"Festivals like this differ vastly compared to working with a single band or in theatre assignments," Neuberger says. "First of all, you're doing at least five bands at each stage per day with almost no sound checks, and you can consider yourself lucky if you get a complete line check. On top of all this you're subject to the whims of the great outdoors and whatever weather comes your way, you're not always able to work in the most ideal of locations, and there are a lot of inputs. It's perfectly common to deal with 50 at a time from a single stage."
Working with headlining acts the Foo Fighters, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Beck, Manu Chao, John Fogerty, David Byrne, Gnarls Barkley, and scores of others, Neuberger managed audio recording with the help of mobile units positioned at each of the four main stages driven to the festival by Chicago-based American Mobile, Metro Mobile Recording from Glenview, Illinois, and XM/Effanel, which sent a pair of its trucks from New York.
The job of advancing the shows fell upon the shoulders of each stage manager, who developed stage plots and input lists given to Neuberger and the appropriate sound companies before the ACL Festival. Shure UHF-R wireless was a common sight across the board on all of the four main stages, used for vocals and instruments.
(Jim Evans)
