Setting the Stage by Wyllis Washam

Setting the Stage

All the different perspectives of how a music performance is run

By Wyllis Washam

When you step onto the stage you hear the crowd roar with excitement as they see you. You’ve practiced your music and know it by heart. Before the show you made sure everything sounded good and all the lighting was ready to go. As you take a deep breath and let it out you start the show.

Musicians, sound engineers, and lighting technicians all need to work together on the stage to make a performance sound good. If somebody doesn’t do their work or makes a mistake the whole show could fall apart and which could be a big disappointment to all the fans. Stephen Yates has been doing lighting for about 26 years and currently does lighting for the band Modest Mouse. He says that he is constantly busy and has to work hard everyday. “We are the first in as lighting guys,” says Yates. “Lighting has to go up before anything else can go on the stage.”

Carlos Sallaberry is a sound engineer and has worked with all sorts of bands like Maroon Five, Bon Jovi, The Rolling Stones, and many more. When he was young his two older brothers were original members of a famous boy band called Menudo. One day when Carlos was nine he went to a recording studio with his brothers and was blown away. “When I went to the recording studio with them I was blown away,” says Sallaberry. “This is what I want to do, I want to be a sound engineer.”

Lighting and sound don’t have much interaction between each other, but they need to work together to be able to get things set up. Over the years, there has been a bad relationship between lighting and sound. “Unfortunately, throughout the years there has been this rivalry between sound and lights. I don’t know why. I never played a part in that rivalry because we are together and we have a show to do,” says Yates.

plays all different genres of music, such as industrial, funk, rock, and all others. At a young age Svitek was inspired to play the guitar from TV shows and from other bands he saw. “I just grew into it from watching some shows on TV,” says Svitek.

Svitek performs at festivals and live performances and Svitek says he enjoys performing and feels good while being up on the stage. “I feel good. You feel like you’ve got control of 10,000 people,” says Svitek. “It depends on how many people there are but when you’re on stage and you got that many people and they’re watching you that energy is insane.”

Before Svitek performs it’s just practicing and making sure everything sounds good and everything is working, but after the show when Svitek goes backstage it can sometimes turn into a party with his fans. “Before the show, there’s nobody backstage but the band. But after the show a lot of times for us, it would just turn into one big party. People would come hang out, have a couple of beers and it would get a little crazy,” says Svitek. Svitek also enjoys interacting with his fans to an extent but nothing too wild. “You might sign some autographs, hang out, maybe have a beer or something, but nothing crazy, every once in a while you would have fans that want to hang out with you the whole night, but you can’t do that,” says Svitek.

In order for a show to work properly something called sound check has to be done. Sound check is making sure every instrument sounds good on the speakers and that they’re not too loud and not too soft. “Sound check, basically, they just want to make sure all the microphones on the drums work. So the audio engineer on front in the monitor will listen to those lines and make sure that they work, then they’ll listen to the guitar lines, they’ll listen to all the microphones,” says Sallaberry. Sound check now has digital consoles so not much is involved and everything is already recorded.

Touring is something all members and crew of the band have to do. It can be tough but it can also be rewarding. “My very first tour I was making $10 a day and we were eating bologna sandwiches,” says Svitek. “I got a little more successful with some groups and things were a little smoother and a little more comfortable.” When you’re touring as a member of a band you have to sacrifice lots of events and important dates that you usually contribute to

Some Lights with Haze Photo taken by: DanBrady

as a member of your family. “The toughest part is that you’re never with your family,” says Sallaberry. “I miss important dates, I’ve missed birthdays, I’ve missed Christmas, I’ve missed wedding anniversaries, I’ve missed graduations, I’ve missed father daughter dances, I’ve missed football games for my son, I’ve missed everything that’s important to the family,” Sallaberry adds. Another tough part about touring in a band is that you can be miserable and have lots of bad days. “When I was younger, I was much happier to be on the road. I loved touring, but as I’ve gotten older, I get very homesick,” says Yates. “It’s a lot of long days. I don’t sleep well on the bus. So a lot of sleepless nights and I also miss my family, I miss my wife and my daughter,” Yates adds. Even though there are lots of negatives about touring, Yates and Sallaberry both say that their biggest reward is that they are able to see the world and places that they have never even heard of. Yates and Sallaberry both went to ACL this year. Sallaberry said he had a lot of fun and worked on wireless sound. “ACL was a lot of fun. I worked with someone that we coordinated all the wireless frequencies for all the stages,” says Sallaberry.

“This touring has provided me with travel around the world, which I would have never had unless I was touring.” - Stephen Yates

A Giant Soundboard Photo taken by: IvyMike

Yates said that he didn’t have such a good time. It was hot, dusty, and just too much for him. “It was a bit of a nightmare. It’s just so big, dusty, and hot,” says Yates. Yates also adds that he thought the crowd was really enjoying ACL and they were having a great time. “Everybody really seemed to be enjoying themselves and the crowds seemed to be loving it. It didn’t seem like it mattered who was playing everyone was just at a stage like oh there’s music let’s go, let’s have fun,” Yates adds.

A stage light up close Photo taken by: zaimoku_woodpile