Mackie Gets Seattle's Capitol Hill Block Party Rockin'
Product evangelist Matt Redmon was live on the scene at Seattle’s preeminent indie fest, the Capitol Hill Block Party, just a few short weeks ago. Following is his account of this cool and unique event.
Blood Brothers rock the Main Stage on Friday, July 27th
Now hailed as the festival that sets the bar for all the other local music festivals, this was Mackie’s 7th consecutive Capitol Hill Block Party where we provided all of the sound equipment and crew for two stages, two days in a row. Of the CHBP, the Seattle P.I. says it’s “one of the most anticipated events among Seattle’s indie elite,” and they’re not wrong. All told, the total body count for attendees exceeded 40,000 fans of both local and internationally successful acts alike.
Hardworking Mackoids handled both the Main Stage and the Vera Stage once again, and hosted such acts as Silversun Pickups, The Cribs, Against Me!, Spoon, John Vanderslice, Blue Scholars, Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head and many, many more.
Brian Aubert of Silversun Pickups interacts with the crowd on Friday, July 27th
At the Main Stage, with an all-EAW rig driven by an Onyx 4080 at front of house, more than two-dozen channels of rock, rap and everything in between blasted the packed streets of one of Seattle’s most colorful neighborhoods. Quad Comp/Gates and Quad EQs were everywhere as well, and helped the 4880 at monitors drive the six EAW NT59s at the front of the stage. Also, several SA1530z loudspeakers over SWA2801z subwoofers acted as delay stacks, as there were several city blocks to fill with sound. Even our newest member of the sound reinforcement family, the SRM150, had a place at FOH as well as monitors, acting as a talkback device between engineers. Forking brilliant!
SRM150 rocks the Block Party as a talkback wedge
Over at the Vera Stage we ran both FOH and monitors with a TT System 32. In fact, our only cable run between the stage and the board was a single CAT-5… well, and one AC cable, but come on! Millennium amps powered S408 Tetrad tops over coupled SWA2801zs on each side of the stage, and monitors were C300z portable passive loudspeakers. Even though this was the smaller of the two stages, we drove this system hard, and there was no lack of a place in the streets to hear music from one stage or the other.
Danny Oleson of Speaker Speaker rocks the Vera Stage while the DS3232 workhorses the band’s ins and outs in the background
Another group of positively committed Mackoids ran the Main Stage VIP Lounge, hosting dozens of artists, local press folks and many other such Somebodies of Seattle. A smattering of food and beverage providers holed up with us in the lounge as well, and truly kept the party going in the Mackie sound crew’s time of need. Not to mention, all the bands that played had VIP access and shared the space with us, serving to make other show attendees excruciatingly jealous of our Mackie Swag… which was only partially our intent...
The lounge just off of the Main Stage was a blessing for artists looking to grab a beer after their set
Most important to us, although this event falls outside of the realm of your typical audio company’s boundaries--as in: “What?!? Get a production company to do that!”--we love doing it, we love using our gear, and hanging out with rockstars doesn’t piss us off, either. After all, if you can’t connect with your buyers, what’s the point of making sweet gear in the first place?
Mackoid meets Musician on the Main Stage
