I was fortunate enough to get my first shot of the Moderna vaccine a week ago. My arm wasn’t too sore, no side effects from first shot, but they say the second one is the one that will get me. We’ll see. Whatever it is, it will be worth it. Everyone in my band “Hooteroll?” is at over well over 50 years old. As I’ve mentioned before, we had an awesome house gig twice a month the past five years until the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the venue in Nashville. That gig at Acme Feed and Seed is a good one and comes with a first-class sound and lighting system and house sound man who is awesome. They want us back and offered us dates from April through December. And after a year now with no gigs, we are all eager to play again – that is, after we get the second shot, and the entire band is vaccinated. It is a big stage; the band will have enough distance from each other and plenty from the audience. Even post-vaccine we will likely mask up when we are on a break and take every precaution. No gig is worth getting sick.
What other safety considerations are we going to have to think about, as working musicians, that your customers are also going to need to consider? My first thoughts turn to any equipment provided by the venue’s sound system. What provided front or backline do I want to perhaps begin to bring, myself, to insure that only I have touch or used it. Of course, the first of those thoughts related to my microphones. My vocal mic, in particular, is something I don’t want to share under these new conditions. The fewer things that I can touch that somebody else has to touch now, the better. This means I will likely start bringing my own mic, cable, and stand, and plug everything in myself to the stage’s snake system. I likely will do the same thing with the mic for my guitar amp. This means I will need to make a microphone purchase, not because an SM57 won’t work great – it will – but my particular “hard trucker” style of guitar cabinet contains uncovered vintage K120 JBL speakers. Once before, we used an SM57 on it, and at the end of the night while tearing down, I accidently tipped the mic stand holding the SM-57 into one of my JBLs. It was an original speaker, never been re-coned. The SM-57 shot through it like a missile. Not only did I have to pay stupid tax and get a re-cone done on my precious minty-fresh NOS JBL, but it will now forever be a re-coned speaker.
What works best with the least possible projectile potential, if the mic stand is tipped over again, is a flat microphone. On the low end, that would be something like a Sennheiser e 609 Silver. About twice the cost would be the Sennheiser e906. Being flat, they can safely just hang over the front of an amp cabinet without the need for a stand at all, but even on a stand, the potential for damage is reduced if the stand tips. There are some similar form factor microphones that are cheaper than even the Sennheiser e 609, but I draw the line at super low-end when I need a good, clean, accurate representation of what my amp gig sounds like pushed through the PA system. I’m not bringing an expensive large diaphragm condenser microphone to any gig, so that rules out the AKG series. Knowing myself fairly well, I will likely be buying my own Sennheiser e 906, and bringing it, with a cable, along with my own Shure SM58, stand and cable for my vocals. That would cover any of the gear owned by the venue that I would have to come in contact with directly. I’m not a germophobe, but I just don’t want to risk anything when it is already risking enough to go, even vaccinated, into downtown Nashville’s Lower Broadway tourist district and perform. We still don’t know what variants of this virus are going to surface and how much the Moderna, Pfizer, or other vaccines are going to protect against them.
For your customers looking at going back to live performance, now is a great time to think of items like these that they may want to bring (and not share!) when venturing back out. If they already bring their own PA, this really isn’t an issue, but if they use a house system, well, I don’t have to tell you there is no sanitizing system in place for microphones tossed into storage after each gig and used by a different band or two each night. For those bringing their own PA who might have guests sitting in and singing, now’s a great time to sell them a guest mic setup, too. I really am looking forward to hauling way too much gear, the costs of which I will never recoup from gigging, back to downtown Nashville and playing again. It’s what I do, and what I haven’t been able to do. I’m ready to do it again.
