What a Weekend
Last Weekend Was

It all started Friday night, September 26, 2008, after the Antagonist performance rehearsal in the auditorium showcase studio here at the Hothouse. Carlos, Paul and I were out front talking like always and Paul asked me if I would be the sound man for their CD release show on Saturday the 28th. Well I was honored and of course said yes because this is an important show for them. This isn’t just some ordinary CD release show. It’s for their debut album “Exist” on Prosthetic Records. This is enormous!

The show was held at the Masonic Temple in uptown Whittier and this room is known for being difficult to control sound in. It’s not like in the Hothouse where the studios are purposefully built to have great sound. So Stewart and I pieced together a PA system from his bands equipment and I happened to have an extra monitoring system lying around.

I felt confident with the equipment we had and the knowledge we’ve gained from operating the rehearsal studios that we were going to deliver a pro live sound for all seven of the bands. As a side note it was great to see 5 of the 7 bands performing at the show, rehearse at the Hothouse.

We set the front of house speakers, we set the monitor system, we positioned the microphones (vocals, drums and amps), we ran all the cable, we fired it up, we sound checked the systems and the PA was ready for the show.

Like I said to Stewart from the start, “we’ve been doing this day in and day out for the past 5 years at the studios and we understand how to set up and get the maximum amount of gain, before feedback out of our PA systems”.

Reign of Ruin took the stage, then Apathy in Discord, Enthral, Mirror of Dead Faces, The Funeral Pyre, Azusa and then ANTAGONIST!!!

The show was a massive success and all 7 of the bands were electrifying and lit up the crowd. It was gratifying when people in the crowd came up to us and said the PA sounds great, “We can actually hear the vocals”.

Equally as gratifying was when each band gave the Hothouse a shout out from the stage thanking us for delivering a pro sound. The vocalist especially loved the system since we had a slamming monitor system on stage for them. We knew then we had done our job.

This was our first gig in terms of the Hothouse crew and equipment being hired out to provide the sound system for a show and what a success it was.

I got to bed at 3am Sunday morning knowing Sunday night in the auditorium showcase studio a groundbreaking event was going to take place. Lots of complex technology involved.