Road Signs: No Fear!

My monthly article about lessons I’ve learned on the road…

Road Signs

Mike Sokol is an expert on RV electricity as well as a pro-sound engineer by trade, the guy you’ll see at the mixing board in the back of the room during a music concert or perhaps for a business convention or graduation ceremony. He’s even worked on live and broadcast sound for Oprah and three U.S. Presidents as well as dozens of A-List artists.

No Fear…

There’s a lot of pressure to do my job perfectly, especially when there’s a television broadcast to many millions of people. But it’s not exactly rocket science and certainly I’m not holding a person’s life in my hands like a surgeon. However, music is a very personal and powerful force so it must be done correctly and with great artistic flair. In short, every performance is ultimately important to the artist, presenter, or even your child in their third-grade play.

I admit to being pretty fearless about doing these shows – some would say overconfident. But on a few occasions I’ve met an artist or performer that taught me a thing or two about fear management.

I think of her as “Veronique,” even though I don’t know her real name. Veronique is the name of the lead character in a novel I’m writing, one of the things I do to pass the time during downtime on gigs. In my novel, Veronique has to face her ultimate fear and does so with great grace. But the real “Veronique” I was working with that day was a dancer at a Faith of Our Fathers convention, a multi-day extravaganza ultimately playing to an audience of 10,000 people. I was in charge of the sound for the entire show, so not only did I have to provide music for the dancers, but also audio for the PowerPoint presenters, transmissions to the broadcast truck, and a lot of other things. In short, I was very busy with everyone demanding my attention and I was quickly running out of patience.

The Diva

Right from the beginning I knew this flesh-and-blood Veronique would be a lot of trouble. She appeared to be a real Prima Donna (and not the good type) with the aloof stare of a lead ballerina. The stage manager kept bugging me about removing extra gear on the platform. Could I move the monitor speakers off-stage? The cables needed to be re-run so as not to snag a foot. Everything had to be perfect for Veronique.

So I moved speakers and reconnected wires and built platforms to clear the way for the lead dancer herself. And after an hour of extra setup time I finally walked to the stage and asked her if everything was to her satisfaction, but she stared right past me and didn’t say a word. How rude! Now I was sure she was an arrogant, overrated performer who wasn’t even polite to the crew putting together her show.

But then she began to rehearse her dance and I was amazed at how good she really was. She moved with a fluidity that made her look like she was floating on air. Still, that didn’t excuse her arrogance to the road crew.

A lesson learned!

Shortly thereafter the real bombshell came. After rehearsal she went to the side of the stage and pulled something out of her bag. It was a folding white cane, one for blind people. And I watched in stunned silence as she navigated the stairs with nothing but the cane. Then as she walked past me I was shocked again. In her one ear was a hearing aid. Of course it was in the ear away from me when I had previously asked her if everything was all right.

She wasn’t being rude – she had neither seen nor heard me earlier. The stage manager confirmed that she was nearly totally deaf and blind, but could feel the beat of the music and see white tape strips enough to avoid falling off the edge of the 4-foot high stage. And the reason for making me move everything earlier was that she would never be able to see a black speaker cabinet on a dark stage and certainly black wires were the ultimate trip hazard. She had memorized the stage layout and learned to dance without seeing or hearing. Of course, one misstep and she would take a fall into the orchestra pit with certain injury. But that fear didn’t stop her from dancing fearlessly, when most of us would have just given up.

Later that night during the performance I had a new appreciation for how much guts this must take. I’ve been around a lot of extreme sports types who always brag about how fearless they are. However, I’ve never seen anyone exhibit so much grace in the face of fear as I did that night.

It’s used with a lot of hype nowadays, but I had seen a very real example of “No Fear.”

Copyright 2017 Mike Sokol – All rights reserved