Each year in Europe there's the "Fête de la musique" in june with bands playing all over the place. One very nice week-end indeed. So Axel and yours truly were scheduled to play one of the stages in our hometown's pedestrian zone. We'd played this gig 2 years ago and had a blast. The sound man had been amazingly good and he was on duty today. Scheduled at 6 pm, we had to be there one hour earlier and we unloaded our gear on the side of the stage.

So while another band played, we chilled out in the sun. Until... It got a bit windy and the roof of the stage was lifted up just enough to have the rain that fell the night before shower all our gear, which was... protected by cases of course and wasn't harmed but boy, when you see 20 gallons of water soaking your stuff, it makes you go bonkers.

Anyway, that was the first close shave.

Second one came when we took the stage. We had 30 minutes to set up which is no problem. While the soundman was working on the drums with Axel, I installed my stuff. Everything was working fine except... the power adapter of my beloved TC nova compressor I use on the bass side of the Stick. So I knelt down and twisted the plug a bit until the TC came to life. Uh oh. I don't like that. So I moved the wire some more to check if the power wouldn't go out after the first few bars of the first song.

Everything worked great and there we go.

Very good one hour set. No problems. Brilliant sound. Nice crowd. 2 minor clams (nobody notices anyway, don't bother), 1 verse forgotten in REM's Man on the moon, no big deal. Oh was that a heavenly moment with Stick, voices and drums roaring through the streets!

After our set we put the gear back in the car, went for some food and beer and enjoyed the vibe.

Back home, I test the TC's adapter and... It doesn't work anymore. I mean DEAD COLD That's when I check the place where the wire goes into the power adapter and look at this!



There goes the second close shave. The fact that this worked during an hour is absolutely MIRACULOUS.

Needless to say I immediately ordered 2 (two, you never know...) spare power adapters.

PHEW!

Great write up Oli. Good call on spare parts. Here is to good planning.

You must have had some good karma on your side that day.

Are you still digging your new Bose system? I'm considering making a switch to that kind of system and forgoing my current bass amp/roland cube setup, but a fellow musician I spoke to recently was adamant that it would not work in a rock band setting.

Any thoughts?

Wow, I can only imagine the horror of watching all of that water fall onto your equipment! My Stick and pedal board travel together in a hard shell case, but maybe I should consider dropping the $$$ on a cover for my amp.

Nice writeup and detail...thanks!

Those power supplies are pretty easy to fix and easy to build really. If it's something critical like that I always carry a spare and always carry a soldering iron and a small tool kit. So I take it that the TC unit can't run on batteries?

BTW I've been trying to find one of those TC Nova compressors online for weeks to no avail - so far. I know they've been discontinued but nobody else makes anything quite like it. Anyone out there have one they'd part with or know of one available anywhere?

@sacrosant Superb karma indeed. The Bose delivered perfect sound behind me, as any amp will do. I had wedges in front of me with a very good monitor mix and there was no problem. I don't see any reason why this wouldn't work in a band situation. It DOES work fine
@captain strings Unfortunately, the TC won't work on batteries. The power unit is a 12 Volt.

Our duo on stage