LIVE BAND
It will be alright on the night - honest
Sometimes things go wrong. Its a fact of life, cars, planes, trains and even people!! If you consider just our small band uses multiple amps, live instruments, mixers/computer hardware, multiple microphones lighting, speakers, miles of cables, the list is endless - all essential stuff for any band wanting to create a party atmosphere and put on a great night of entertainment. It only takes one of these things to fail or misbehave and the quality of the evening can potentially be diminished..
Even large touring bands are not immune, I have seen many top top bands over the years. I remember seeing Muse rocking out in from of 80'000 people in torrential rain when suddenly all of the stage lighting failed. They carried on in the dark regardless and eventually someone in the crew got them working again.. I once heard about The Who performing at Band Aid (cos I am way too young to remember the actual day) the whole Wembley Stadium pa system went down - they missed their slot and lost their chance to be part of musical history!! More recently I have even had a DJ at a family party struggling to get through the night after his laptop died - he was streaming songs through his phone and probably feeling very stressed. I offered to run back to my house (round the corner) and lend him my laptop. He gratefully used it and most people never even noticed!!
The measure of a good act is not only how they perform and entertain your guests but how they cope in such circumstances. Any decent band/performer will carry spares and have plans in place to deal with any situations that may arise during a show. Deckchair Circus have had their share of issues in the past, broken guitar strings are quickly dealt with as we carry at least 2 spare guitars to every gig (and usually spare packet of strings also). We always take a spare guitar amp (thankfully we have never had to use it ((edit - our bass amp went down mid set March 2019 but was quickly dealt with cos our spare amp was already plugged in and on standby)), we have multiple amps for our speakers so if one should ever go down then the music will carry on without stopping. We also carry spare microphones, cables, snare drum & hardware. We even carry a spare mixing desk - which came in handy quite recently when our digital mixer misbehaved during a sound check. 5 mins later the spare desk was wired up and we were sound checking. Nobody in the audience ever noticed!!
But fear not, these are rare occurrences and are minimised by good practices ie, having our electrical equipment regularly inspected & certified, repairing or discarding faulty cables as soon as they appear - not throwing them back in the box to get mixed up with all of the other good cables.
The truth is, any musician/performer who claims to be an experienced hand will have been through all of these situations at least once. If they haven't, then maybe they're not as experienced as they may claim to be. Deckchair Circus have over 50 years combined experience so you're in safe hands.
We are continually investing in new gear and are always looking for ways to improve our setup times. In 2018 we purchased new RCF pa speakers, Behringher digital mixer, Orange guitar amp & speaker cabinet. 2019 saw our drummer upgrading his kit meaning he has a complete spare drum kit!!! I myself am addicted to buying new gear so it came as no surprise to the band when I turned up to rehersal with a new VOX AC30 amp and G+L Telecaster guitar. The band invested in a pair of super cool Cerwin Vega 18" subwoofers, they're extremely heavy but they sound killer. New dance floor lighting was also added with further lighting upgrades planned for 2020