I really should be in bed right now, but just as I was finishing up for the night -- having watched an episode of The X-Files while snacking on nachos -- I got a text message from our system monitoring service that a major client server was down. After investigating I had to rouse the the troops and get someone onsite.

I'm currently waiting for one of our guys to visit the colocation facility where this server is at so why not finish up from my last Fozzolog?

A second visit to Steamboat Springs

There were so many things better about our second visit to Steamboat Springs. The weather counting for many of them. We loaded in while the sun was still out and that means a lot. Everyone was helpful and very excited to have us there.

We really messed up on the scheduling, though. I had told Patrick -- the lighting engineer -- we'd probably be there around 1:00 in the afternoon. He requested that we be there as early as possible to go over the show. We didn't pull into town until closer to 4:30 in the afternoon.

Part of the reason was because of the late night the evening before. A big part of the reason was because the decision was made for everyone to go sit down at a Dennys in Grand Junction. We had to wait quite a while for a table, for service, and then for our food.

When we finally got out of Dennys, Tim and Amanda went back to the Mesa Theater to look for a couple items they left the night before. Meanwhile, Matt, Juli and Daryn went off in search of a music store. Thom and I loitered outside the Dennys.

Fairly typical, I have to admit.

Once we got on the road, however, things moved more swiftly.

As I mentioned already, the guys at Levelz were awesome. Patrick had been itching to do this show for a few weeks -- He and I had talked on the phone about it two or three times. I knew he had put a lot of thought into how to light everything. The band was concerned there wouldn't be much draw because it was off-season. During load-in, I walked across the street to one of the resort village of shops and it was completely dead. Hardly any of the shops were open, let alone serving any customers. I had my doubts we'd have an audience of significant numbers.

Patrick reassured me and everyone else that everyone he knew was coming and that the show had been well promoted. When showtime came around, there were around 50 people in attendance and by the time the second set started, the room was full of 250 or so people and they were big fans of the music.

We're already lined up for a big in-season show at Levelz in January. I don't know if the room can hold twice as many people as it did last weekend, but if it can, I have a sneaking suspicion it may very well do so.

Levelz comes with a handful of techical challenges. For one, there's really no good place to put a projector screen. Last time, I gave up my wish of having the screen centered and behind the band and put it to the side of the drum riser. We placed the projector at the top of the speaker stack on one side of the stage. It was far from ideal because nearly a third of the audience had some kind of obstruction in their view of the screen.

This time, however, Patrick and I planned ahead. Patrick moved some lighting instruments on the rear electric to accomodate a screen hanging on a diagonal angle from the ceiling. People standing in front of the stage would be looking straight up at the surface of the screen.

It worked perfectly. We mounted our projector on an unused monitor wedge near the front of the stage. Thom was on one side of the projector and Tim was on the other. It worked out really well.

The room at Levelz is not very well ventilated. I complained the last time we were there about how smoky the venue was but this time, I have no complaints. The room served as a very nice environment for our fog machine. Very little fog was needed to create a thick uniform medium for the lights to cut through.

The performance on Saturday night was at least a couple notches better than at Grand Junction. Before going onstage, everyone agreed to "focus!" and to make it a great show musically. It paid off, big time.

I got some spectacular pictures and some video. Amanda took many pictures too. You can see all the pictures on the SoN site, but here are some of my more favorite ones:

Juli	Money	Tim
Matt (w/ viz i background)	Juli's reloading the 'sheep gun' with another pig. I'm standing by with the plunger.