I am joined by my partner Asmara in Zurich. She has flown out from London following her completion of her commitments to studying. From Zurich to Luzern driving took a couple of hours and we parked up outside the city in the camper van in what looked like the car park for an old peoples home.
The following day we woke following a stress free sleep and ventured into the beautiful lakeside City.
We parked up and managed to get into our hotel. The weather at this time was beautiful and the setting seemed perfect for my outside early evening concert – HOW IT WOULD CHANGE!!!!!
This festival for me was of the upmost importance. I had been booked many months before and based the majority of my 3 months mainland Europe trip around this. I was also sharing the festival billing with many “famous” names from the music world and weather or not I let it. That still becomes a factor on how one approaches a show.
The days performances for me would include 3 hours stage time. Divided into 3 sets. For the 1st time in years. I made some plans for what I would play and when. It was integral that I was punctual.
So we arrived at my place of performance. A massive outside area overlooking the lake and covered by an enormous roof that stretched out about 2 metres over hanging the stage. This looked and felt like a mighty grand location to play and set up with nerves and excitement.
Sadly this is when the weather turned nasty :(.
Within a matter of minutes the sun vanished behind black clouds and a storm picked up at a tremendous speed and people were running for somewhere dry. Unfortunately at this time I was left standing on the stage surrounded by electronics ready to begin my soundcheck. The rain and wind swept under the roof and drenched me my guitar and all the electronic equipment on the stage. With the help of Asmara I begun to dismantle everything with some hope of saving it from ruin. It was around now that I begun to get pretty damn stressed as the reality of the situation was hitting home. Maybe I won’t play today. Maybe I won’t play again on this tour. All my equipment is drenched.
None the less I moved everything inside and hoped for the best. I watched as water was pouring out of my power supply unit. We proceeded to take the equipment inside. Then we dismantled what we could and started drying everything with a cloth in the hope it was not broken.
Eventually after 30 mins of storm checking the stage was wiped dry and I once again set up. Soundcheck was rushed as my show was already due to start. I was a mess. Playing badly and with little discipline for the 1st couple of numbers. The sound was all over the place and I felt ready to cry by the end of set 1.
During the break I had a long talk with the sound man who was also stressed as his equipment too had taken the brunt of the weather.
He was very accommodating to my heightened stress levels and together we worked on tweaking the sound to work with the looping set up. From the start of set 2. Things became easier.
More photos of my show have been caught by Oliver Gutfleisch here: http://www.konzertfotos.ch/index-de.php?frameset=2&category=1539&page=3
Stuart O'Connor 