#319 - Rod "Red" Gibson - Evolution of the Event Industry - Geezers of Gear

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I believe that that's one of the, one of Huntley's strengths
is that he knows the places to put in the systems.
So like, efficiency in the warehouse is always a big one,
you know, efficiency and be ableto turn around gear and, you
know, make it work and get it back out.
But then when he you, you go to the sales side of the world.
Yeah, we use all of the same systems, but we all work in our

(00:22):
own, our own way, in our own niche, right.
You know, certain guys are more market driven, like, you know,
Martin Kelly, who I'm sure you know, I do.
He he is more of the concert touring industry.
Like that's, that's his niche. That's where he where he spends
his time. I spend a lot more of my time in

(00:43):
the corporate world. Yeah, I still do tours because
I, you know, obviously that's where I came from and I have
friends, but you know, but I don't tour.
I don't do tours as, as my main niche.
It's my main niche is really in the in the corporate world and
corporate guys. Well, hello, and here we are on

(01:32):
Geese of Gear again, another episode.
We got a lot of good ones comingup again.
Of course, we always do. And but yeah, so I actually have
one that I'm supposed to record tomorrow.
And I don't know what's going onbecause it is currently
scheduled to record with Jake Berry, who of course is the

(01:57):
godfather of production managers, I guess, or one of one
of the the OG production managers out there.
And he was the production manager for the final Aussie
Black Sabbath show. And so I actually had him coming
on to talk about that because itwas obviously a huge event and

(02:19):
just incredible. And, you know, Jake talked to me
about it a little bit and just said it was really the highlight
of his career. He said if I died tomorrow or if
I retired tomorrow, I'd have a big smile on my face because
that was, you know, just incredible.
And but then of course, just yesterday as I'm recording this,

(02:42):
Ozzy died sadly. And so I'm not sure if I'm still
recording this podcast. So I might be talking gibberish
right now and you're going, but I just listened to it.
Or, you know, it may never happen, but I really do hope it
happens because AI like Jake andI'd love to talk to him about
this show and just some of the challenges and stuff with moving

(03:06):
all those bands through and justdealing with Ozzy and, and what
his mood was like and all of those things, you know, because
he's he's close with Ozzy or was.
So I hope it still happens. If it does, you'll hear it.
Hopefully you'll listen to it. I think it'll be very, very
interesting. And if it doesn't, you know,
then maybe it'll happen someday when he feels better about doing

(03:28):
it because now obviously, you know, with, with Ozzy having
passed, you know, it's, it's a sad day.
So anyways, today's guest is RodGibson, vice president of
rentals at Christie Lights. With over 4 decades in the

(03:49):
lighting industry, Rod has builta career defined by hands on
experience, leadership and deep knowledge across every facet of
entertainment lighting. Starting out on the Western
Canadian club circuit where I actually met him and knew him,
Rod moved into touring and corporate work with W Sun and RA
Roth, gaining valuable experience along the way.

(04:11):
In the mid 90s, Rod served as the verilite operator and
technician on the first nationaltour of Showboat, followed by
nearly a decade touring as a lighting director, designer and
crew chief with PRG. Then in 2006, Rod joined Christy
Lights in Seattle as Operations Manager, where he played a key
role in expanding shop operations and streamlining

(04:34):
workflows. He transitioned into rentals in
2010 and today. Serves as vice president of
Rentals. Rod Rod's practical knowledge
and show experience give him a unique edge in understanding the
needs of clients and crews alike.
Outside of work, Rod enjoys fishing, golfing, and cheery on
cheering on the Seattle Kraken. Seahawks and Mariners always

(04:59):
find time for finding time for his family amidst a busy career.
Rod was last on the show a couple of years ago almost to
the day and I like the guy and Ilook forward to talking with
him. So please welcome Red Rod Gibson
on to the podcast. Red, What's Happening?

(05:20):
Not too much. Are you still red or are you
like Grey Rod Gibson now? Well, I refuse to change my name
to white. White redheads.
We don't. We don't go grey, we go white.
Oh, there you go. I, I'm kind of going.
I don't know what the hell I'm going.
So we were talking about bands in the 80s and 90s that we hung

(05:43):
out with before we started recording.
We did all this stuff we couldn't talk about while we
were recording. But I have an interesting story.
You know, Greg Cox, I'm sure. Oh yes.
So Greg, for those of you who don't know which he'd like to
think, you all know who I'm talking about, but some of you
probably don't. Anyways, Greg called me up a

(06:04):
couple of years ago and he said,hey, you know, I finally got my
green card and and I bought a house down in Florida.
And I said, oh really? That's cool.
I said where he goes, well, I don't know if it's near you, can
you tell me? And I said, well, tell me where
it is. And I said send me a, a, a pin
basically like send me the address or a pin or something.

(06:24):
So he sends me the address and I'm like here in Wellington, I
live in Wellington. It's a pretty small town.
You can't be far from me. This is bizarre.
You know, like in a, in an area with, I don't know, 5-6 million
people or something. He lives pretty close to me and
so I, I put the address on the map and it's literally like as a

(06:45):
crow flies probably a half a mile from my house, but walking
there it's about a mile and a quarter or something.
I literally walk by this place almost every morning when I'm in
Florida. And I said, dude, that place is
right down the street from me. And so Greg and I hadn't really
hung out in years. Like I talk to him every time
I'm in Calgary or Canmore my house and once in five years

(07:10):
we'll see each other or whatever.
But I wouldn't call as close. We've always been friends, but
you know, not people that call every time something happens or
whatever. So anyways, he says I'm coming
down in a few months. I want you to come.
My my brother lives right next door and I want you to meet my
brother. I've never met his older
brother. So we, my, my girlfriend, then

(07:32):
now fiance at the time, go over to his brother's house one night
for drinks or whatever and hit it off with his brother.
So now his brother and his wife Janine are like our best friends
in, in Florida now. We go out with them for dinner
once or twice a week. We hang out all the time and,
and Greg's it's, it's kind of funny because he's a little

(07:52):
jealous about the whole thing. But you know, now Greg and I are
super close. He he was out here in Canmore.
I'm going to stay at his house in Calgary in a couple of weeks.
So, you know, it's just weird how the world happens cause
like, I've literally been friends with him since, I don't
know, mid 80s, early 80s. And now we're just kind of

(08:16):
figuring out the depth of that friendship.
And we talk, you know, multiple times per week.
And he loves Facetiming. So he, he'll probably FaceTime
me right in the middle of this podcast and I'll try and figure
out how to get him on our screenand he'll be like, is that Rod
Gibson? So yeah, it's just, it's funny,
you know, I'm, I'm reconnecting with so many people now that I

(08:37):
spend a lot more time up here inCanada especially, which is good
and bad. Yeah, well, that's kind of the
thing like when you move to the to the US and you have different
friends here, but it's it's it'sfun when you get to actually see
people again. Like I follow Greg a little bit
on on Facebook and you know, hishis various bands, broken toys
and whatnot. I see he's still got his

(08:59):
Corvette so. He's got a couple of them, but
he sold the yellow one, the niceone, the really nice. 67, yeah.
Yeah, he sold it at, was it the Mecum auction, one of the big
auctions? He sold it maybe two years ago
for pretty big money 'cause it'sa big money car, you know.

(09:19):
But he's got one of the C eightsand and he's got an older, I
forget what year his older one is 60, maybe a 6566 perhaps that
he's rebuilding right now. So he's always been a Corvette
guy. Yeah, I remember, you know, even
when he was even in Steeler, he had, he had a Corvette then.

(09:41):
Yeah, So, yeah. Yeah, so did I.
I was part of that gang, you know, It was Huey Brown, Robbie
Brown, me, Greg Cox, all drivingaround in our silly Corvettes.
Mark Croissanti. I don't know if you knew him,
too. The guy at Mainly Music.
I probably met him. Yeah, he was always on the phone
getting bitched out by his girlfriend, so he he was around
the corner with the phone with the really long cord, you know?

(10:04):
Cords on the phone. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And in in mainly music, we had the longest phone cord because
usually it was for Mark because he needed to go find a little
hole somewhere to hide so that he could get yelled at by his
girlfriend every day. So who?
I don't know if it's still his wife or not, but might be who
knows. So.

(10:24):
It was funny because I thought of that of you recently when,
well, it was just like, you know, I don't know why I was
thinking about a different band that I worked with a long time
ago. They were called Young Gun.
Yeah, I remember that originally.
They were like pretty boys and then they'd be like Young Gun.
They were managed by Larry Gilstrom and.

(10:44):
And Larry asked me where they were playing at the Commodore in
Vancouver. Larry asked me to if I would go
do lights for them. I think they had a, they had a
guy that did lights for them, but he was doing something else
at the time. And so anyway, I went in there
and programmed that old show Co board and whatnot.
But I just remember those guys, they didn't stay on the stage
for like more than a few minutesat a time before they went were

(11:06):
gone with their wireless stuff while in the audience and
running everywhere. And I was like, yeah, Marshall
is famous for selling everybody wireless things from from
mainly. It was funny when wireless
became big, everyone was like, you know, running around the
club and stuff and you couldn't find the musicians, let alone
put a follow spot on the singer or something.

(11:26):
Oh yeah, you were doing lights. It's like, yeah, you guys
realize I can't get you back there.
Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's pretty funny. Young gun.
I I remember they were really good.
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(12:34):
And wasn't was Marco the bass player in that, the same guy
that played with Guy Jones for along time?
No. Oh Gee, I'm trying to remember
his name. I.
Can't remember who was in that band but I know I knew them but
I just can't remember. I forgot most of those people.
Yeah, Brian Howes is he's actually become a music
producer. He's doing really well.

(12:57):
He's wrote several pretty good, pretty big songs.
He he wrote one for a band called Hinder.
It's a ballad about, I forget the name of the song off the top
of my head, but I can hear it inmy head.
Yeah, but I know. The band hinder, but I don't

(13:18):
know if I'd remember. This one, I think it was, it was
a, it was a pretty big hit for them and I think it's been
covered by a few people now too.But he seems to be doing really,
really well. It was really funny.
Like you talk about running intopeople.
I ran into Bobby and Brian. They had a band, I think they
were called Deadline, and it waswhen I was first out with Kid

(13:38):
Rock and they opened up for a couple of shows for Kid Rock and
oh, that'd be fun. Walked into the end of the
pisser in the middle of the afternoon and sat in there and
this guy looks over and goes, didn't you used to do lights for
us every now and then? Like, like, Or was Bobby the
drummer, you know? Yeah.
That's hilarious. No, it's, it's funny because I
always think I'm going to walk into a bar or something here in

(14:00):
Alberta and just go, oh, I know you, I used to date you or, you
know, I used to be in a band with you or whatever.
But nobody looks the same. Obviously.
You know, it's like you wouldn'trecognize very many, especially
girls, you know, like Can you imagine running into girls that
you knew in the 80s and thinking, wow, she's going to be
just as hot as she was? And it's like, who were you

(14:24):
weren't? You about like a foot taller
when you're down. Right, right.
Yeah, That's, that's so funny, but you know it.
I love slash hate. Like one of the reasons I got
out of out of music early is because I knew that I'd probably
rot away. You know, it's sort of in the C
clubs or B clubs or something. Not making any money and just

(14:45):
miserable for my whole life. Plus, you know, I just wasn't
making any money really. And but the guys who are still
doing it from then, like guys that I sold guitars to and all
the club bands and stuff, the guys from that era who are still
doing it, it's impressive. You know, like read Shimizawa,
he's kicking ass. He's playing in multiple bands

(15:06):
and, and actually making a decent living as a playing
musician. Chris Challis, I saw is, is in
that Mötley Crüe tribute band, Live Wire I think they're
called, who are actually pretty good.
And Brian Berger, the guitar player in that band plays in
like 4 tribute bands. And it's, it's interesting like

(15:28):
some of these guys are actually like Chris.
I know he has a painting companyso that's not how he makes his
living. But you know, the fact that
these guys can still make a living playing in bands is
impressive. Yeah, I mean, you, I look at
some of the people that I, that,you know, I used to work with
in, in club bands and whatnot, like Jake Adams, who lives out

(15:49):
drummer. He he lives in a Toronto way
these days, but he's played in alike a Shania Twain tribute and
a few others. And, you know, I, I give him all
the respect to the world for like, you know, making a career
out of a musician. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So many couldn't. Well, and now that now that the
old bands are are getting older,you know, there's a lot of fill

(16:10):
in roles in a lot of those bands.
Like you got a lot of bands who are touring with no original
members and stuff. And like April Wine, I think
they still have Gillstrom, but or not Gillstrom.
What's his name starts with AG the guitar player.
ANYWAYS, they still have him in the band, but he's about to
retire. But other than him, there's no
original and he wasn't even original.

(16:30):
He started like I think 5 or 6 years into April Wine but.
Trooper has no original members.Correct.
Yeah, which is wild cause what'shis name?
Ray has such a unique voice. I haven't heard that new guy,
but Ray has such a unique voice.It'd be a hard one to replace,
you'd think. I think who was the the singer

(16:53):
he was kind of steel. He played in a band with with
Brian McLeod, Steele McLeod and Prisoner.
Danny Latham was in that band for a little while.
Yeah, I I don't know them that. Was probably off Dame, Dame
Steele, That's his name. Yeah, he might have already.

(17:14):
Singer. He's a he's a really good,
really good singer. Yeah, yeah.
Very versatile voice, well well versed in the in commercials.
He was the voice on the Red Robin commercials for the Oh
really? Yeah.
Interesting. Yeah.
That's better money than playingin bar bands.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's a prism I don't

(17:34):
think has any original members. No, I mean.
What's his name? The singer died years and years
ago in a car accident, I think. I was renting Dorset a foreigner
recently and you know they didn't have any original
members. One now they don't even have
what's his name, the guy from Hurricane who sang with them for
20. Years or whatever, Yeah.
Yeah, now they've got the other guy who's now the replacement to

(17:56):
him. Yeah.
Jose or Juan or something, some Hispanic name, I can't remember,
but he sounds pretty good. But he doesn't sound as good as
that guy. That guy's that guy just did it
right. He sang perfectly in that band
for a long time. So probably I don't want to
retire. But you're 70 and you don't feel
like touring anymore. I get it.

(18:17):
Yeah, you know, I get it. I'm glad I don't tour anymore,
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(20:29):
I mean, and some guys love it, like Cosmo.
I talked to Cosmo and I'm like, how long do you want to do this?
And he said as long as I can. I love this.
Like I love, you know, he, he hates being away from his wife,
but everything else about it he loves.
He loves being in all these beautiful cities that he's been
in so many times. And you know.
Well, I would say that that that's the one part that, you

(20:51):
know, if there was ever a part that I miss, it would be
actually running the show. And like that, that moment right
before the show when everything's ready and it's all
working and you're set and you call house lights and, you know,
you get that little bit of gooseflesh on your arms when the
crowd goes up. And yeah, that was always my
favorite moment. Yeah, like, well, especially the

(21:12):
size of some of these shows now,like when when the lights do
come on, it's like, whoa, you know, it's it's incredible.
The size of and impact of so many of these shows now visually
is just unreal. It's just come such a long way.
Yeah, like when you're in a stadium like we did, my, my
favorite moment of all time was,was the, the millennial New

(21:34):
Year's. And we were at the Silverdome in
Detroit and I was running lightsfor Kid Rock and, and it was
like, OK, you know, he's going to come on from stage stage,
right? I've done all my my spot calls,
you know, told everybody what their their positions were going
to be. You know, the first six queues
of the show, everything was down.

(21:54):
We're all set to go and you know, I get the call on the
radio. OK, go on house lights, we're
ready. So I, you know, call house
lights and house lights go out in the Dome and you know, the
whole place just goes crazy. 40,000 people just like ah God.
And right at that moment, my calm went out.
Oh no. So then what?

(22:16):
So. Somebody better be another one,
hopefully. Started started yelling at the
upstaging guys to get me A to get me a headset because this
one wasn't working. He had to be a headset with
believe it or not was not working.
I busted that one into a millionpieces against the chair behind
me and screamed at the guy like get me a freaking headset.

(22:39):
I felt felt bad for Derek, He said.
Actually he's an old old, probably my age and he's still
touring. He's still doing Coldplay.
But but yeah, he did get me a headset finally.
And I figured for sure I was fired at that point because it's
like, you know, how you going tomake the call?
And but sure enough, the guys had listened to what I had told

(23:00):
them. And Bob came walking out on on
stage left with a stripper on each arm and a great big white
fur coat with a big white fur hat on.
They picked him up and walked him up to the front of the stage
and the band hit the first firstnotes and everybody picked up
their targets. And about that point, I got my
headset back and I was able to call the rest of the show.

(23:21):
That's awesome. It's that talk about longevity
in a career. Like who?
Who had the bingo card with Kid Rock still playing live gigs
like crazy and selling them out at in 2025?
You know you. Said.
I don't. He's a smart guy, you know, He
was always. Smart guy.
Always fun to talk to about business like I like.

(23:43):
I really learned a lot from him.I was always very interested in
the business side of the, the things.
I learned a lot from him, you know, and I asked and I, you
know, put questions to him like then I'd asked other artists
like Sarah McLachlan told me a whole lot about how record deals
worked and whatnot Once Upon a time.
And yeah. And I remember to ask Bob, I

(24:05):
said, well, you took some money to this is the first album, like
Devil will out of cause first album you took money for.
And he said, yeah, I said, and he said I said, well, did you
get any? How did how long did it take to
get money back? He said I had to sell 3,000,000
albums before I saw one, one cent.
Wow. And he and I didn't take that
much money. But, you know, it took 3,000,000

(24:28):
albums to get it back. And the first thing he did when
he got money was he went out andhe bought all his old publishing
back. So smart.
Yeah. So we were doing I was on like
my second or third tour with himand was a for he had just
released a new album called History of Rock.
And I said, say you sold like, you know, you and I had this
chat about like making money andyou sold about four and a half

(24:52):
million copies of this album already.
And but you're at like 9 millioncopies and heading for 10 in a
hurry of of devil. And I said, but I said, most of
the songs are remakes of old songs, except for American Bad
Ass and, and he and I said, so what's the deal there?

(25:12):
And he just started to look at me because, oh Red, I'll make
way more money off off of history than I'll ever see from
Devil because he owns all the publishing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it's amazing how many
people don't learn that. And, you know, like I read about
so many of the issues with the contracts in the early days, you

(25:34):
know, in the in the early 80s and stuff when bands were
breaking and then realizing that, you know, between the
lawyers and the record companies, they didn't get much
money from those album sales, you know, and obviously since as
things have shifted over time, it's only gotten worse because,
you know, now they make fractions of a penny on.

(25:56):
On Apple Streaming. Spotify or whatever.
Yeah, so it's the whole industryis flipped from where it used to
be the the fans went on tour to to promote the album and now
they go on tour to make money and they put the songs on
Spotify to promote the tour. Yeah, well, but you know, back
in the day, like in the early 80s and, and when record
companies were signing like, youknow, hundred $200,000 sort of

(26:21):
cash upfront signing bonus record deals.
And then they were paying for recording the album.
They were paying for all the production costs, they were
paying for everything. And you still got a cut though.
Like you still got a cut when they sold a record.
It's like, you know, if they sold the record for 10 bucks at
the time, you were probably getting $1.00 and they were
getting 9 or whatever, but but you were still getting a cut.

(26:43):
And then once all those costs got paid back, you got a bigger
cut and, you know, so it wasn't as bad, I guess way back then,
you know, then it just got disgusting after a while where
you could never make the money back.
I don't know why my screen just froze here.
That's interesting. Hang on a second.

(27:03):
Let me see if I can fix this. Something bad is happening.
Oh. There you go.
Yeah. I'm back, yeah.
So. It is interesting how that, I
mean, in, you know, and in thosedays, like there was a little
bit more of, you know, the tour was was the fun part, you know,
because it was there wasn't, there wasn't such a a big push

(27:27):
on making money. Yeah.
On the tour. The tour was to sell albums.
Yeah. So, you know, they weren't, they
weren't as as budget conscious and you could give away tickets
and, you know, bring those backstage and.
When, when Rush were in their heyday.
Well, actually early in their heyday.
This was This was early Rush, soprobably just before moving

(27:49):
pictures. Chemistry.
Yeah, maybe even earlier than that.
But they played at the Max Bell Arena in Calgary.
And I remember reading an article in the Calgary Herald
where they interviewed Getty and, you know, they said, man,
that place was totally full and you guys must be making all
kinds of money from this gig. And he goes, well, you know,

(28:10):
that's not really how the economics work on touring.
And they were like, well, you know, I know it was sold out,
which I don't remember how how many seats were in Max Bell, but
maybe 4 or 5000, I guess, something like that.
And, you know, I know it was sold out and tickets were, you
know, 30 bucks each or whatever they were.

(28:30):
And he said, yeah. So, you know, do the math.
It comes to $100,000 in in income coming in.
But the members of the band, theactual musicians only end up
with $1000 each. That's what we get paid for that
gig. And I just, I never forgot
reading that interview because Iwas like, you got to be shitting
me. You know, my favorite band in

(28:52):
the whole world and, you know, aband that sells out these small
arenas or or theaters or whatever and they're getting
1000 bucks each. Like that's ridiculous.
And I should actually ask Howardabout that one day 'cause he
probably got the rest 'cause I know Howard did most of their
settlements and stuff. Like he was tour manager, you

(29:13):
know, production manager, lighting design director.
I think the only thing he didn'tdo is sound, and he probably did
that at one time too. I'm.
I'm positive he did. Yeah, I'm positive he did.
He has some unbelievable storiesabout his days with Rush, you
know, which were plenty obviously, but.
You know, have you ever met LiamTour manager?

(29:36):
I don't know. He was unexpectedly one time
when I was in Nashville, he was in Nashville and it was before
their last tour. Oh, production manager for Rush,
Yeah, yeah. And I have met him, yeah.
Yeah, so anyway, he and Huntley Christie ended up talking and I
was actually meeting Huntley in Nashville.

(29:56):
We were going to discuss openinga Nashville shop.
And so anyway, we had met with abunch of people, but he gets
this phone call and he says, oh,I've been trying to get a hold
of this this guy for a long time.
And so gets him on the phone andit's Liam.
And he says, OK, well, well, where you want to have dinner?
And, and turns to me and, and I'm like, I don't know,

(30:19):
somewhere with a steak, I guess.So anyway, we ended up going out
for dinner at the Palm, which isright across from Bridgestone
and sat down. And basically it ended up being
like 2 1/2 hours of him telling us old Rush stories.
And both Huntley and I are like huge Rush fans.
That was the first band I was ever like really into.
Me too. And you know, I saw them in

(30:42):
Regina at the Egg X Pavilion. Had to be less than 500 people
there. Wow.
They had they were. The stage was only like 3 or 4
feet high and they had like projection screens with
Battlestar with Battlestar Galactic and the arm behind when
they were doing 2112. That's probably when they were
touring in a station wagon. Like seriously, like Howard was

(31:04):
telling me about this tour. The first, well, the very first
tour he did with Rush was in a station wagon with the whole
band and some of the back line gear in the back of the station
wagon, you know, and driving through snow banks and just
going, what did I do wrong? Like why did I agree to this?
So well, well, and Liam said that they were what was it the

(31:28):
the first time that he started with the band, he kind of
started doing backline and they were they were playing what was
that club that that used to be in Toronto that everybody played
the. The Elma combo.
The Alma combo I was thinking. The Alma combo is like the
famous Live at April Wine at theL and the Stones played there

(31:51):
like a lot of bands played. There this is the one where most
of the the heavier bands of the day played right on anyway he I
can't he said they had to sneak him in because he was underage
that's. Hilarious, that's.
Working for the band and being underage, like that's how long
he's been working for the band. Why?
You know one of the one of the Howard stories?

(32:12):
Did you ever do the Sportatoriumin South Florida?
Oh, probably. Called it the Snortatorium.
It was in Pembroke Pines, FL, And so the very first house I
ever bought was in Pembroke Pines, FL.
And I had no idea at the time until one day somebody from the
industry came to my house. And he goes, you know, what's

(32:34):
right back there? Like that pile of rubble that
used to be the Sportatorium. I'm like, get out of here, what
are you talking about? And he goes, oh, yeah, It was
the most unbelievable concert venue.
Like, this is probably 93 or something, right?
I learned this and like, everyone used to come to my
house and go, you know, I saw Rush and Max Webster right

(32:55):
there, right in where that was. So I talked to Howard about it
on the podcast. And Howard said, did I ever tell
you the story about the Sportatorium gig?
And I guess I can't remember exactly what happened.
Maybe it was one of those times when they delayed it because of
the baseball game or something and a riot started and and they

(33:17):
had to like, I think get the band out of there on a
helicopter or something. I can't remember the story, but
it was a great story. And I was like, wow, I like
looked out my back window at that place, you know, after it
was gone because they tore it down.
But they kind of left part of the foundation there until they
eventually built something else there.
So it. Was pretty cool.

(33:38):
It's funny when you look at those, some of the venues that
are gone and you know, and the joy that I felt when I found out
that they were gone. Like, yeah.
The igloo in Pittsburgh was one where I was like, oh, I'm so
happy that I'll never have to gointo that building again.
Boo, it's gone. Yeah, yeah.
You know, some of the venues have gotten better over the

(33:58):
years. Like, I've been the first time I
ever went to Red Rocks, it was alot.
It was not what it is now. Like now it's a lot easier to do
the rigging and the load in and like, yeah, you know, we always
used to say, hey, it's a beautiful venue to see a show
in, horrible venue to do a show in.
Yeah. You know, if you're the crew.
Everyone always said it was the worst in and out, but, you know,

(34:21):
while the show's going on, it's a stunning place, you know, with
the rocks in the background and stuff.
But yeah, it's, it's all pretty interesting.
You know, these these venues seem to come and go a lot
quicker now, though. Like, you know, I remember when
the Saddle Dome opened and I guess it's a bad example because
it's been around a long time, but I remember the first

(34:42):
concert, the first hockey game Isaw there and stuff.
And you know, it's about to be imploded for the new building
soon. Yeah.
And. I saw I saw Van Halen there on
in 1985. I think it was the 1984 tour.
I lived in Edmonton at the time so I saw it the same show but in
Edmonton. But at the call it Northlands.

(35:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I saw it. There it was.
That was a fun show. That was the one with like 1000
Park Hands or something, wasn't it?
Or no, that might have been David Lee Roth.
Well, David Lee Roth had a one of my buddies actually did the
the Edom and smile to her and hesaid that the only stipulation
of the of of a David Lee Roth tour was they had to have more
lights than Van Halen. I just remember it was like just

(35:26):
this barrage of pars, yeah, Chrome pars, you know, and the
and just so many of them. And the 1984 sign, it was the
first time, you know, like, likethey actually like turned it
over and it was like, oh, you can do that.
That's a big thing to to turn and then turn it on and move it
side to side. Have you listened to Alex's book

(35:49):
or read it called Brothers? No, I haven't.
After Eddie died, he he wrote itreally, really interesting book.
You know, like he completely avoids the entire Sammy Hagar
era. I guess he didn't like Sammy
very much, but just all of the really cool detail on, you know,
his relationship with his brother, of course, his

(36:10):
relationship with Dave and just from their earliest days, how it
all happened. Like I hadn't heard a lot of
these stories. So I was a huge fan like most
people and just it's a pretty cool book.
It gets boring at times, but it's a pretty cool book.
It's just interesting to hear all the behind the scenes stuff
with their family, you know? Have you ever had anybody

(36:32):
threaten you with like, or not threaten you, but like, ask you
like? So how come you've never written
a book about all your experiences?
Yeah. Well, the fact is I've actually
tried a few times, but I get bored very easily, you know, so
I'd need literally like what Cosmo's doing.
Cosmo's got a ghostwriter, you know, So he's got a guy that
basically he sits down with for an afternoon and just tells him

(36:55):
stories. And you know, the guy puts that
into words and then gives Cosmo the chapter.
He reads it 5 or 6 times and then says you need to remove
this, fix this, change this, youknow, so I'd have to do it like
that. And I just have too many other
things going on. But I'll tell you what I am
going to do at some point is I'mgoing to do a geysers of Gear

(37:16):
book that's going to basically each chapter will be some LD or
production manager or maybe Red Rod Gibson or you know, whoever.
And each chapter will just go into, you know, a group of their
stories and you know, it'll justcover a lot of really
interesting people in, in our industry.

(37:37):
And they'll be short chapters, you know, but a lot of them
because I've had 300 and something guests now, so.
It's that's kind of good though.Like did you read Nook's book?
I did, yeah. Yeah, like I like the way Nook
did that. It was just experiences.
Like each chapter was like an experience.
So you would finish the whole the chapter and move on to the

(37:57):
next one you know? Yeah, I, I loved, I loved Nook's
book. There's a few people who have
written sort of shorter books like that that I've really
liked. And, you know, I'm sure as we
all continue to get older, we'regoing to start seeing some tell
all books coming out at some point, you know?
Well, that's always the, the, the fear, right?
It's like it's people ask me, well, could you write a book?

(38:18):
I'm like, well, maybe like Nook did, but even then it's like you
still got a, you know, name names and stuff and, you know,
not necessarily itching to name names of a whole lot of or
Cosmo. 'S not going to, Cosmo's not
going to he's, he's going to name names of of, you know, I
was on tour with so and so. But he's not going to say I saw,

(38:38):
you know, Steven Tyler, you know, doing something terrible
under the stage or whatever. Like he's not going to get into
any of those stories, which is what most people want to read,
really, you know. Yeah.
I mean, I don't want to hear thehappy stuff.
Tell me the bad stuff. Yeah, I want to hear about
Lynyrd Skynyrd when they were all screwed up.
Yeah. I, I don't know if I already

(38:59):
told you this story, but I remember I was at one of the
Lynyrd Skynyrd gigs with Roth and they were in some kind of a
panic because what was the Leon?Leon, I think in Jacksonville or
something, the night before theyplayed and after the gig, you

(39:21):
know, he met some bikers or whatever and decided, hey, I'm
going to go party with these guys.
But he didn't tell anybody. He just followed them.
And off he goes, right? And so it's like noon or 1:00
and sound check is at like 2:00 or whatever it was, right?
And nobody knows where Leon is. Nobody's heard from him.
Nobody saw him at the hotel, youknow, nobody knows anything.

(39:45):
And so it's like now it's like, I don't know, 1:00 in the
afternoon or something. And Leon comes walking in
through the back gate at the TheShed in West Palm Beach.
Called. This week.
Yeah. Yeah.
He just comes. He comes walking, me too.
He comes walking in the back gate.

(40:06):
No, no shoes on his feet, wearing the same clothes from
yesterday, you know, just like, hey guys, you know, And they
were all just like, what the fuck?
Like, what is going on with thisguy, you know?
But that was that was him, apparently.
I don't know much about the guysin Lynyrd Skynyrd, but Ross said
yeah, he does that stuff all thetime.

(40:27):
Yeah, well, the first tour I ever did with Lynyrd Skynyrd was
in 93, and he wasn't in the bandat that point.
He had He had been unceremoniously placed on leave
for incidents like that. Yeah, those types of behaviors.
Far worse, I guess, yeah. Yeah, it was like Steven Adler

(40:48):
do. Do you remember when Steven
Adler said who gets thrown out of Guns and Roses for doing
drugs? Well, which is?
Kind of funny and true, you know?
Yeah. Not to name names, but the the
LD for Skynyrd prior to my joining had been had been let go
and for those reasons I was and at that time I said the same

(41:10):
thing. I was like, how can you get
tossed out of Lynyrd Skynyrd fordoing too many drugs?
Yeah. I mean, there's just so many
drugs out here that. Yeah, well, I think you got to
fuck up pretty bad. Like you got to, you got to do
something really wrong to get into that type of a situation
where you're basically raising your hand and saying pick me,

(41:30):
I'm an asshole, you know. But as long as you kind of keep
your head down and, you know, don't make a lot of noise or
whatever, don't cause problems for the production manager or
the management team or one of the artists or something, you're
gonna be OK generally. Or back then.
Nowadays it's a little more frowned upon, obviously.
Yeah, it's a different world now.
Yeah, so I'm, I'm technically asof right now, tomorrow morning

(41:56):
I'm doing a podcast with Jake Berry and to talk about the
Aussie gig. And so then yesterday, of
course, Aussie dies and so I don't even know if we're
recording it now. Like I sent it.
I sent a text actually just before I started with you.
Hang on. He just text me back.
I think. No, he didn't.

(42:16):
So I sent him a text right before I started just saying,
hey, I understand if you don't want to do this now, you know,
because we really just wanted totalk about because he told me
the other day, he said, Marcel, if I retired tomorrow, I'd
retire a very fulfilled and happy person.
It's the greatest gig I've ever done in my life, that one the
most meaningful, one of the one of the craziest, but just

(42:39):
unbelievable amazing. And, and so I said, let's talk
about it. And he said, hell yeah, let's do
it. And so I was really looking
forward to doing it. But again, I'd understand if he
didn't want to anymore. I know he was pretty close with
Ozzy actually. Yeah, well, I was actually, I
was a little jealous of, you know, some of the guys that got

(43:00):
to do that gig because to be there.
And it just looked like, to me, it just looked like it was like
one of the most fun things because everybody kind of parked
their egos and and, you know, like, and just like seeing some
of the old crew guys like, you know, and how how everybody's
aged and whatnot, but just all still out there doing it.
And, you know, and the band guys, like I said, looked like

(43:23):
they all just parked their egos and had fun.
Well, and it almost seemed like a rehearsal, like they were
learning songs as they went, youknow, because which I they
probably were like a lot. Really.
Really. Jamming?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it was a lot of fun.
I mean, there was there was somebad music that happened
occasionally, but you know, who cares?
Like. Part of the experience it.

(43:44):
Was so cool. The whole experience was cool.
It was sad to hear Ozzy singing some of the stuff how he sang
it, you know. Sad to see him sitting down in a
throne as opposed to being Ozzy,but it was amazing.
And what a fitting end to the whole thing.
Like it's like, I'm sure it's going to come out from Sharon at
some point. That he knew he was dying.

(44:05):
He knew he only had a couple months left when they planned
this and he was in a rush to do it.
He wanted to give one last show to the to the people and then
check out. And I just think it's so fitting
how the whole thing happened. Like, would I like Ozzy to be
here forever? Sure.
I love Ozzy, but you know if yougotta go, what a cool way to go,

(44:25):
man, what a cool way to go. You know, with a, with a, with a
tribute from, you know, don't teach your fans, but like all of
your peers through the years, you know, like the the people
that he took on tour with him and yeah, you know.
Bands he helped break bands, youknow, just every, every like
just seeing the tributes pouringin on social media is wild.

(44:48):
Like every bands that I haven't heard from in years and years
and years, putting stuff out there and everybody's got
pictures with Ozzy, everybody's got, you know, stories with Ozzy
and stuff. I mean, obviously because I had
an impact. I I never worked with Ozzy.
Yeah, yeah. I mean.
Never ran into him anywhere. I knew lots of people that did,
but. Yeah, well, I met him.

(45:09):
I met him at actually, it was the Max Ballerina.
OK, I forget who it was that I knew, but I knew like I think it
was Motörhead opening for them and I think there was a third
band and I knew somebody in the third band or something.
So I had passes and I got to go back and meet him and I didn't
really, it didn't faze me at thetime because I wasn't a massive

(45:31):
Ozzie fan yet. I became bigger one later.
But but it was Ozzy, Randy Rhodes, Rudy Sarzo, I believe,
and Tommy Aldridge. And then what was the keyboard
player's name? The guy who played with them in
the early days? I forget.
But I mean, what a band. They were unbelievable.

(45:51):
I was blown away the whole time and and it was the last, I think
it was the last show of the tour.
And so they were playing tricks on each other them in Motörhead.
And I remember like, was it Motörhead that somehow got up
into the rig and they were dropping like, or spraying
whipped cream or something down on Ozzy?

(46:13):
And and then I think, or maybe it was vice versa, maybe somehow
somebody got up and and we're shooting shit down at them from
the rig. And then Ozzy I think came out
and got Lemmy in the face with apie during his show or
something. Yeah, they were just goofing
around. They were doing a lot of funny
stuff, but it was a cool gig. But yeah, I saw, I saw Ozzy
there. I saw Ozzy at the Corel and I

(46:35):
saw Ozzy at the Saddledome. Wow.
And then here in at the Coral Sky and probably at the arena
here too. I've seen Ozzy way too many
times at Oz Fest a few times. So see, I was always, I was
always touring with somebody else.
And so those moments when you you sometimes get a little

(46:55):
crossover on tour, a day off or something.
But yeah, never happened with with Ozzy.
I was never ever did any of the Oz fests or any of that stuff.
So always appreciated his music.And you know, a lot of the guys
that I worked with told great stories.
Michael Keller said great thingsabout him and yeah.
Talk about a great profile picture for Michael Keller.

(47:16):
You know, him sitting in the throne, Did you see that on his
on his Instagram or Facebook or whatever?
Yeah, I mean, just killer. Like actually he put it that
picture up on something and someone said if that isn't your
profile picture like today, you're an idiot.
And boom, it became his profile picture as it should, you know.

(47:36):
But then like yesterday I think he posted one of him and Ozzy
like chatting or something and you know.
Yeah, I have AI have a thing about profile pictures these
days. You still haven't got over it.
Jesus, man. When you lose to the Panthers
two years in a row, you'd think you'd get over it more quickly,

(47:58):
you know? Yeah.
It actually hurts more. Yeah, yeah, it's funny.
But I will say that I got to go up to Edmonton for Game 5 and I
know one of the best things. I actually felt bad for you as
much as I wanted to beat you, but I felt bad for you because,
you know, you are so invested inthe Oilers.
Like I would be with the Flames.If the Flames were going, you

(48:20):
know, to the Stanley Cup Final, I'd be in that kind of a
position too. But you know, you're so invested
in them. And, you know, I guess from a
depth standpoint, I've only beena Panthers fan since whatever,
1991 when they started in Florida.
And at the time I was still really only like 20% Panthers,

(48:41):
80% Flames. And then it kind of that bar
moved a little bit to sort of the middle.
And it's always sort of a game time decision which shirt I'm
going to wear when the flames are playing in, in, in Florida
or whatever, right? Yeah, I'm that way with the
Kraken now, you know, Yeah, you know, I have season tickets, I
go to the games. But you know, you don't throw

(49:01):
away 30 plus years of or 40 years or whatever is now of of
cheering for the Oilers. Yeah, Yeah.
Well, especially when they've been pretty shitty for a while
too. And now they.
Yeah, you. Follow through all of that.
Now they have the best player inthe world and and you know,
maybe that arguably 2 of the topthree or four best players in
the world. And and you know, you get pretty

(49:24):
excited about that kind of a rununtil bam, you hit a brick wall.
This guy right here. Matthew Kuchuk.
Matthew Kuchuk is the brick wallthat you keep hitting.
I, I got to tell you that I findit a little bit of a funny
story. I was recently, I have an
Edmonton Oilers putter, which isa hockey stick and it's got the

(49:45):
Oilers logo and everything on it.
And it's actually what I used toputt with it replaced in my bag.
It replaced the Martin putter that I got from you many years
ago when I was working with Yes,but.
But anyway, is it as bad at hitting the net as as McDavid
was in this series? Just kidding.
Actually, what what happened wasI played in a tournament.

(50:08):
ATK Sound Company has a little golf tournament every year.
There's 120 or so people there. And I went and played in it this
year and the tournament started with a putting contest.
So the putting contest was about65 feet away from the hole.
And anyway, after 120 people hit, I had the best shot of

(50:31):
everybody. I was 6 inches from the hole.
Damn. And from 65 feet and nobody else
was closer Jesus but I so I thought I'd with.
Your Happy Gilmore. With with Maya Minton Oilers
putter. So I thought I had won, but it
turns out there was a six personplayoff.
So, so I ended up in this playoff and there was, I think I

(50:52):
went fourth out of six and the, and I putted and it went right
down right to the hole. I was just like, it's going to
drop in the hole. And when it got there, it went
just like, just like my dreams of the Stanley Cup.
It rimmed. It rimmed the hole.
And went up. Yeah, yeah.
And and the guy behind me had been standing right behind me

(51:13):
and just followed my line and dropped it right in the hole.
Yeah, Jesus. Well, and it sucks because in
the big. 5000 bucks. Too in the big group you were
closest and then they make you go again and and you're not, you
know, like that sucks. That's how they used to in F1.
That's how they were doing that Sprint thing where you actually
lost positions in the in the race.

(51:36):
If you, you know, failed a little bit in the in the Sprint
race that they did. It was kind of stupid how they
did it. Like you qualify on pole, but
you don't start on pole because you didn't do well in the Sprint
race. Well, that's stupid.
So. But yeah, so tell me this
because we haven't spoken since the lovely playoff series that

(51:56):
we were in. Was it was it harder this year
or last year? This year.
Really. Yeah, like last year sucked, but
you know. Because you were so much closer
last year. Well, but it was such a well
that was it was it was the big comeback, almost the reverse
sweep. I mean, there was a lot of
positives that were going on and, you know, and I like, you

(52:19):
know, me, I'm pretty positive about like, you know, hey, I
don't ever leave a sporting event until it's over.
Yeah. Doesn't matter what the score
is, you know, might be a blowout.
I'm there till the till, really.They blow.
Good for you. That's amazing.
Not me. Let's go.
Not me. When we're down four goals, I'm
out of there. Yeah, I always stay and I and I
was like, so I was still confident, you know, and I was

(52:41):
like, so, you know, when they took it to within one goal in
game seven, you know, almost made the reverse sweep, I was
like, yo. I was shitting myself.
Yeah, I was. Losing my mind at that point.
Yeah, so I and, you know, this year I was a lot more confident
going in. Felt like, you know, and then
with the game one win kind of orfairly dominant, I felt like,

(53:04):
you know, we were going to be onour way.
Yeah. But then, you know, I remember.
How follow your posts. I followed all your posts, but I
don't talk a lot of shit becauseI learned that lesson really on
because I early on, because I used to with football, I used
to, you know, being a Dolphins fan and a Dolphin season ticket
holder for 100 years. I used to get into it with Jets

(53:26):
fans. We're going to kill you.
We're going to you guys suck. And we'd be up two touchdowns
and I'd be like, yeah, you're out, you're losers.
And then next thing you know, you lose by a field goal or
something. And it's like, oh Jesus.
So I keep my mouth shut for the most part, believe it or not.
Like even our bet scares me because I just feel like I'm

(53:47):
jinxing myself as soon as I likeif I buy a stock, short the
stock, you know, if, if I'm picking A-Team, go ahead and bet
against me because you're probably going to win usually
so. Well, apparently the.
Yeah, well, apparently it didn'tdidn't hurt you in any way, so
yeah. Yeah, so.
So for those of you who don't follow either one of us on

(54:09):
social media, Rod had to do a Panthers thing.
A Panthers logo for his Facebookprofile for a week.
For one week, yeah. And it would have been.
It would have been the would have been the reverse if it had
been. Yeah, I've I've never had an
Oilers logo on my Facebook profile.

(54:33):
Remarkably so. And it was funny, funny things
like, you know, like years ago, like you tell, you know, like I
say, I never leave a game. And you know, like, but I lived
in Atlanta for I worked in Atlanta for a lot of years and I
lived in Atlanta for seven years.
So I have a big history with Atlanta and the first city I

(54:53):
ever lived in that had a had an NFL team.
So of course I followed the Falcons and was big Falcons fan
and went to games. And so when the Falcons played
the Patriots for the Super Bowl and we're up big time at half
time, yeah. And I and I had put the, the
other bad part was funny part was I had done, I had put $20 on

(55:17):
the Falcons to win the Super Bowl at 44 to one at the
beginning of the season before they played Game 1.
So that was like a $900 payout on 20 bucks.
And I was like, so I was counting my money at half time.
Yeah. And was very disappointed so.
So was I, by the way, because, you know, there's no way I'm
ever going to bet for the Patriots.

(55:38):
And, and I hated their run. It made me crazy.
You know, it was just like if you had to get beat by the
Flames every year, which is why I've always hated the Oilers
because, you know, the Flames had finished with the
President's Cup, you know, and the others would beat us in the
first round or whatever, you know, like it just happened
every year. It was just so painful until

(55:58):
1989 when they finally beat the Oilers and went on to win the
Cup. So yeah.
Yeah, well, I have a special, special place in hell for for
the Patriots because of the Falcons loss and then also
because of the zoos loss becauseof course I live in Seattle, so,
you know. But the Falcons game was

(56:18):
special. That was just like, how do you
fuck up that badly? You know, it was just
disgusting. It was just like, do everything
wrong and make every mistake youpossibly can in 1/2 of football.
Let's see, come on, go, let's doit.
Get it done. That's it.
It was mostly in 1/4, wasn't it?It was mostly in the fourth
quarter, yeah, really. Because in the third quarter

(56:39):
they were still, you know, moving and everything.
And then suddenly it was like, OK, holding call.
They just shit that anyway. Completely, yeah.
That was that that would hurt. And, you know, and then, of
course, there was the Seahawks and the the infamous.
So why didn't you hand the ball to Marshawn?
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Another tough one. Well, I mean, it could be worse.

(57:00):
You could be a Dolphins fan and you just haven't even sniffed a
Super Bowl in a long, long time.So, you know, I mean, and I was,
I had season tickets for almost the entire Dan Marino era, you
know, which was amazing, but very painful too.
You know, like, I, I think the first year I got season tickets
was 93, maybe 92 or 93. And so we got to see a lot of

(57:27):
good football, but never a SuperBowl and hardly even playoff
games that often. You know, so tough.
It's tough being a Florida football fan.
Or a Miami football fan anyways,because Tampa's won.
Well-being a Florida hockey fan doesn't seem to suck so bad.
Tampa it's. Pretty good.
I got to say. It's pretty good.
But you know what though? Like without geeking out too far

(57:48):
because we're boring the shit out of people already.
But I will say, and again, it's going to sound biased and maybe
it is a little, but I think the Panthers are doing a master
class in building a team, you know?
And whereas the Oilers are spending, I don't know what
percentage of their entire budget on two or three players,

(58:10):
the Panthers are pretty even right across the board.
And you know, like there's some bumps in there.
Of course, some guys who are making 8 million or whatever,
but nobody's making 12 or 13. And and that's what it takes I
think right now cuz if you look the biggest payrolls, we're out
fairly early. Yeah.
So Toronto, Edmonton. Yeah, yeah.

(58:33):
So, and I mean, some of those markets like Toronto, you can't
underpay. You have to spend the most money
because it's like the Yankees ofof baseball is, is the Maple
Leafs of Toronto, right? You got to spend whatever it
takes to get these guys, you know?
Which is why everyone speculatedthat McDavid would be in Toronto
next year or whatever. But which he still may, who

(58:54):
knows? Yeah, I find it highly unlikely,
but. Yeah, well, why would you go to
Toronto? You know, I mean, when you know,
like that's the thing you got tobe careful of when you're asking
16, seventeen, $18 million a season, you got to realize that
they're not going to be able to build much of A team around you.
You know you're taking too much money at that point, right?

(59:15):
So. It'll be you want.
To go somewhere to win, yeah, it'll be.
Interesting to see how Vegas does with, you know, they've
they've got a lot of cap space tied up in a few players so.
You guys got some guys too in Seattle, right?
You didn't. You get Schmidt from us.
We got Montour. No, but this year didn't you get

(59:38):
our defenseman Schmidt, 88? He was like a rented player for
us. He played one season with us, I
think. Could be but.
I, I saw a couple guys or one guy anyways, I thought that went
from the Panthers to Kraken. So, but yeah, it's, I mean, I
don't know, I wouldn't bet against the Panthers again this
year. We got the entire team back and

(01:00:01):
and and. Bob so.
Yeah, and Bob's still around. He ain't going anywhere anytime
soon, so we got a good backup. So yeah, should be a good year
again. We'll see.
Although, and I haven't checked this, I meant to check it but
somebody told me the other day that Kachuk is getting surgery
and won't be playing until like December.

(01:00:23):
Oh. So, you know, from that same
injury that he was out at the end of last year, lower body
injury, which they aren't reallysaying, oh, they did say what it
was. He had some real significant
problems that he played through.Yeah.
Like and he I can't remember. Exactly.
Kind of did it to himself at theFour Nations I think too so.
That was part of it. Yeah, for sure.

(01:00:45):
Yeah. That was that was wild.
Him and his crazy brother in that game.
That was nutty. Completely nutty.
It was fun to watch, but not very bright.
Not real bright. So, Oh yeah, the lighting
business. Yeah, that.
Or do you think we've talked about it yet?
We haven't even talked about thelighting business yet.

(01:01:06):
So I. Think I assumed a new position
since I talked to you last. What are you now?
Vice President, Rentals. Sweet for the, for the company
or. For there's a bit of a reorg in
how how Huntley has run the company.
So there's a couple of vice presidents.
So it's not like I'm the vice president of registers.
There's several others that havehave the same title.

(01:01:27):
Yeah. We have teams of people that we
work with within the company, so.
You're not still at 4 wall though, where like, everybody's
a senior vice president of something.
No, no. 4 wall I think absolutely everyone.
There, everybody's there. I think the senior vice
president back is a senior vice president.
Yeah, Senior vice president of, you know, shipping, you know,
the shipping guy. Yeah.

(01:01:48):
It's, it's wild. They they throw out titles
pretty pretty quickly, pretty liberally.
Yeah. So we'll see.
Well, that's cool. But I'm also still working as a
as a an account manager so. Yeah, yeah.
Several accounts that that you know, I like Dirks Bentley.
I pretty much will always do that one forever, I'm sure.

(01:02:10):
And then I'm gonna do a lot of corporate work still with
Microsoft and SAP and HP and. Just small.
Names Adobe. Yeah, small names like that,
little companies. Little companies that.
Spend a little bit. That's cool.
And you know, I mean, Huntley still being in the game is
awesome. I like it.
Like he last time I had dinner or lunch with him, he said.

(01:02:31):
You know what, Marcel? I love working.
I love what I do. Like, obviously he hasn't needed
to work in a hell of a long time.
Who was it? Somebody was telling me that he
knew that Huntley was on a different level when he he,
Huntley said, yeah, just stop bymy house and pick that thing up.
And so he stopped by his house and, you know, on this massive

(01:02:54):
freaking wooden door at the front of his palatial mansion.
And a Butler came to the door and he said, OK, I get it.
I see where this is going. So good for him.
Yeah, good friend. I'm a Butler.
I've never seen a Butler in his place.
But no, I would love to have a Butler.

(01:03:14):
Yeah, that'd be cool. I don't really know what butlers
do because, you know, I've always been poor.
So, like, what does a Butler actually do?
What will they do for you besides answer the door?
Yeah. But yeah, he's things have been
going well. The company's doing well and I
think we're setting record records for, you know, most gear

(01:03:34):
utilization and most money that the company's ever been brought
in so. Those are really good records.
Yeah, yeah, those are really good records.
Like utilization rates is amazing.
And I know you guys have built all kinds of really cool
efficient systems and stuff and like even, you know, I see some
of the requests that come in forgear that you're looking for and

(01:03:55):
stuff. Just I like the systems that are
being built. And it's, you know, I think very
similarly to Huntley in that regard.
I just don't have the budgets that he does.
But I believe in, you know, you don't.
What's the saying that I love somuch, but I can never remember
it. You never rise to your goals.
You fall to your systems. And so I'm a big systems and

(01:04:20):
process guy. Like not to a point where it's
rigid and you know you can't do what you need to do to take care
of a client, but to a point where you know things are, are
systematic and they're built in a way that you can replicate it
over and over again. And the expectations on the
customer side are similar all the time because they know what
they're getting. They know how you deliver

(01:04:41):
things, they know how you do things, they know the process
versus like, I've, I've had a mysmall company with three or four
salespeople in it who all do things four different ways.
And it's just like, what are youdoing?
You're making me crazy. Like, let's find a thread, a
common thread between the way that all four of you guys are
doing this thing and let's make it work.

(01:05:02):
And so, yeah, I love that about Christy.
I always have. That's what I believe that
that's one of the, one of Huntley's strengths is that he
knows the places to put in the systems.
So like efficiency in the warehouse is always a big one.
You know, efficiency and be ableto turn around gear and, you
know, make it work and get it back out.
But then when he you, you go to the sales side of the world.

(01:05:26):
Yeah. We use all of the same systems,
but we all work in our own, our own way, in our own niche.
Right. Like, you know, certain guys are
more market driven, like, you know, Martin Kelly, who I'm sure
you know, I do. Yeah, he, he is more of the
concert touring industry. Like that's, that's his niche.
That's where he where he spends his time.

(01:05:48):
I spend a lot more of my time inthe corporate world.
Yeah, I still do tours because I, you know, obviously that's
where I came from and I have friends, but, you know, but I
don't tour, I don't do tours as,as my main niche.
It's my main niche is really in the in the corporate world and
corporate guys. Yeah, that makes sense.

(01:06:10):
And Chris Mcmean just gets in everybody's way.
He's he's in New York and I'm inSeattle.
So yeah, I know, I know. No, and I like Chris, I'm just
kidding. He does a good job.
He he's got a lot of friends andseems to stay pretty damn busy
every time I'm talking to him. So no, that's, that's really,

(01:06:30):
really cool. And and so you said record,
record numbers and record utilization.
Is that is 2025 a big year or is2025 a little bit flat like I've
heard? I've heard so many different
versions of this. Yeah, like I said, my niche is

(01:06:51):
really in the corporate world and I I have found that, you
know, it's taken, you know, fiveyears to come back from 2020.
You know, 2020 was a write off the whole year.
I mean, I, I had been doing a record business for me.
I had the best first quarter I'dever had.

(01:07:11):
And then the pandemic and, and it was still almost a record
even with, you know, March beingcompletely cancelled.
So. So it's taken a long time, but I
found that the, the corporate companies are now back to doing
their, their spend and their shows to A, to a level that is
at or exceeding 2019 levels. You know, Microsoft is not back

(01:07:35):
to where it was. I'm still about 50% of what I
used to do with Microsoft, but they are back and doing doing
larger shows again. Well, it seems like there's two
sides of the story, like, you know, one, one side says, well,
you know, with everyone working hybrid or working from home, you
know, there's not as much need for these conferences and stuff.

(01:07:57):
But actually, probably the opposite is true.
When you're not in the office, you want bigger meetings and
bigger conferences. I.
Think there is, Yeah. Like, because there's only so
much you can do by teleconference.
There's. There's a difference to being in
the room together and spending time together, you know?
Yeah. I mean, Huntley's always been a
a big believer in the, you know,go to dinner, sit down, break

(01:08:20):
bread. You know, that's when you when
you can have a chance to talk and.
And you know. Yeah, more business gets done at
the restaurant or on the on the golf course or, you know, it
used to be the strip club. More business gets done there
than in your office quite often.You know, like customers don't
want to meet in your office. They want to meet on the golf
course or in a restaurant or whatever.

(01:08:40):
Yeah. And that's when you can have
those those casual conversationsand solve a lot of issues, you
know, where you're not like, youknow, in a strict.
You get a couple, you get a couple glasses of wine into
them, and they tell you the realbudget.
You know, here's what we really have to spend.
You know, I know I told you it was a half a million, but it
really is 750. Yeah.

(01:09:02):
Yeah, yeah, or the opposite. I know you're thinking it's a
half a million, but really it's we only got like 2. 50 Yeah,
yeah, I know. I'm.
I'm telling you to build the biggest system in the world, but
I only want to pay this much. Yeah.
One of my friends always used tosay, you know, because, you
know, people in this business need to understand that, you
know, it's, it's like kind of think of it as shopping at

(01:09:23):
Safeway. If you go and buy, you know,
pick out a a $25 steak and take it up to the counter, you don't
tell the cashier, hey I only really want to pay 15 for that.
That's only our industry. Yeah.
That's only our industry that does that, you know, and God,
God forbid the company is a friend of yours.
Like that's the thing that I always find interesting.
Like why do my friends always think that they should get

(01:09:45):
better deals than everybody else?
What? You should be willing to pay the
full price, shouldn't you? Like you're helping a.
Friend helping you. Yeah.
So it's it's interesting. But, you know, back to the
utilization thing, like I happento be a huge fan of that comment
and of the entire topic because I think in general, one of the

(01:10:06):
challenges in our industry is that we tend to be a bit
cowboyish when it comes to CapExand when it comes to buying
things on a whim. And, you know, I know there's
probably several manufacturers listening to me right now, Eric
Loder being the biggest one because he always listens and
then calls me and gives me shit.But you know, just just, you

(01:10:28):
know, spending wildly because you have one show for six weeks
or something that needs 100 of something versus convincing the
producer to spec a different product or convincing somebody
to, you know, do something else or possibly sub renting or
whatever. Like I just, I like the fact
that a lot of the people I'm talking to really are focusing

(01:10:51):
on ROI and, and, and, you know, utilization.
Yeah, it's a business, right? And it's not as cowboy as it
used to be. Yeah.
I mean, back in the day, you would buy like you would buy
whatever, you know, if you're putting a tour together.
And I think we talked about the the fact that, you know, there

(01:11:12):
the money back in the 80s and whatnot was coming from the
record sales. So they would spend money and
you would buy things for tours, you know.
Yeah. And sometimes you would utilize
those things on other tours, like, I mean, Roth was, was
infamous for building hex pods for, for a kiss tour and then

(01:11:32):
using them for that tour. And I know, you know, he, he and
Jim Chapman would, and Dino Derose would design that into
the next Cinderella tour or the next Lynyrd Skynyrd tour or
whatever. You know, you, you had those
pieces. But the big tour is like, say, a
KISS tour. You would you could afford to
cut to make pieces. Yeah, yeah.
So no, I mean, that makes total sense.

(01:11:53):
But the other challenge is like,you know, even in the nineties,
2000s, whatever a moving light was 6 grand, you know, now it's
12 grand and you can't just buy them for every rental that you
need them on. You know, it's it's you.
There's so much dry inventory around the world right now.
I see it every day and my real day job.

(01:12:15):
There's so much dry inventory and yet, you know, we're buying
like drunken sailors still. So, yeah, you know, I find that
it's a big problem. And I also find that people are
starting to really pay more attention to the problem as
opposed to going, well, I guess,you know, CapEx is 30% this year
or whatever, instead of 20%, youknow, now it's going to be 27%.

(01:12:39):
And that's just a challenging business model that constantly
requires new venture capital or private equity or whatever
coming into the business. Yeah, yeah.
And yeah, that's why there is somuch private equity coming in.
And you know, and you also see like one of the things that
Huntley, I think it was kind of visionary was the what he calls

(01:13:00):
the ORPL system, you know, the official rental rental product
line. It's like, look, we're not going
to buy every piece of gear out there because otherwise it's
inefficient. If you buy one kind of gear, you
only have to stock one kind of replacement parts you only have.
I mean, yes, it does kind of like say to the designer, you
know, you know, don't, don't go looking through a catalog and

(01:13:22):
go, oh, well, this company's gotone of these and I want four of
those and six of these and eightof those.
It's like, no, pick a moving light that that you know, that
you like, that does what you need it to do, and then design
around that. Yeah, Yeah, no.
And, and, you know, I mean, like, if you, you think of ice
cream shops that have 50 flavorsor 100 flavors or whatever,

(01:13:43):
they're not all going to be good, you know, and, and yet if
you had an ice cream shop that had six flavors, they're
probably really like, it's the best vanilla you've ever had.
It's probably an outstanding chocolate, you know, And so
there's a lot to be said. Both business models work.
Right. And you're a businessman, so you
understand, too, Like the the efficiency of being able to like

(01:14:04):
if you've got four kinds of ice cream, yeah, you only have to
stock four kinds of ice. Cream, of course, in your
freezer. A lot of logistical sense.
Yeah, and you can sell your ice cream, you can pass that that
savings on to the on to the consumer.
So, you know, instead of having to buy a $5 ice cream cone,
you're buying a $2.00 ice cream cone.
Well, but if you've got 100 flavors that you've got to.

(01:14:26):
Deal with, yeah, if you have to have every brand of moving
lights, you're not going to havethe quantity that you'll need
for some of those shows, you know, so now you got decisions
to make that are tough decisions.
Whereas if you can sit down withthe LD or the whoever it is and
say, you know, OK, you need 1000, you know, LED movers,

(01:14:46):
you're asking for the Roby Spider.
We have Aura P XL, similar product.
You know, we're able to supply all of them.
We don't have to sub rent. They're all very well teched and
they're they've got these benefits without even getting to
price. Chances are you can convince

(01:15:07):
them to maybe make a change. Or not, as the case may be, like
some I have. I have a certain client that
that loved you brought up the Roby spider.
That was his favorite light. Yeah.
And I was like, well, dude, I'vegot quantum washes over here
that I can give you for less because I don't own the spiders
I got to go get from somebody else.
But then when I saw what he did with the spiders, yeah, I

(01:15:28):
understood why. Yeah, it made sense to me why he
was doing what he was doing. And and I said, oh, now I see
why you need these. So I will get these for you and
at the best price that I can. But I understand the need for
them, you know, and that that's a lot of, you know, the back and
forth I, I often do with, with designers is, you know, OK,

(01:15:49):
look, is there I can offer you asolution and I might be able to
offer you another 1010 more lights over top of, well,
whatever or whatever it is of whatever kind of light it is.
But if it's not doing what you need it to do, what the vision
is for your design, then OK, well let's get 10 less lights
and get the ones that you need. Yeah, that makes total sense.

(01:16:13):
So, you know, efficiency, efficiency when you can keep
your product line a little more limited is is.
And like you said earlier, that's, that's Huntley's sort
of, you know, that's his a game.That's what he does, you know,
like he, he's been so in a sense, I don't know, innovative,

(01:16:34):
I guess in the industry. Like, you know, first, like I, I
think if I remember correctly, his shops were the very first
shops that I ever saw where theyhad truck pack taped out on the
floor and they did truck packs, you know, in the warehouse and
then boom, it just transferred into the truck when it got

(01:16:54):
there. And I had never seen anybody do
that before Huntley. And I was like, well, that is
weird, but what an awesome idea,you know.
And now of course, everybody does that, but his racking
systems and and the case. Yeah, even thinking through the
cases, right. Yeah, all of the case sizing,
instead of building the the cases for the products, it's

(01:17:18):
like we build the cases, we justadapt the products to the
products without but stay withinthe same of course dimensions
and all of those dimensions weremade to truck pack.
Yeah, no, it makes makes complete sense.
You know, everything kind of goes into everything else.
It's sort of the Amazon method of doing things like sometimes
it looks weird where you get a thing that's like this big and

(01:17:39):
the box comes at the door and it's like this big and it's got
that one little thing in it, youknow?
But you know, it's better than having 42 different box sizes
because you know, you have 42 different sizes of this or
whatever, right? It's just, it's down to
efficiency and keeping the cost low and making things move
quickly and all those things, right?

(01:18:00):
So it makes a lot of sense. But no, I always, I really like
that about what Huntley's done. And you know, the Nexus system,
I know it's not perfect, but it was a great idea.
And he's just, he's a very innovative guy.
Like he doesn't just follow the crowd and do things that the
crowd do. And I remember the Martin deal,
when he first did the Martin deal, people were like, what is

(01:18:21):
he doing? You know, this is crazy, but it
worked out very well for him, you know, and I know it's not
exclusive anymore, but it's still sort of the preferred line
or whatever you call it. Yeah.
But and he said, you know, we still have a very Christy light,
still has a very large partnership with Martin.
Yeah. Which is not to say that we
don't use other kinds of lights.I mean, we have bought their

(01:18:45):
Christie Lights has bought, you know, elation lighting, you
know, certain, certain items that are like, oh, that fits our
product line and this is what weneed.
Yeah. You know, and it was same thing
with the consoles. I mean, everybody was like, why
wouldn't you buy more hog twos? And he said no Grand MA yeah,
yeah. And turned out that it's.
True, he was one of the earlier guys on that stuff too.

(01:19:06):
Yeah, so like with the Martin thing, it was a, you know, the
Mac, the Mac 2K became kind of astandard for quite some time and
and he had Christie Lights had more of them than anybody.
So. Yeah, How many Mac ones do you
guys have? I don't think there's any.
Oh, oh, you mean the the new the?
Little one, the little Yeah, the.
Little one. Oh yeah, I want.
To see thousands. Yeah, I want to say somewhere

(01:19:29):
between 1500 and 2000. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, it's, it's such a cool little light that could be like
for, yeah, trade show booths andlittle things and you know.
And stuff. And whatever.
On a large show like. Yeah, yeah.
A bunch of them out with The Black Keys right now and and I
did a gig last year with Brothers Osborne that Trevor

(01:19:50):
Alstrand designed and we had two, had a wall of 200 of them.
Oh wow, that had to look cool. Yeah, and he kept it hidden for
like most of the show. It was only the last 6 songs.
He opened up the drape and suddenly there's 200 more lights
back there. Wow, yeah.
And they were such a beanie. Cool little light.
You can make patterns and chasesand.
Well, in the packaging, like thefour bar thing or whatever, like

(01:20:12):
all the different, I just every once in a while a manufacturer
surprises you and comes out withexactly the right thing and you
just go, how did they do that? Like they're not that smart, are
they? You know, like, and then to me,
the Mac 1 was just a brilliant product at the right time.
You know, everything was bigger and brighter and bigger and
brighter and then all of a sudden this tiny little thing

(01:20:33):
for, you know, 1500 bucks or whatever.
And it was just like, I need those, you know, like.
A very efficient little light, that and the price point, you
know, you're not having to spend, you know.
A bazillion dollars? Yeah, 12 grand for a moving
light and are they reliable? Like I've never actually asked
anyone that question. Seemed to be pretty bulletproof

(01:20:55):
from my experience with them. Had several on tour.
Like I said, we had that wall ofthem and they were very good.
Yeah, but we were not swapping lights all the time.
Yeah. Not like in the old days with
the very lights. Yeah.
And I don't mean to disparage very light in any way, but back
back in the day when, you know, when I was doing very lights, it

(01:21:16):
was, you know, 22B's and two C'sand yeah, you know, right.
I worked at Martin. You don't have to.
I worked at Martin in the early days, not now when their lights
are reliable and cool. You know, I worked for Martin
back in the day when everything was broken and the pals had
holes in the dimmer and just. Pals.

(01:21:39):
You just dated yourself right there when you said pals.
Well, I named it. I named the Mac, I named the
Mac, and I named the pal. And yeah, I was very, very, I
was a big part of that business in the early days.
You know, not not bragging or anything, but I worked very
closely with Peter Johansson andhis team on the things that we

(01:22:00):
needed. And they never built the product
I needed, but they'd always allow me to get in on some
marketing stuff, like naming thethings and what the brochures
would look like and stuff like that.
But usually the product, like I remember going to them and
saying, you know, which product was it?
I think it was the Studio Color.We need something like this and.

(01:22:24):
An answer to this, yeah. We, we've got it, no problem.
We've got it. And he sent me like the, the Mac
1200, I don't know if you ever saw that one, but the big huge
thing that barely any light cameout the front of it and it was
just, it was horrible. It was the worst light they ever
made. And that's a statement, but

(01:22:46):
yeah, so sometimes they didn't build what you asked for back
then. But obviously, you know, they
got real good at it after the fact with the Mac 2000.
The Mac 2000 was one of those pivotal moments in our industry
when it just went like room, youknow the the industry just
picked up so much and and movinglights became so much more

(01:23:06):
prevalent at. That point, the Mac 2K wash was
a, was a, to me that was, that was kind of a game changer to
have a wash light that it was that bright and could do the
things that it could do. You know, Robert Roth once said
to me, I was designing, I think it was Lollapalooza when it

(01:23:27):
first brought it back in Chicago.
And, and he was, he was, we weretalking about what the design
would be and, and Robert said, you know, and you need a bunch
of wash. We're going to do a bunch of
wash lights, you know, Mac 2 KS and studio colors.
And I was like, well, what aboutall these profiles?
And he's like red, you know, as well as anybody else.
You can't see a profile during the day at at a festival, but

(01:23:49):
you can see a wash light becauseit's a big nice big thick beam.
Roth every once in a while comesout with brilliant statements
like that, Like the guy actuallydoes know what he's talking
about, you know? It's wild.
Was that the one with Metallica?The the Lollapalooza with
Metallica. No, I think we had Weezer was

(01:24:10):
was one of the headlines one night because.
I I was at the Metallica 1 and Ijust remember like this was
probably early 90s or something maybe.
Oh, no, this, this was in, in like the 2000s.
It was. Yeah, this was Lollapalooza had
been gone, and they brought it back for the very first time to
Grant Park in Chicago. This was either mid or late 90s

(01:24:32):
I don't remember but I just remember being front of house
which was like a tower with Broderick from Metallica.
Was he 30 feet in the air? He was like 30 feet in the air.
When I was when I worked with him, that's where I had to set
up front of house. I was up there with him, yeah, I
was up there with him. And I had never seen a mosh pit

(01:24:53):
from above. And I was just like, holy shit.
Like I wasn't even watching the band, I was just watching the
people. It was insane from up there.
It was so cool. That is one of the great parts
of it because I when I did the first summer Sanitarium tour,
you know, we were leapfrogging stadiums and so upstaging had
one rig and LSD had one rig and so we were leapfrogging.

(01:25:16):
But John wanted everything to bedirty feet up.
So and it was three. He had a hog to control the
studio colors, an avo for him topunch his stuff on and and
control the gate and and had to patch the gates from the studio

(01:25:36):
colors to him so he could control the gates at all times
from his console, even though the movement and all the color
and everything was coming through the hog.
So bit of A at the time, it was a bit of a logistical nightmare
of patching emerging universes and whatnot.
But the I, I'll never forget, you know, being up there and
that tour was Metallica, Korn, Kid Rock, Power Man, 5000 and

(01:26:01):
System of a Down. And the first time I saw Korn
play and, you know, they their songs have a very heavy low
build ups. And then also there's this like,
oh, and yeah, boom. Yeah.
And watching the pits just open up in front of you, like and see
these guys just going at each other.

(01:26:21):
Yeah, it's incredible. Yeah.
Something. And from above it, it's a whole
new view, right? Yeah, yeah, I know.
It's, it's incredible when you see that stuff, it's like, what
are they thinking? You know why are they doing
that? Why are they doing that to each
other? Yeah, yeah, I went to one of the
stadium Metallica shows last year with with Koenig and in

(01:26:44):
Edmonton actually, and and Pantera was on and the mosh pit
was like right next to where I was standing.
And I was just like, these people are lunatics.
Like, why are they doing this stuff, you know?
I was years ago, I was at the, Iwant to say it was the Rock Em
Ring festival. We did the Rock Em Park, Rock Em

(01:27:07):
Ring with with Kid Rock and LimpBizkit was the headline and Bob
went on about right before them.So I had run my show with Bob
and in was it the Nuremberg one?And then after it was over, I
got down from front of house andI went backstage and talked to
everybody who gave a little handor whatever.
And then so myself and a couple of the band members and whatnot,

(01:27:28):
I wanted to go out to front of house to watch Limp Bizkit.
We hadn't hadn't seen them yet. And so as we were working our
way up the outside, I started losing people as we got closer
because it was getting thicker and thicker in the crowd.
And, and eventually I just lost everybody.
And I was all by myself trying to get through the crowd to
front of house. And I could see front of house

(01:27:50):
and I was almost there and but it was really, really tight.
I was working my way through allthe people and all of a sudden I
just burst out into the open andI was like, what the heck, I'm
just standing here in the open and then out of nowhere, just
Wham, right upside the head justgot clocked.
And I'm laying there and I'm looking up and I can see all

(01:28:11):
these guys, people dancing around me in the pit.
And I'd walked right into the middle of a pit and not even
knowing what I was doing. And that is so funny.
Yeah. And so I stood up, you know, try
and bam, just got drilled again.And I rolled over and I tried to
get up and bam, I got drilled again.
Oh. No, so I got a got an eye on
front of house and I just stood up and I sprinted into the crowd

(01:28:32):
at the edge of the pit and just rocketed through, grabbed my
laminate, threw it up and yelledat the scooter.
Get Me Out of here. Get me.
That's hilarious. Guy grabbed me, lifted me over
the barricade. Yeah, did you know Tim Brennan?
Tim Brennan. Cinema services and then PRG in
Vegas. I met him, but I don't.
Know I wouldn't say that well his family owned cinema services

(01:28:53):
and then they sold cinema services to PRG and he went on
for years with PRG. He he passed away a few years
ago, but that. Would be back, back when I was
working with with PRG, yeah. Yeah, I took Tim to.
Where were we going? I think we were going to the
Plaza show in London, but I had a bunch of lights.

(01:29:15):
Peter Morse was doing Michael Jackson and it was starting in
Prague and I had a bunch of lights on it.
And I said, hey, do you want to go see Michael Jackson in
Prague? We can just kind of go there and
then pop over to London after that.
And he was like, yeah, I want togo there.
I've never been to Prague. I want to go.
I want to see Michael Jackson. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(01:29:35):
So he was all jazz. So we went to Prague and.
And Peter, before the show started, said, why don't you
come back with your guest and, and I'll introduce you to the to
the artist. And I was like, Oh yeah, that'll
be cool. I think Tim will be pretty
impressed meeting Michael Jackson and and, you know,
having a moment. So it was in a field with a

(01:29:57):
fence around it that they created a venue out of,
basically, and it was like 125,130 thousand people.
First show of the tour, first tour in a long time for Michael
Jackson. The which tour?
Was it dangerous? Maybe?
No, I don't remember. But anyways, so we're backstage,

(01:30:18):
we meet the artist, we have a nice conversation with him, and
then Peter's like, you better get going.
The show's going to start in about 20 minutes and it'll take
you a while to get back to fronthouse.
And I said, OK, no problem. So we go like to go from
backstage to front of house. It was, I don't know, maybe 100
yards or something to get out tofront of house.

(01:30:38):
But there's 125,000 people and 90% of them don't speak any
English. And so, you know, we're trying
to go, we're going against, you know, away from the stage.
You'd think that people wouldn'tfight you, but these people have
been camped out waiting to get in there for like 2-3 days in
some cases, right? And you're not getting my spot

(01:31:02):
like they were, they meant war over this, right, Like you are
not getting money. So we're holding up our
laminates and we're holding hands because I was afraid we
were going to one of us had falland you'd never see him again,
right. So we're holding up our
laminates and and going through this crowd and people are like
yet, you know, or whatever, likethey're just fighting you.
And I was literally afraid we were going to die.

(01:31:25):
And then like it was like a movie and you know, our hands
were holding hands. And then it's like, oh, his hand
slipped out of mine because I'm like pulling through and he's
getting pulled the other way or whatever.
I never saw him again until our flight the next morning, you
know, And if you knew Tim Brennan, you'd you'd laugh at
that because Tim Brennan was a little like Leon from, from

(01:31:46):
Lynyrd Skynyrd, right? And he had a great old time.
He was telling me the story the next morning.
I was scared to death. I'm like, I just lost one of my
biggest customers, you know, what am I going to do?
Like, what do I tell his family,you know, and.
And I had him and then he, his hands slipped.
He's the. Greatest time all by himself you

(01:32:06):
know and never made it to front of house never saw him until the
next morning for our flight. We met in the lobby before our
flight so yeah pretty crazy. So what's you know what's what's
the big challenge this year Is it gear people?
What are we struggling with? Well.
People has been been a challengethe last few years.

(01:32:29):
Like, you know, I, I really feellike we took a, a massive hit
with the pandemic. Yeah, yeah, unfortunately
everything kind of goes back to like the, you know, I, I, I put
it though, you know, the world ended, you know, in our, our
industry kind of ended for a little bit there in 2020.
And then, yeah. So, but I looked at it and I

(01:32:49):
look at it as like we didn't just lose a lot of people that
kind of like left the industry and didn't come back.
But we also had two years where we weren't really bringing in a
whole lot of new people. Like there would have been all
of those during that two years, there would have been a whole
lot of people that came into theindustry that did.
Not. So we didn't have those younger
people coming up and we lost a lot of the older, more
experienced people. So it has been challenging, I

(01:33:12):
find crew wise. And then, you know, some of the,
some of the larger tours, like, you know, you take a Taylor
Swift or, or a Beyoncé or any ofthose, they suck up a lot of
people, you know, So there isn'tthat like, you know, back in the
day, a large tour was a, was a five or six person lighting

(01:33:32):
crew. Now it's like, you know, 20, you
know, there's you're all over a stadium and you're there for
days. You know, now it's, it's,
there's a lot and there's a lot more integration with video,
sound and everything else. So there's a lot of people,
there's a lot more logistics to it.
So if you're doing a smaller tour, it only needs like 4

(01:33:56):
people or so It's it's tougher to find a crew I find
interesting. Yeah.
So people, it's been a tough one.
Rates have gone a little wild. As well.
For some of these people, so. Some of them went went a little
ridiculous. Yeah, I think some of it's come
back to Earth a little bit because I.
Saw an argument I saw, you know,go figure an argument online.

(01:34:19):
But I saw a discussion online about rates and basically
someone's argument and I can't remember what his role was or
anything, whether he was a lighting tech or a video tech or
something. But his argument was the artists
are making more money, so so should I and, or ticketmasters

(01:34:40):
making more money or live nations making more money.
Why shouldn't I? And, you know, I really wish
that that's how the world operated, but it just doesn't
like, you know, the economy doesn't always trickle down.
You know, sometimes it stays near the top, you know, and, and
so, yeah, I mean, I understand like if, if there's a lot more

(01:35:02):
money being generated through ticket sales or through, you
know, these convention shows, conferences or whatever, if
there's a lot more money being generated, certainly the good
companies are going to share that revenue with, with their
teams. But I wouldn't say that it's a
given just because like Taylor Swift is getting, you know,
$500.00 for a concert ticket or whatever, like.

(01:35:24):
Right, that doesn't. Necessarily mean you're going to
make 300 grand this year, Sir, you know.
No, and that's that there is that issue.
There's the, you know, 'cause you know, most, most of your,
your, you know, like you can sell out arenas, but you know,
most, most of your, your, you know, steady touring bands
aren't continuously selling out arenas.

(01:35:46):
You know, they're at three Quarter House and, you know, and
they've taken a deal from Live Nation to get a flat rate.
And Live Nation is the one that's taking the risks because
the artist is getting paid a flat.
And, you know, so there's the budgets are kind of set right.
The artist gets paid a flat amount.
There's a flat amount for production, you know, there's a
flat amount for lights, for sound.

(01:36:08):
And so you've only got so much money to work with when it comes
to the labor, you know, So you can either, you know, it's kind
of like building a hockey team, right?
Like you can either pay for the,you know, really flashy crew
chief and then put three guys below him that that aren't
necessarily, you know, or you try to get an average crew chief
and a decent second and a coupleof new guys that that are going

(01:36:30):
to work for a little bit less. But you know, at the end of the
day, it's all going to fit in that that box, that budget,
right, so. Do you, do you or does Christy
have like a strategy or philosophy on bringing in and
and working with younger techs like bringing in new talent and
training them and you? Know, we, we did some training
session stuff in Europe and some, some industry mental

(01:36:54):
health stuff as well. But we are actually, we run a
full, a full time tech program. So we have people that work full
time and then they, you know, under their contract, they have
to work so many hours or gigs and but they get, you know, they
get a steady paycheck, they get,they get benefits and whatnot.

(01:37:18):
So that's all you know, that's always a big one is, is benefits
and whatnot, because you know that that can cost you a lot of
money outside. And it's not as much like like
in the old days, everybody was, was very freelance.
It was very, it was, you know, you worked for the same company
all the time, but you were, you were freelance.

(01:37:40):
And nowadays there's so much more emphasis on, on wanting to
have benefits and whatnot, like,you know.
I think it's good for the employee and for the company.
You know, it's good for both sides to have that regular
relationship, you know, as opposed to just grabbing
freelancers. When I started in the business,

(01:38:01):
it was, you know, we were pirates, you know, it was like,
and there was a certain pride that you took in being the, you
know, like, yeah, it was a really hard job and you worked
really hard and you did some pretty stupid stuff sometimes
just to make the show go on, right.
But you were also, you were likeone of those special people that
could do it. Like I saw lots of people try
and and fail that, that trying to go on tour.

(01:38:23):
You know, the, there's, there's a lot to it that, that you know,
and even to this day that there's a a guy online that's
really wants to try to change the industry and make it more
focused on mental health and, and on having benefits for
people and full time. And then his argument is like
you say that people have it doesn't have to be this way.

(01:38:45):
You know, there is enough money out there that people could get
proper benefits and proper mental health care and and
whatnot because. But you know, there's he's gonna
he is getting a lot of pushback because, you know, there's those
of us that that always felt we were kind of like the special
people that could do it. Yeah.
And, and I think that that's always going to be there and you

(01:39:09):
know well. Plus the other thing is you.
Every business runs their economics different.
And you know, you can't just assume that if Christie has this
much money leftover at the end of a gig, so does this company.
So does this company, so does this company.
Like I, I've always hesitated tojump into other people's pockets

(01:39:29):
and, and tell them what they canafford to spend today.
You know, so like, I, I think every company just has a
different way of operating theirbooks and a different way of, of
capturing revenue or, or profitsor whatever.
Like, they may pay more for their lights, but charge less,
and therefore you've got a skinnier margin.
And what are you going to do, you know?

(01:39:51):
So yeah. And you make your decisions,
right? Like I, I remember the, the last
time that I ever did a steel call where, you know, climb,
climbing steel and building the steel for Lollapalooza or
something like that. And.
I looked at what I was getting paid, what I, what they were
supplying for, for lunch and, and, and meals because, you

(01:40:11):
know, you have to be on site. Yeah.
And I kind of just went, you know, I'm past this.
I'm not doing this anymore. I don't get enough money to be
running up a pass, you know, running a pass line up with
steel and and pounding it in in the hot sun all day long.
Yeah. And then get an egg salad
sandwich for lunch, you know. So I just finally this is.

(01:40:32):
Not my perfect life anymore. No, I'm, I'm, I'm done.
I, I, I'm not getting paid enough to do this And, and I
don't need to be doing this. So, you know, I don't mean that
to sound egotistical, but it wasno, no, but it was a point in my
life where I decided that this part was behind me and I was not
going to do that. It's a sensible decision.
You know, it's funny. A couple weeks ago I had Roy

(01:40:53):
Bickel. I don't know if you know who he
is, but. I remember Roy.
Godfather of rigging and he he still takes jobs.
He's in his 80s and he still does the occasional job, like
his kids are both in the business and they'll call him up
and say, hey, dad, you want to be the head rigger on such, such

(01:41:13):
and such. And he's like, yeah, you're
coming through Vegas. Sure, I'll do it.
You know, I mean it. It's hilarious.
Like he doesn't climb anymore, but you know, he'll he'll
engineer it and whatever. Like he'll do the the other
stuff where you're not climbing.But it's so impressive that, you
know, in his 80s, he's still andhe doesn't need the money.
You know, he's just attracted still to the business.

(01:41:35):
You know, he, he loves the adrenaline he gets from it, I
guess the energy. Yeah, he, yeah.
And, and he's a legend, you know?
Yeah, one of the one of the originals.
Oh hell yeah. Such a nice guy too.
It's funny because Sarah, after the interview, she stayed on on
with him and I had to go to a meeting or something and he

(01:41:56):
showed her around his swag room and she said I've never seen
anything like it. Like he's got all kinds of Elvis
stuff, you know, that's like a one off piece of Elvis stuff,
you know? And like his swag has to be
worth 10s of thousands of dollars, you know, or whatever.
I don't even know what number itis, but he's just got insane

(01:42:17):
stuff. It's just really, really cool.
But Speaking of Speaking of old people like us, what keeps you
motivated after being in the business for what is it 40 years
or something? Yeah, it's good. 40 years now,
Yeah, yeah, I like, I like what I do.

(01:42:40):
It's interesting because I neverlike a lot of people say yo
though you, you got out or you got off the road or whatever.
I was never trying to get off the road.
I I looked at other possibilities, but I loved what
I, what I did, you know, like I say, I loved when I was crew
chiefing for, for, for bigger gigs.

(01:43:02):
I like, I loved standing out andlooking at the rig when it was
all up and in the air and all working and going like, yeah, I
got that to happen, you know, and, and when I got to run a
rig, I just, I loved running lights.
That that's was, was always the biggest thing to me when I
started in the business, even back in the, you know, going
back to the club days when you had 24 park hands and one rack
AC LS. But I, I loved doing the doing

(01:43:25):
the doing lights. I loved the music, but I was
always focused on the fact that it was a job.
Like earlier you were talking about being a musician and and
figuring that you weren't going to make anything.
I was, I never ever claimed to be part of the band.
That was a big thing to me was that I'm not in the band.

(01:43:45):
I work for the band. And and so I could always kept
it very cognizant that I worked for me, not for them.
They were. They were a client to me.
Even if they were my friends andwe traveled together and did
lots of things together, they were still they still.
They still had to pay you at theend of the game.
It wasn't like a line of blow and a couple beers and you're
good, right Rod? Yeah, no, no, no, no hot dog and

(01:44:09):
AT shirt. You know, yeah, exactly.
Exactly. But but, you know, I, so I, I
enjoyed my, my career. I enjoyed being on the road and
I really liked doing it. When I took the job at Christie
Lights originally as an operations manager, I didn't
enjoy, I enjoyed getting the theplace up to an efficiency level.

(01:44:32):
I liked being the boss because it was kind of like being a crew
chief without being on the road.Yeah, but I didn't like to
commute. I didn't like having to commute
to work every day. I hated that.
And that's when I realized that I didn't want to that just a
reason I had been a roadie my whole life.
And that was I don't like this part of the of the life.
And the 9 to 5 was a little much.
So when I became an account manager, it was kind of ended up

(01:44:55):
being a dream come true. It's like I I still get to
travel. I still get to go see my
friends. I get to go hang out, but I
don't have to get on a bus anymore.
Yeah. So.
So I really enjoy what I do. People that say ask me if, you
know, you're going to retire. You know, I'm 62 now, so.
And I'm like, I may never retire.
Yeah. I might be like Roy.

(01:45:15):
I would say, well, you know, I just want to fish more and golf
more. Yeah, I had that conversation
with Roth the other day actually, because he just turned
70 and and he said, you know, I'll re look at it at 75, You
know, right now I love what I'm doing.
I love who I work with, the people like my clients and the

(01:45:36):
shows that I'm doing and that kind of stuff.
And you know, he said, I'll lookat it again when I'm 75.
I could retire. I have enough money.
I'm I'm OK, but I don't want to so.
And I don't think, you know, I've known Robert a long time
and I think Robert, Robert really enjoys it so much that

(01:45:57):
that, you know, like the whole part of the business, like the
succeeding and and whatnot that I don't think that he would
want, would, would ever not wantto be doing it.
Yeah, like that. That's what he loves to do.
You'd get bored awful quick, youknow, especially now that he
doesn't drink. Like if he still drank, you
know, he could just go visit, you know, expensive wine places

(01:46:17):
and stuff and just drink himselfinto oblivion.
But now that he doesn't drink, you know, how do you keep
yourself busy? You know, like, yeah, same with
me. Like, your mind can't just
suddenly shut off when you've been working your whole life and
you love what you do and you love who you do it with.
It's not really not really something that feels like work,
is it? Yeah, like, I mean, I love to

(01:46:38):
like, I like to fish, love, lovefishing and golfing and and, you
know, but you need the some sortof stimulation to keep, keep you
going and keep you moving. And like I said, I love what I
do. I love when I get to go to a
show now and and stand there andwatch somebody else do it, you
know? Yeah.
And I think to myself, I was like, you know, the last console

(01:46:59):
I ever programmed was a hog too,you know, Now I look at what
guys. What guys.
Yeah, I know. I look at what guys do on the on
the MA now, you know, and the way they interface all of the
video and everything Wild. Yeah.
And. And.
Well, you look at a show like the Eurovision and they have
like, I don't even remember how many it was.
It was like 50 of them or something MA threes and you're

(01:47:22):
like, what the hell. Like the network system that
they. Have to do.
That's gonna save the network piece, yeah.
It's wild, you know? I mean, I remember, you know,
having the pin patch, you know, getting into the heat, you, you
went out and did the pin patch on the AVO and you did your,
your pin patch in the in the dimmer rack.
And back in the days with, with the old RA Roth gear, you had

(01:47:44):
the, you had the weed box, you had another place to be
patching. You, you could actually patch
the Acls all together in the boxso you didn't have to do it,
which made for some great patterns when you had the pods.
And you could bring up 4 Acls that are in series, but that
that aren't LinkedIn a bar, right?
So, yeah, yeah. But you know, I, I looked back,

(01:48:05):
it was all hard wires and, you know, copper.
Yeah. You know, nowadays everything's
all on, on networking and stuff and, and I wouldn't even dream
to, to know how to, to get into all of that.
You know, it's like every once in a while I used to do AI used
to do sound for a friend's band or something.
If they, if they didn't have anybody to, you know, sit at the

(01:48:25):
sound board and turn up the solos and you know, do a sound
check or whatever. And I could make the drum sound
real good. I could make a band sound pretty
good on a 24 channel sound craftconsole, right?
But then it got complicated. Like I don't even know how to
turn on these, these digital consoles and all the plug
insurance and where's the rack of Eqs and stuff?

(01:48:46):
Oh, we don't have that. That's all plug insurance.
And I'm like, yeah, I'm out tapping out now.
See ya. Like, I remember, you know, Jim
Yakimoski, right? Yeah, of course.
Yeah, so Jim, Jim and I worked together back in the day, you
know, with a a band called the level in Vancouver and and boys
room back in the in the in the days and stuff and.

(01:49:07):
I was just talking to Kevin recently, like, I don't know, a
couple weeks ago or something. Just online.
We were having a conversation. Haven't seen him in forever.
Yeah, you know, I actually, I actually heard an interview one
time with with Jon Bon Jovi and he was talking about like being
in Vancouver and seeing this band that was so great.

(01:49:30):
And he said, man, this guy couldsing journey like like he was
Steve Perry. And then when I talked to him,
he said, you know, well where's your original songs?
And he said we don't have any original songs.
I was like, that was Kevin in Boys room.
Yeah, that's that he was talkingabout.
That's wild. Yeah, He, he was a good dude.
He was. He was a good singer and he came
to work for me for a while because he wanted to get off the

(01:49:52):
road and he was a terrible salesguy.
But but yeah, he was a good guy and he's still doing it.
He he sings for a band wherever he lives now.
Somewhere up north, I think, like.
Yeah, him and Craig from Simon Chaos.
They live up in Fort Saint John.Yeah, that's where it is, yeah.
Yeah, and they sound pretty good.
I I listened to a couple of videos online and they sounded

(01:50:14):
pretty good. Yeah, it does some good stuff.
But I remember Yakubuski told meyears ago, he said, you know,
when he first started out being a sound guy, he was trying
couldn't get the ringing and feedback and having all of this
trouble. And I think he was working for
bad dogs and heat or somebody like that.
And but anyway, he was at a clubin Calgary.

(01:50:35):
I forget the name of the club, but it used to have like the
penalty box was where you put the front of house lights and
sound. And but there was another club,
there was a Country Club and A and a rock club in the same
place. So he went over to the
countryside and was talking to the guy who was doing sound and,
and he looked over and he said, what's that?

(01:50:56):
That's my EQ, Kevin, didn't he or not Kevin?
Jim didn't know what an EQ, whatan EQ was like he was running
sound, but he didn't have a that's something.
How do you EQ the room? Right.
Like, yeah, totally had didn't have one of those.
Yeah, well, I got the bass here and I got the treble here.
It's all on the on the board. Just right here, these little
dials. That's how I do it.
Yeah, I remember he was. He was like the first guy who

(01:51:18):
figured out the sampling on the drums, you know, with the the
reverse gate on the snare drum and the the real clicky bass
drum with the trigger on it, thesample trigger.
He was the first guy that reallyfigured that out.
And then he told me at one pointthat that's that was one of the
reasons he got hired by Striper,because he knew how to work with

(01:51:39):
sampling and drug drum triggers and they wanted to get into
that. And, and so Jim got the gig.
Yeah. It's amazing.
Like, you know, and Jim and I, we got together last year.
We just for a minute in Nashville, you know, but it was
it was fun because, you know, wego back so, so long and it's
been, I've been 20 years since I've been off the road now.

(01:52:00):
Yeah. You know, my last, my last gig
was in 2006. So but and we were we were
talking about like, yeah, yeah, it's wild.
But you know, it's funny becausehe we were just just chatting
and you know, there were so manygreat crew guys that came out of
Canada from that era. You know, from that, like there

(01:52:22):
will never be another era like like the club scene of the 80s
in Western Canada. No, that was definitely not, you
know, that was. Well, even some of the
musicians, like the talent levelof some of the musicians that
were around, you know, look at Kearns, Todd Kearns, all the
gigs that he's doing still, you know, like he's doing really
well. Yeah.

(01:52:42):
And I remember electric real well.
Yeah. And I was in a club band.
I was doing lights for a club band that Todd was was in.
And he wasn't even the singer. He sang some of the songs, but
he was, you know, bass player had that tiny little, little
bass there and big gigantic hair.
I'm sure he'd, if I ever posted a picture of him with his
gigantic hair, he'd probably come.
Want to come shoot me. Yeah.

(01:53:05):
You know, and even like the bandthat they have together with,
Yeah. You know, I remember meeting,
meeting Corey Churko, like, way back, Yeah, when they were in
their family band with their whole family.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Playing a medicine, playing a
Medicine Hat. And yeah, they played upstairs,
we played downstairs and and in the band house, they stayed

(01:53:27):
upstairs and we stayed downstairs.
Funny, though. That's funny.
Well, Rod, I've had you for way too much of your day.
You got to go sell something, I'm sure, and I appreciate it.
I enjoy talking with you and youeven took a couple hockey shots,
which is good. And you know, I try to keep it
to a minimum. I don't like to, you know, what

(01:53:48):
I always find is when you rub itin real hard, it's coming back
to you twice as hard, you know, So I'm generally pretty gentle
about that kind of stuff. I don't think I harassed you too
much online or anything either. So, you know, I've lost way more
games in sports than than I've won or my teams anyways.
And so I I remain. Sports fans everywhere next

(01:54:09):
year. Next.
Yeah, Yeah. Well, you have an amazing time
and I don't know when I'll see you, but probably LDI, I guess.
Yep, Yep. We're planning on coming down.
Cool. All right, Ryan.
Awesome. Thanks so much again.
You as well. We'll see you.
This episode is brought to you by Gearsource.
Gearsource was founded in 2002 with an ambitious mission to

(01:54:31):
support live event businesses buy and sell gear globally.
Since that time, the company hastransacted in more than 100
countries, selling 1/4 billion dollars in sound, lighting,
staging and video. Gear.
Gear Source continues to evolve the platform for global growth,
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#319 - Rod "Red" Gibson - Evolution of the Event Industry

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#319 - Rod "Red" Gibson - Evolution of the Event Industry