Field notes from the Bon Oum Touk Festival, 60 Road Studios, Siem Reap, Cambodia, Saturday November 25, 2023
Greg Beshers, of Joe & the Jumping Jacks among other Phnom Penh bands, was involved as a performer at the festival and also assisted backstage with sound. He offers his thoughts on the night as it unfolded, with some insights into what goes on behind the scenes with such an event.
“Where’s my fucking flashlight?” – unknown member of stage crew
We arrived onsite around 10 am Saturday, and much had been done already – the stage put in, main front speakers set and wired, the side stage speakers set and wired and the shells of the drum kit were onstage. Now we had to fill it with amps, drum hardware, keyboards, microphones, cables – it took the better part of three hours get the stage set and wired. The scene itself was surpisngly sedate. Set up consisted of unraveling wires, taping mics to stands, dick jokes, flop sweat, lighting trusses, gigantic eskys being hauled in and filled with various liquids, Royal D being served chilled. If you’ve ever worked in a restaurant kitchen, it’s exactly like that. Uncontrolled directional chaos that ebbs and flows and somehow gets the job done. Eventually we discovered that both analog consoles were too noisy to work properly, so we switched out the cabling to a smaller 16 track digital board we could run by and iPad via wifi, but we needed more than 16 channels. We’d figure it out later.
While Joe, Cam Poizen, Steve Bloxham and I worked on the stage, Ian Croft was handling lights with the help of a fella named Simon. They got four big trusses trusses up, two in front of the stage and two in back. Really cool LEDs.
Ricky from Japan Guitar Shop came early to change out the kick pedal of the drum kit and drop off a huge bass amp that was warmly welcomed. Chema from Scapegoat Candy & Jam-Cha came next to set up his octapad and double kick pedal on the drums. Now I’m not a purist at all, but both of those things would normally make me question the drummer using them. However, it’s Chema, and he’s interminably cool and has a chest tattoo. So he gets a pass in my book on pretty much everything. He’s also a really good fucking drummer. My mirror.
Next Geography of the Moon – hanging inside with V pre-soundcheck talking about life and music. She’s psyched there’s more women onstage today. V always seems to me like a Stevie Nicks type: delicate in appearance, yet unbreakable and always with something interesting to talk about. Their soundcheck is fraught with tech issues on stage. Bad wiring again. We’ll talk about that later.
JGS checks. Steve is getting their keys into a gain structure for front of house. Frank twiddles his pedals. Working on monitors. Joe Wrigley has entered the fray of monitor world in time for Colin’s rap soundcheck. If I didn’t like Colin so much I might mistake him for some frat boy back home. But he and I share some Ohio roots, so I know he can’t be all that bad, and somehow he’s convinced me that he’s the responsible one of the band. Go figure. Cove is still my rock though.
Dean Wolf Bailey opens acoustic. Photo credit: Ameila Kwok
Sam Rocker has a tech issue with backing tracks and clicks and the drummer had no sticks. Lovely bunch of folks though. Charming in their western rock naiveite. Steve got their tech issue sorted pre-show in a way only he could have. Jumping Jacks – Sal was trying to tell Sam’s drummer proper technique on something and had to be cut off. We checked half a song and were done. All sounds good onstage. Kampot Playboys were the last to check. Their tro player was a touch late. They checked all muscley playing Black Coffee. Two songs and they’re done. Sometimes I hate these guys, just cos they ROCK. But hearing them later close the show, they just have a full frontal assault of bass and drums that Chiet’s vocal cuts with a jagged edged upper baritone and the tro just lays on top nicely. Hate ‘em. After soundchecks I had an hour until the Jacks set, so I changed shirts, talked to a few people and relaxe. Then it was showtime.
Dean Wolf Bailey opened with a solid set, not an easy thing to do with just an acoustic guitar. At the top of the Jacks set, the wifi went down and which could potentially ruin the gig, at least the Jacks. Somehow it got working again. I sat in a lotus position onstage waiting results. Wifi came back. We played, the crowd was happy. Sam Rocker came next. They did their thing, the crowd was happy. Scapegoat Candy came on rocked – 35 minutes or so of original alt rock. Then the intermission.
Meanwhile backstage, I’m running around between trying to find Steve (he blends into a crowd like no other; He should teach at a spy school or something) and then barking questions and orders to Cam and Joe. We have to pull a couple of channels to fit extra gear into the mixer. It’s a nightmare, nothing is labeled. Technically speaking it sounds great out front, it sounds great on stage and we’re on time. Ten minutes before the intermission, I ask Steve, “Do we have music arranged for the break? Announcments?”. No. I scramble back to Joe, get a cable to play music from the iPad and just as Scapegoat gets offstage I go onstage and make an announcement thanking people for coming and supporting live music. I’m babbling and buying time for Joe to get set up. We have music on, I shut up and I focus on getting GOTM ready.
Geography – they’re nuts in their own way. Andrea is laser focused and manic, and V, she’s calm, with a potential storm raging, but normally just calm. Get them set up, and get JGS ready to go after them. GOTM plays and in the middle of their set in between songs I’m standing at side stage, Andrea looks at me with a face that says something is wrong. I say “What’s wrong?”, he answers, “I don’t know, I’m fucked.” He smirks and starts the next song, bouncing maniacally to his own rhythm.
JGS get onstage, they seemingly float for a minute during their first song. Colin couldn’t hear his bass, his amp volume was off. I fixed that and made my way around to Ricky. In between the next songs I make sure his monitor is good. Frank is having a bit of an issue with the side fills monitors. The guitar is too loud, he’s fighting sound, but he’s playing great. In the rap section of the program they get Andre from Jam Cha/Scapegoat up to play bass on two songs. That guy, Andre, he’s super steady. Nothing riles him. I was talking to him before the Scapegoat set on side stage, giving him a little pep talk. Telling him not to be nervous about the festival crowd, you know, it’s just like his regular gigs, only bigger, with more people……He nodded. You can’t shake him. Cool as a motherfucking cucumber as they say.
Andre “Cucumber” Meshcheryakov. Photo credit: Amelia Kwok
Jam Cha on next. These guys are pros. Get them on, checked in with Chema on monitors after the first song, theyre good to go. I head to the “artist lounge” for a bathroom break and a sit down. Get caught up talking with a few different folks. Had a love fest with Cove and V and eventually Chiet. Was talking with local heavy musician Euan Gray when I realized Jam Cha had gone long on their set time – luckily we had extra time padded in. Also seen backstage was indie rock legend Conrad Keeley of ….Trail of Dead and his girlfriend Gretchen.
We get Jam Cha off and get the Kampot Playboys on. This is where things get hazy for me. Maybe other folks can describe what happened better than myself – the Playboys are ready to go, but their drummer Max needs some time to adjust the drum set, which he starts doing, totally fine, but we have dead air. I turn to Joe and say, “I’m gonna go kill some time on the mic.” Apparently, and I can neither confirm nor deny this, I riffed to the crowd on the microphone for about three minutes (which seems like an eternity onstage), extolling the virtues of all the bands, 60 Road, Ian and Steve individually and when Max was done and ready to go, introduced the Playboys and got out of their way. They SLAYED. SLAYED.
I laughed, I cried, I’d see it again and again, it was better than Cats as they say. After almost an hour, the show was done, I sat down on the stage, tried to explain to Playboy Mark what a fan I am, and then told Joe to not leave me behind – that it was his responsibility to make sure that I got home safely that night. I did.
Faces for the names: Chiet, Cove, V and Greg