Radio Ga Ga

I don’t know whether it was the venue or if we just had too many wireless devices running at once (5 sets of in-ears, three guitars and one bass all trying to connect at once!) but I found it almost impossible to hear anything through my in-ear monitors. If you listen to the very start of “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd, you’ll have some idea of what I was hearing for most of the night. Every so often I’d find a “sweet spot” and the crackling would stop but, invariably, one of the others would move slightly and the interference would be back.
I managed to get through most of the gig, more by sensing the vibrations through the floor than actually hearing what I was playing. And any time our guitarists ran out into the crowd to show off, I’d come and stand at the front of the stage (as per photo) where I could actually hear the PA. So I know that it sounded good out front, it was just me having real problems. At one point, all I could hear was the keyboards, and I hadn’t even got them in my monitor mix at all, so no idea what was happening there!
And, just to add insult to injury, my bass suddenly went totally silent at one point. The only wire I had in the entire set up - the DI cable - had vibrated loose and no sound was at all was reaching the PA! It was definitely a frustrating night with many highs and lows from a playing point of view. But the audience loved it, we got through it without too many cock-ups, and I actually got a perverse sense of satisfaction from being able to produce an acceptable performance despite all the problems.
So it’s a visit to the music shop tomorrow. At the very least I need a new XLR cable, but I’m hoping they can also come up with a solution for my monitoring issues. Could be a different (better?) transmitter and receiver is required. Or maybe a powered speaker so I have a physical backline presence. Or maybe both. Either way, it looks like that gas bill will have to wait…