1979 - An Empty Room

The echos, the smells, the expectant feeling in the air that something... something is going to happen.

1979 – An Empty Room

I love an empty room.

The rooms, in this case, are sports arenas, bars, theatres, churches, symphony halls, stadiums and sports fields. Early in my adult/teen life I became intimately associated with good-sized empty rooms or venues that would soon be filled with people. I remember trying to serenade a young lady over the public address system in an empty church as we were preparing for a presentation by our youth group. The pure tones and the echo of those pure tones off walls and sound folds that have been located specifically to carry sound through a room full of soft bodies… the soft bodies that tend to soak up this sound and mute those pure tones into a pleasant cacophony of harmonic tones and overtones that compliment each other and blend into what we generally call music or, sometimes, speech. It was those pure tones I fell in love with.

Having parents that were entertainers, be it musicians, dancers or taking a turn at public speaking, I visited quite a few rooms that would have been restricted if patrons had been present. The smell of an empty bar or the room where the Moose Club Saturday night dance would be held offered sights, smells and sounds that are not particularly seen or appreciated by the general public. Someone has to prepare these venues for the event and I was fortunate to be one of those assisting in the set-up from early years.

My first exposure to a truly big room awaiting a full audience was in 1966 when dad was a Division Manager for Confection Cabinet, which supplied popcorn, sodas, & candies for theatres and sporting events. His Chicago area manager had been out with a death-in-the-family so dad was tasked with preparing the Cheetah Club for the weekend’s festivities. The space, being much larger than the, then, current clientele could fill, was partitioned with curtains, false walls and “Do Not Enter” signs to limit the size so when the club was open and operating it would appear to be packed full. As it was a Saturday and I had asked if I could go, dad had let me come along. I wandered around the sets and false-fronts that partitioned the active part of the club with the remainder of this large room. Before taking a turn as one of 3 or 4 “Cheetah Clubs” in the US, this location had previously, and would eventually return to, it’s longtime venue as the Aragon Ballroom. The Aragon had been built in 1926, near the end of prohibition, and was known to be “the place to go” for big-name acts. It maintained its reputation for the next 30-years as the place where the upper crust went for music, dance and champagne. Holding over 1,800 patrons, and placed near the “L” it was easy to access. Over the years the neighborhood had become Chicago’s version of “skid-row’ and, following the 50’s, only the young sub-culture of the middle 60’s was able to bring it back to a halfway desirable neighborhood. Piper’s Alley, the Chicago hippie hangout was not far away and, although a walk down these neighborhoods streets could still be a bit of an adventure, it now included more foot traffic that assured a small raise in the safety of those forced to walk these streets. Early the next year the band I was not yet with would be invited to play the Cheetah as opening act for a hot new group called Buffalo Springfield and the second group a small unknown 4-piece band (keyboard, drums, bass and guitar) called Chicago Transit Authority. In short order both of these groups would hit high levels of success that consistently eluded me throughout my musical career. Buffalo Springfield would have several hits before members moved on to other successful groups like Poco, Loggins & Messina and Crosby, Stills and Nash. Chicago Transit Authority would shortly add a horn section to the group which would give them a unique sound and, with the name shortened to Chicago, would carry on to multi-generational success.

When open for business the room was low lit to focus attention on one of the 3 stages but, during the day-time, it was entirely different and all work-stations were clearly exposed under the white working-lights. A bar separated the general seating/dance area from the entry area of the club and a large section, called The Lounge, outside the dance hall where patrons less desirable of an intimate encounter with the current on-stage act could sit and party with each other and still communicate with more than hand-gestures which, due to the volume, was about the only means of communication inside the hall. Comfy couches surrounded small tables here and inside the dance area where they were placed liberally in accessible areas around the parameter of the dance floor as well as packing the short balcony 3-tables deep. A third level of balcony was blocked off from access by a simple curtain that hid this stairway as well as most of the backstage area. This higher balcony completely unlit and hidden by the shadows of the main club area was a perfect vantage to invisibly watch the action below. As I was still too young to participate, this was where I spent my evening watching sweaty dancers and hard-working bands do their “thing” under my watchful eye. We returned home, with me sound asleep, sometime after midnight but I’m sure I dreamt the night away reliving my evening and the adventure of being backstage at a big “adult” event.

Setting up San Diego’s Convention Center (not the current one) for a concert with George Benson was a thrill as this was the room in which I had seen my first big-name concert: Jethro Tull. Within the same year I would also enjoy The James Gang as well as Blood and Sweat and Tears in this venue. I was well familiar with the room when it was full of people but setting up equipment on a stage where I had seen many of my favorite performers was a thrill in itself. Working this large room, and knowing I was going to have major influence on the event was stunning for a young man finding himself performing the kind of work (anything in entertainment) to which I had long aspired. There was the echo in the air that seemed to speak of its readiness for the oncoming crowd. Although chairs were only halfway setup I stood on the stage and took it all in from the same elevated vantage point that the entertainers that evening would enjoy. Although I maintained a professional appearance, inside I reveled in the size and ambiance of this marvelous space.

The oldies show that Concert Sounds worked in Bakersfield, outside LA, reminded me a lot of the Cheetah ballroom in its size but the room was open and vast with little in decoration. In Bakersfield the room was actually almost twice the size but the sounds, the smells, the very feel of the air spoke of the impending event and the vast crowd that would be arriving within a very few hours. Here we would be doing sound for The Imperials, The Penguins, Paul & Paula, Rosie and The Originals as well as several other less-remembered acts that were backed up by a bunch of studio musicians from LA that would be the House-Band for the evening. This house-band was fronted by Paul Shaffer (of Dave Letterman keyboard fame) who played drums for this session. The headliner was Flash Cadillac and the Continental Kids who performed their hit, the theme song from the TV show Happy Days, as well as several standard oldies as a gang of surly 50’s era tuffs, looking like they just walked off the set of the, then, future movie “Grease.” Although similar to another “clean-cut” group of the time Sha Na Na, they clearly displayed the difference when Flash strode on stage with a leather jacket and an Arthur Fonzirelli attitude. Spraying his mouth full of water (gulped from a Schlitz beer can) into the crowd he gave ‘em all the upraised arm crossed with the opposite hand cutting the elbow in a Milwaukee style “AAY, UP YOURS!” All of that was still to come later that evening as I drank in the feeling of expectation that almost vibrated in its nervous wait for the upcoming evening.

Then there were all of the bars… bars have a unique smell and sound completely different when the lights are on and the patrons are still preparing for their evening out. Usually the overhead fans, that desperately attempted to keep the air breathable when full of people, are on and blowing a unique scent throughout the room. In most bars the ceiling is fairly low when compared to a large musical venue and the sounds and echoes off the walls reflect this smaller, intimate and yet somewhat more active feeling then in a concert venue. The echo in the air is unique in itself but the smell of old beer, too many packed bodies, old cigarettes, spilled mixed drinks and shots of whisky is always present. It is simply more obvious when the fans can be actually felt as they blow out stagnant air from inaccessible corners and from under tables that will get absolutely no air when the club or bar is open. There always seems to be a corner where someone had been sick in the recent past and the weekly/monthly carpet crew or floor polishers had not yet arrived for they’re periodic clean up. All of this mixes together in smells and sound that are well representative of the evening to come without revealing at all exactly what that evening might be.

Setting up equipment in a large outside venue, whether AAA baseball field or Qualcomm Stadium, is distinctly different from an indoor event. Outside, I often feel I’m being watched. After all, in a huge outdoor stadium there are thousands of seats and dozens of entryways. In a large stadium there are personal boxes for high rollers and stadium office windows that overlook the playing field. At an inside venue the sense is completely different. There may be several people there with you but, more than likely, you can see every one of them and, because you can see them working, no one appears to paying any attention to a single individual. No invisible watchers, no critical owners, no hidden union rep looking for a reason to fine the contracting company. There is an echo, regardless of the size of the room, when the room is designed for sound and an audience. The solitude of an empty room speaks to me in a quiet, but strong voice.

A stadium is a substantially bigger room with no roof in the case of Qualcom Field, known when I worked this event, as Jack Murphy Stadium. As we were mostly busy working, laying foundation supports for towers, which would hold huge sets of speakers and lights, I didn’t have any time to look around until most of our equipment was trucked in and lifted into place. Running speaker and microphone cords, re-aligning the aim of the speakers, and monitors, hooking up the sound board and running extension cords took up most of the morning and early afternoon so I was unable to just take it all in until we completed assembly and were ready for sound checks. At that point, as I had little to do except to re-locate mics when required or requested, I was able to look out across the vast field and appreciate the size of the “room” we were about to fill with sound. Standing on the 50-yard line and surveying the 60,000 seats, all facing in my direction was a feeling not to be repeated.

Of course, following most events, an army of workers descends upon the room to empty it back to its former self. Seats are folded and stored away, bleachers are folded back into their storage places and any sound or lighting equipment is packed up and ready to be loaded onto the truck. The stage is clear and the only thing left is the debris left over from the crowd and an echo of what has been…

…And the impending echo of what will be.