RockScotland

Certainly one of the gigs I've been looking forward to for a while - the return of La Paz to Zico's in Wishaw.

First band of the night was Crossfire who played a cracking set to a very sparse crowd. Most locals remember Tam Slavin from the heavily ZZ Top influenced Gypsies Kiss who were always a dependable local favourite. Crossfire, while still retaining elements of the old ZZ Top style, leans more to mainstream classic rock and again are always well received with a set ranging through ZZ Top, Deep Purple & Hendrix as well as some of their own blues-rock material.

As well as Tam, the other members of Crossfire are Alec Carmichael and Colin Morrow. Alec of course being the bass player in La Paz and Colin was actually the Laz Paz drummer at one point as well. Even La Paz keyboard player, Andy Mason got in on the act and joined the band briefly for one or two numbers.

Soundwise, it was good but again I think a lot of the "gig" atmosphere is lost due to the lack of a stage (the band played on the floor facing the bar) and the lack of any suitable lighting (the lighting being the "disco" lights above the dance floor flashing randomly).

Dissapointingly, by the time La Paz took the stage (well the floor) the crowd hadn't increased very much and there were maybe around 150 there at most. A shame because the first reunion gig pulled a very respectable crowd. However that was probably more to do with that gig being billed as a Tribute to Rainbow / Deep Purple.

However, the band were in fantastic form and opened with a couple of original La Paz numbers, Too Good To Lose and This Boy which were received enthusiastically by the punters. They continued with an excellent rendition of Rainbow's Black Masquerade but unfortunately by the end of this song the sound had deteriorated to nothing but drums and volume. Individual instruments were completely lost in a complete mish-mash of noise. Doogie Whites vocals were almost inaudible and again (like the first gig) Chic McSherry's guitar was the same. A great shame as the band were obviously giving it their all on stage and continued with a selection of Deep Purple and Rainbow classics.

To a certain extent, the familiarity of the material let them get away with it but it was certainly an uncomfortable experience to endure the rest of the set at the extreme volume.

Hopefully the band will manage to get their sound sorted out for the other two gigs on this "tour" and hopefully they'll be back to Zico's in the future.

La Paz remain one of the better and most professional bands to have come out of Lanarkshire but they will really have to get a proper sound engineer if they don't want to see their audience dwindle any further.

angus

angus wrote:Hopefully the band will manage to get their sound sorted out for the other two gigs on this "tour" and hopefully they'll be back to Zico's in the future.

La Paz remain one of the better and most professional bands to have come out of Lanarkshire but they will really have to get a proper sound engineer if they don't want to see their audience dwindle any further.

Have to agree - the band were giving it their all on stage yet nobody could hear them!

While they keep insisting that it's "just a bit of fun", when people are paying to come to hear this "fun" and paying to travel through to these gigs, they owe it to the punters to put on the best show that they can - and that includes getting a half-decent PA system and a competent sound engineer.

With all due respect to the band, their sound is just standard melodic heavy rock (with mostly, very well known cover versions) - it's not the most complex mix! Surely they can find a decent PA and sound engineer somewhere?

As mentioned in the previous post it was OK for the first three songs then suddenly changed to 90% drums and extreme volume. Just turning the volume up doesn't help anything. By the end of the gig it was just uncomfortable.

Certainly the fact that Chasar (with a decidedly more complex sound) could play in the same venue two nights later with the same stage setup and get a great (very loud yet very audible) sound with a similar size of PA proves that it's not the venue that is causing the problem.

Again this might appear negative at a time when we're all trying to get more people to turn out for local gigs but unfortunately La Paz have now let us down twice in the same venue with completely unacceptable sound production.

If this was a free gig then maybe it wouldn't matter if "it's just a bit of fun" but when people are shelling out £5 a time and making the effort to travel through then they at least deserve some sort of quality.

It's time to give another PA company a try guys!

digital_man

digital_man wrote:Again this might appear negative at a time when we're all trying to get more people to turn out for local gigs but unfortunately La Paz have now let us down twice in the same venue with completely unacceptable sound production.

Yes shame about the sound for La Paz! But a lot of people remember how bad the sound was at the last Zico's gig and just didn't bother turning out for this one.

Crossfire were superb though and didn't seem to have any sound problems.

La Paz are an excellent band however and to their credit did advertise for a soundman in these forums. Didn't appear to have any success however and seemed to end up using the drum roadie!

The problem was just really the extreme volume. When a system is turned up into distortion the clipping acts like a compressor and everything just merges into a mush.

There are plenty of decent PA companies around and really La Paz should be looking at trying a different rig.

rb

I wasn't at the Zicos gig so can't comment but I was at The Ferry for their Friday night performance.

Their sound man for both nights was Gordon McNeil, the drummer with GUN, so if there had been a problem on Thursday he had obviously worked to correct it on Friday. I thought he got it spot on - bass, drums, keyboards and guitar all audible without drowning out Doogie. Paul is an exceptionally loud drummer so any sound engineer has his work cut out to produce a balance that doesn't distort. They were loud - very loud, but the sound was crisp.

It seems that Zicos is a bit hit or miss when it comes to getting the sound right. I haven't read any posting that would suggest Zicos can deliver consistency - regardless of the sound guys involved.

This seems to have been a problem that has plagued La Paz throughout their reunion but Friday night proved that with the right guy working for them behind the sound desk their audience can get to enjoy them as nature intended!

It was another fantastic performance from the band. Hopefully they have managed to sort out their sound issues and we'll be seeing more of them soon.

LoveBitch wrote:Having talked to the band I know they had a different sound engineer on Friday who, incidentally, is also the drummer with GUN.

Don't know what band you spoke to because Gordon McNeil (GUN drummer) was the "sound engineer" at the Wishaw gig as well?

Unfortunately from what I could see he was too busy messing about with his bird behind the desk rather than making any effort to sort anything out!

You can't really compare the PA at the Ferry with the wee rig used for the Zico's gig either. The Ferry rig is a much more powerfull rig and has a lot more headroom. Having said that, as already mentioned in a previous post, the sound was fine at Zico's while Crossfire were on and was spot on for the start of the La Paz set as well. So the problem wasn't actually with the PA itself.

Unfortunately Mr McNeil let it get out of hand - it was just too loud and the PA was actually in distortion at times. Dougie also had to make a joke about the "ringing" of the vocal mic at one point. Possibly if the "engineer" wasn't so distracted and had kept his mind on the task in hand he could have stayed in control.

La Paz are a great band but they have unfortunately always tended to take the cheap route when it comes to production.

Fergy

Hi Fergy,

Yep, I was wrong and was in the process of editing my post when you replied - sorry about that. Hopefully I've got my facts right now

Guys – what can we say – we’re sorry that the sound didn’t come up to your expectations in Zicos.

We tried our best: we advertised for an engineer and no one responded, not even alternative PA companies responded. We then hired what most folk would consider to be a competent and experienced sound guy to do the honours. As well as being Gun’s drummer, Gordon is also the in-house guy at Rockers and he is mixing live bands every week. We had a complete live soundcheck in the venue the night before which lasted well over 2 hours and by the end of it the sound was spot on, verified by all the crew and by the Crossfire guys who were all there throughout.

I personally spoke to a lot of people after the gig and, although it was bloody loud, no-one told me the sound was bad. Quite the reverse actually with one guy (Weissheim who posts on youtube and I think is also a forum member) telling me that it was great to be able to hear my guitar so clearly for a change. The first I heard of any issues with the sound was on this forum and since only 4 folk have posted negatively out of the entire audience who were there, we can’t quite call it a unanimous verdict on the gig at this stage I’m afraid. Perhaps it depended on where you were standing – it is a strange shaped place after all. But hands up: 4 disappointed people are 4 too many as far as we are concerned.

Wilson Reid from Storm has come in for a lot of criticism on this forum, even from me when he mixed No Dice last time, yet he was the guy who mixed Crossfire on the night so there is no consistency of opinion there either as folk say Crossfire’s sound was good.

Everyone is entitled to their viewpoint on the band and the sound and the venue, but I have to say that factual inaccuracies aren’t helpful. Big Fergy seems to have set out a position on a number of posts on this forum as having some sort of insider knowledge of La Paz and our history and has peppered numerous of his comments with little snippets: why Bunty "Brown had some sort of breakdown.”; that Doogie only had "15 seconds of fame with Rainbow"; that he went to London "to be a roadie" not a vocalist; that he was only called in to sing on Rainbow’s Stranger In Us All at the last minute and had nothing to do with the songwriting; and now that “La Paz are a great band but they have unfortunately always tended to take the cheap route when it comes to production.”

I had a role as a regular columnist in several business related magazines for many years and the number one editorial aim was always factual accuracy, simply because then all your subsequent opinions have gravitas and authority. I have no wish to make this personal in any way – you are entitled to your opinion Fergy just the same as everyone else who posts here is (including me!)– but when you say things which are factually inaccurate as though it is the received wisdom from someone in the know, it tends to make your other statements about engineers not doing their job properly look questionable.

In short – opinion based comment without fact to support it merely generates more heat than light.

To suggest that we’re doing all this on the cheap and that is the root of the sound problem is frankly ludicrous I’m afraid. We were in rehearsals for 3 months before we played live again, we hired the venue and the full rig the night before the gig, which effectively doubled our costs, and we invested a lot of our time and our money to put on these shows. Why on earth would we jeopardise all of that effort by deliberately cutting corners on something as fundamental as the P.A. and soundguy?

I’m not sure where this leaves the band in terms of how we tackle the sound problem at Zicos. I have my own theory as to why we have issues there and, if I’m proved right, I’m not too sure that we can fix it in that venue. I’ll therefore talk to more people who were there and try to get as balanced a view as possible from as many folk as possible before we decide what to do when we book our next scheduled live shows in November.

Thanks for taking the time to post your views everyone – at least it gives us a starting point – and apologies to those who were disappointed on the night. We set out to give you the best show that we possibly could, as we always do, and we are as disappointed as you are that some of you at least went home let down and with sore ears.