This show is a special one to me for many reasons. For one, it was the first gig I’d ever done where I was an engineer for a band performing at a festival. I had been an engineer for bands on tour, but not at a festival.
I had definitely been on the other side before, on the house production side, backing up trucks to the stage, dumping gear, rigging and wiring and flying P.A. I did it for longer than a decade. I helped countless guest techs and engineers who were hired to mix for the bands that were performing at the festivals I worked on.
The DPR Coachella was the first time I was one of the guest engineers mixing. It was a good feeling. It felt like all those years of work doing house production were finally starting to pay off. Going into my first gig as a guest engineer at a festival, I felt prepared because I had seen many guest engineers perform at their jobs in different way. Some effective and competent. Others not so much. All that experience and observation gave me the tools I needed to work with the house crew and understand how to I, as a guest engineer, can be the most effective at my job.
On top of this being the first time I worked with a band coming into a festival, the festival itself was quite a large and popular one. Coachella! I never would have imagined that I would even get to a point in my career where I would mix for a band at a festival, much less one like Coachella.
Where I come from, Coachella is kind of a coveted and highly talked-about festival. The festival gains much attention , and people flock from all over the country to come see it and interact with it and be apart of it. I feel very fortunate, and I am so thankful to all the people involved who helped me and gave me these opportunities.
Kolit Asdo 