questions you need to feel secure, and through the channels you feel secure on.

And please, please stay away from the conspiracy theorist sites. And in the same time, stay away from the oldest and biggest conspiracy theory of all times. Yes, I’m talking about religion. The conspiracy theory on September the 11.th and the conspiracy theory of religion is based on the same principal. Somebody has seen or heard something they can’t explain. So, they make up a theory to explain what they just saw or heard. In the early ages, before science was a fact, nobody knew where we came from or how we got here. In Norway, we got the Norse mythology with Thor, Odin, and Valhalla. And I have to say, it sounds pretty cool. Every night you drink a lot of mjoed (a crossing between beer and vine), eat and party on. If you get killed, you’ll wake up the next morning feeling’ all right. And you can do this to the end of time. Comparing this to “heaven”. Hey, walking around in a robe, with wings on my back, singing cheerful songs to praise the lord. Not exactly my idea of fun. So therefore I’m glad that I’m an atheist, and are heading down to a party with Phil Lynnot, Jimi Hendrix, Bon Scott, Steve Ray Vaughn and many more.

42 – for ever!!!

Music pt. 1

Today, we’ll talk about music.
I spent the afternoon playing my guitar, or one of them (my precious…). The target today, was one of the most ingenious albums of all time – Roger Waters “Amused to Death”. And I have to be honest, I’ can’t totally play every tone on that album. Well a lot of it I can do, but the parts played by Jeff Beck. If you didn’t know it already, Jeff Beck is a genius. And he plays the guitar like, well Mozart composed music. Perfectly. But it’s not only for the songs itself I wanna talk about this record. The lyrics man, the lyrics. Waters has put a lot of irony and sarcasm into each song. And he kicks in every direction, from the church (What God Wants pt. 1, 2 and 3) to American health(don’t)care (It’s a miracle). The other thing is the music by itself.
This album is alongside with Marillion “Misplaced Childhood”, Pink Floyd “The Wall”, Meat Loaf “Bat Out Of Hell” one of the most perfect album ever created, in my humble opinion. It’s just brilliant and perfect. The lyrics, arrangement, production, sound and overall “feeling”
Feel free to buy it from iTunes or your local record shop.
And at the end, I feel the urge to do a little commercial. As I play the guitar, I need picks. And I found the perfect place to get my picks. If you point your browser to http://www.egopicks.com Lisa can create your personal picks for you. Great service and fast production.