By Ronny North

This January I was honored to once again to be invited to perform on the Namm Stage at the 2017 Winter NAMM Show (National Association of Music Merchants). This year I was headlining the NAMM kick-off event. The holidays got in the way a bit during our preparations for the show, which is to be expected. The week before NAMM I like to get in at least a couple of tune up rehearsals with my band to make sure we’re ready. This year, the week before NAMM, we ran into some scheduling issues with my band members. It ended up that we were only going to be able to rehearse one day the week before and only for a couple hours. To further complicate things, we were going to have two special guests perform with us, and we were only going to be able to rehearse with one of them before the show.

As we came up on the first rehearsal, one of our special guest ran into some scheduling issues so we decided to hold off on her performance with us until another time when we could properly prepare. That was one less thing to worry about before show day. My band and I were able to really run through our NAMM set on our own that day and dial it in.

To complicate things a bit, the NAMM peeps were a little concerned about my stage volume. I offered to not use speaker cabs and go direct. To do this, my good friends at Two Notes Audio loaned me a Torpedo Live direct box unit that my rig could run through. On the Friday before NAMM, a friend and I went to my rehearsal studio and fired up my Big Rig (Rig #1 of my 3 main rigs; we had been rehearsing with my #2 rig).

Well, rig #1 is my big rig, enclosed in a very heavy flight case, that houses the amp and all the effects and my switching system to control everything. I hadn’t used the rig in months and only use this rig for big shows since it’s to impractical to use at small club gigs. We fired up the rig first through a speaker cab to make sure everything was function properly (it was..), then we plugged in the Torpedo Live and found a patch that sounded good with my rig. I quickly found a patch that worked (since we had little time, I just found a stock factory preset instead of creating a new one) and we were good. Luckily, after we left the studio, we were able to schedule one last rehearsal on Sunday (3 days before our NAMM performance). This was great because we could run through the set a couple times, and I could do it using my big rig to make sure everything was cool.

This is where it gets fun. Once we were at rehearsal on Sunday, we dove into our set and my rig was doing all kinds of not fun stuff… Patches were wrong, and there was a crazy buzz in the audio signal that sometimes overtook the main signal….totally not good… We got through it, but it was rough. I was a bit concerned, to say the least, since everything had worked perfectly just days before. To complicate things more, we decided to change the Song our other special guest was going to play with us. It was definitely a gamble since our guest already learned the original song choice, and there would be no chance to rehearse the song with him before the show. So, I sent him the new song, we chatted about it for a minute, and he was cool with it and said it wouldn’t be a problem. We also decided that if need be we could run through the song in my hotel the day of the show.

Ok, one issue down! Now on to the issues with my rig freaking out at rehearsals. Before we left rehearsal on Sunday, I isolated the issue to my pedalboard. A good thing since it would be much easier to troubleshoot that instead of the main rig. On Monday morning I pulled my pedal board out and set it up in my living room and decided to clean all the contacts and see if that would help. I cleaned everything up and ran the board into a small practice amp and I seemed to have fixed the issue. The Buzz was gone! I was relieved to say the least. But I wouldn’t be able to fire up the entire rig again until we were on stage at NAMM, right before we played, so there was a definite concern in the back of my head. On Tuesday, I attended a NAMM Pre-Party event all day and packed gear and clothes late into the night. Before I knew it, we were checking into our hotel on the day of the show.

As always, after I check in, I walked the floor at NAMM and checked in with sponsors. I then loaded in my rig at the venue with help from my road manager, Chuck. We put all my gear next to the stage so it was secure and in position to be set up an hour before we hit the stage. After we loaded in everything, my girlfriend Karen and I decided to do her B-Day dinner at Bennihanas down the street. While we were at dinner, I got a call from Nick Bowcott, our special guest performer. I walked outside from the restaurant, and we went over the song while he played the parts on the phone. Luckily, everything sounded good. and he had the parts down so I told him when I would be at the venue.

After dinner, I quickly changed, I stretched out a bit, and Karen and I walked to the venue. Once we arrived, Karen greeted our friends (I swear she’s more popular than I..lol..), and I quickly set up my rig, pulled guitars out and tuned them. I like to be early, and I arrived stage side an hour before we were scheduled to play. As I was setting up, I fielded texts from everyone, including band members checking in. After I got everything situated, I got to warm up a bit (always a plus ) while watching the band before us play from the side of the stage. During this time, all my guys showed up and also got ready. My guys were good since their backline was provided by NAMM. As I’m a little more picky, I bring my own rig.

When the opening band finished, we were ready to go and quickly got set up. We did have a little hitch with my drummer getting his mix right before we started, but we got it figured out, and before you knew it, we were diving into the first song. It all went great, and my rig worked perfectly! Plus we were on our game! Way too soon, it was time for our last song with our special guest. I introduced Nick on stage, and we dove into the song without a hitch. It all went great, and, best of all, the crowd dug it. Did I mention I also had press covering our performance? That’s always a plus for the band.  After we cleared the stage and got my rig packed up, I was finally able to sit, relax a bit, hang with friends and fans, and have a drink. Another one for the books….Oh yeah, now it was time to do the actual NAMM show for the next four days…. that’s a whole other story…..