How do you spell M-O-N-I-T-O-R?

[Alain Benoit]

Just this past summer on the boardwalk I spent a few weekends doing monitors for festival style gigs.
This specific instance came back to me as I was reading through Roach's thread on relations between the monitor engineer and the musicians on deck at soundcheck time.
As the 'festival' style would didctate we were doing a quick line check and monitor levels during turnovers as the respective bands were getting ready to start their set.

The next act up I'd heard the name once but never had the honour of seeing them prior to that day. They were young looking, very young. They were all very well dressed and definitely had that look of being from the Valley. Their look also kinda gave me a Weezer vibe. I had the feeling I would like these guys. By the way collectively speaking their instruments were nothing I would throw away by any stretch of the imagination.

Well as the previous band had finally cleared their gear off the deck and "Weezer" seemed to be getting closer to having their shit plugged in and tuned, I decided to announce my presence from the monitor beach to their wedges via my talkback mic. "Gentlemen, may I have have your attention my name is Al and I'll be mixing minitors for you tonight".
They all looked at each other and then one member on stage left sheepishly waved in the general direction of the FOH booth where Weatherstation was. At this point I decided to perform a little experiment. To make a long story short I performed an entire monitor soundcheck including the "up a little, up a little woops, now back down a little OK that's good perfect" bits and all. The entire time with the aux send masters MUTED !! I mean the wedges may as well have been papier mache replicas for all the good they were doing the band. In a little over 5 minutes the band including the drummer had in their opinion perfect monitor levels and relative mixes achieved. Who am I to piss on their parade.
Once the M.C. got off deck and the band was a few measures into their first tune I unmuted the outputs and slowly brought the bus faders to a nominal level of a mix I judged would let everyone hear everyone else fairly equally, giving emphasis of course to the lead vocalists. I also let the drummer feel a little of his own love in the form of kick and snare since I had headroom to spare for him. It seems to me that the drummer was the only one to even have registered the slightest response when the wedges came to life.
I think its fair to say that this was their first performance with stage monitors of any consequence. After their set as I am wrangling them off stage I always ask for 'feedback' as to how the band's onstage sound was and they informed me that they seemed to think it was 'allright I guess'. Why did I even bother you ask? Cause I care I guess, it's my job, that is what I get paid to do and ultimately I always wanna do everything I can to better anyone's musical experience, besides although I wonder if anyone in the band could have spelled monitor they were all ideed very nice and polite.

Man I wish they were all this easy.

[Malcolm Boyce]

...I always ask for 'feedback' as to how the band's onstage sound was...

I always wonder... Is it proper etiquette to ask a monitor tech if he got any "good feedback" on the job???

[Malcolm Boyce]

I once deleted my entire monitor mix for a band between soundcheck and show. Didn't realize until the house opened...

The sound check wasn't the most painful ever, but was tedious in the satisfy them at all cost kinda way.

The irony was that I was able to reset by memory, to the best of my ability, and the band went on without ever knowing what happened.

The mind boggles...

[roachie]

...as long as they don't say "make it sound like the mains"... that makes me mental... I'd have no problem giving the band "nothing", so long as they know that I'm available to give them at least "something"...

[Mathieu Benoit]

...as long as they don't say "make it sound like the mains"... that makes me mental...

I am that guy...!

[roachie]

Can I play the "french" card, or just stick it back to the bottom of the deck...

[Alain Benoit]

...as long as they don't say "make it sound like the mains"... that makes me mental... I'd have no problem giving the band "nothing", so long as they know that I'm available to give them at least "something"...

That one does not bother me one bit. It is often merely an acceptance of the fact that they are not experienced enough to know exactly what they want but know they need to hear something. In which case I am happy to oblige them with what I know they can use thus giving them the benefit of my experience.
The other side of that coin is when they are not willing to admit that they have no idea what they need and ask for nonsensical things that in reality help no one, that is way more frustrating and assisnine.