With a swinging rhythm section (Bass and Drums), and full complement of a horn section, and two fun frontmen. (Plus a great guitar player and keyboardist) And if that’s not enough there’s the added bonus of beat box to liven things up! If you want to see a great energetic and highly entertaining band, Phat Cat Swinger is one for you. They are off to do some shows in Las Vegas next, where I’m sure they will be greeted with enthusiasm.

After their set, and a quick four minute change over of the stage Jay Leno came out without announcement and made the crowd laugh until they cried. He has been here a few times, and I wrote about him in my book, Stagehand: A Backstage Pass to my Life Stories.

Jay is always friendly and happy. When he arrived he came to our crew break room to say hello to everyone. Afterwards I presented him with a copy of my book. When I stopped by his dressing room he was skimming through the pages. He commented on the chapter about Art Garfunkel. Apparently Art is well known as the guy I wrote about in the first part of the chapter about him. I’m glad to have yet another chance to work with Jay. He is one of the most down to earth entertainers who I know.

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Their website: https://www.gtlorocks.com/

Tonight we will be presenting the band UB40, but as I am only working the load-in I will not be writing about the presentation unless something unusual happens before I leave.

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A DiGiCo Double Play for the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts

See the link above for the whole article. The venue where I work, The Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, has substantially upgraded our audio system. Starting with the audio desks. Two new Digico Quantum 338’s.

We have also acquired a line array, from D&B audiotechnik, and a full stage monitor system, each including amplifiers and all supporting gear.There’s a lot to list and it’s almost showtime so I don’t have the time to do so right now. Maybe later.

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There will be other instruments on stage too such as the Koto, a large zither (think steel guitar for country music fans, or a lay down harp for classical people).

I’ve  also seen a shamisen around  (think Japanese three string banjo type instrument). The shamisen is made of animal skin with a wooden body and neck.

There are also various symbols and small percussion instruments laying around.

I understand that there are also flute players on this show, and I just ran into one playing one of his flutes in the hallway backstage.

There’s lots of dancers in the show, using sticks and long staffs in ways that are much in the style of martial arts. You probably wouldn’t want to get in a fight with anyone on this stage! The show also has a lot of seemingly contemporary pieces in it. It’s not just old school. The mix is refreshing. The Wardrobe is great too.

The thing about Taiko is it’s LOUD, really loud. And those big drums produce a lot of low frequency, so the sound really hits you hard. It would be difficult to not be excited sitting in the house when they start to play. It should be an exhilarating show for tonight’s audience.

Today has been an easy day for me, being on the audio crew, as there are only five mics on the floor and six hanging in the air provided by us (the house crew). The company brought their own lighting and sound boards but they are very small so all of the setup was done rather quickly. They also bought their own wireless  mic kit and we don’t have to worry about operating any of that as they travel with audio and lighting techs.

This is one of the nice things about being a tech, although some days can be a lot of work, others are relatively simple. And we also get to see a lot of different kinds of shows (and other types of events), just not from the angle you’re suppose to view them from most of the time. Last night was good old time Rock and Roll and today we have traditional Japanese music. Another great thing is the people change daily too, so we meet people from all over the world. Most of the people who are on this crew tonight do not speak English, but tech’s have our own language anyway so we seem to be able to communicate and get the job done despite the language barrier. I sometimes wonder if this translates into any other business? In any case it’s great to work alongside people from another culture and observe how they do things.

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The sound of that Hammond organ is classic. They are unbelievably exciting! That old rock and roll sound. Then there’s Chubby delivering the lead vocals with an unmistakable voice. (But he’s also unmistakably not here for sound check.)

This marks the fourth time I’ve worked with them, first in 1998, New Years Eve 2000, 2018 and now.

I’m on stage as an A2 for sound check and they are playing The Fats Domino song Blueberry Hill. It sounds great up here. That’s in good part due to Kerry’s awesome monitor mix.

Last time Chubby Checker was here in 2018 with Frankie Avalon. I wrote about that in the manuscript for my (hopefully) soon to be published book Stagehand: A Backstage Pass to my Life Stories. (I gave a copy of the chapter to his manager Shelly for him today.)

Today has been a more smooth running day than that last one, when we had a few technical problems.

Opening the show tonight is Gary Lewis and the Playboys, we’re moving along to sound check them right now. Ideally the bands will soundcheck in reverse order, which they’re doing today but didn’t happen last time. Really Chubby doesn’t need an opening band to make him sound better, but he definitely has one. I’d give a more thorough review but Mom always said if I can’t say something good just say nothing at all. Well I guess I can say that the band members are all friendly and play well, I suppose I’m just not a fan of the singer Gary’s style of vocals.

It’s also another night filled with rolling risers for the drums and keyboards and also re-patching inputs between bands like a lighter version of last night with Jim Messina, no big deal though.

It’s easier working tonight because Jack and Kerry (our house crew) are mixing the show on our own desks, so no guest audio engineers or audio gear belonging to anyone else.

At showtime Chubby takes the stage singing Good Lovin, written by Rudy Clark and Arthur Resnick. It was a #1 hit single for the Young Rascals in 1966. Chubby doesn’t look or sound a day older than the last time he was here, this guy just knows how to rock! He’s dancing  all over the place, out in the audience, all over the stage, singing up a storm and the band is killing it! They are as tight as a band could be. The audience is going crazy. If you have never seen Chubby Checker in concert I suggest you try to catch him if you can. There is a reason why Chubby Checker is a legend.Definitely the kind of show that makes me glad to be working on this stage.

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I’m working on the prop (property) crew. After load-in, when all the gear goes from truck to stage, my job has been to setup gear in the orchestra pit – and also help the audio crew with the pit setup which was easy. Tonight during the show my job is essentially to move furniture on and off the stage via small cards called skateboards which have push sticks or are pushed onto stage by actors then dragged off by me via a piece of tie-line (⅛ inch cotton poly rope, think thick shoelace).

Other than that I will be doing a lot of sweeping and mopping of the stage. Not too exciting, but on the other hand I’m on call for almost 14 hours and have time to do other crap like write this for you! The show is loooooong, so I imagine I will read a book or two also by the end of the weekend as we have three more shows (two on Saturday and another on Sunday). All in all an easy three days with a friendly touring crew and easy pay. Who could ask for more? And that’s why I love my job.

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