Folks, while we went over some things at college today, the teacher reminisced about a certain guy who got lucky when Queen rolled into Auckland in 1979. It goes something like this...
There was a guy named, Levi Tachovsky (spelling?). He worked on the shows that came through Auckland as a helping hand, i.e. setting up the power and sitting back just in-case he was needed after that. During his down-time, he'd always sit back and watch the sound engineer set things up.
One day, Queen rolled in with their show, but the engineer was nowhere to be seen. Caught in traffic or something. Anyway, the guys in charge were faced with a problem, if the engineer doesn't make it, they'll either have to cancel or find someone else. As they tried desperately to find someone, Levi basically said, "I can do it." He knew how to set things up.
Of course, they probably thought, "yeah right!" But as time got closer and closer, they still had no-one to engineer the gig. So they gave in and told him to set things up. And he did. So, it was better than nothing. Certainly better than cancelling the show!
After the show, Brian May gave him a pat on the back for his efforts and asked him about his career thoughts. Anyway, he talked about wanting to make it to London, cause that's where the basis great music was in the 70's. But the cash wasn't there, so he couldn't afford it.
A week or two later, a letter arrives. Two tickets to London compliments of Brian May! And from all this he apparently went on to be their live engineer for some time. Something about Live Aid, too. I'm not sure of the details, but it's certainly a nice story. Anyone know the finer details?
Peace,
Adam.
I wish I'd caught it on my minidisc as I usually record my lectures, etc. Shame. But I thought we'd be watching a video lecture and just going over the correct answers to a mock test from the week before. But then he just started going on about this story in relation to one of the questions.
I should point out that the teacher is a Queen fan! I found out by chance as he asked who I was into and I happened to mention Queen with a few others. As soon as I said the name he immediately said it back in that "ah ha" way we fans have!
Anyway, the Levi guy went on to work with U2 as well. Quite a funny thing was that our teacher also mentioned the pressure of being a live engineer. When Levi returned to Auckland some years later on the Joshua Tree tour (I think, don't hold me to it). He had his family around and was enjoying being able to show off this great career to them. During the concert he reached for his coke and accidently hit a switch and the sound went dead! He froze and looked around for what had happened. Thankfully someone had noticed what he'd pushed and corrected it. But he was understandably keeping his head down after that!
Peace,
Adam.
P.S. Should any other stories relating to Queen come up, I hope to share them. And I really hope there are more!
Yeah, I did look up the queenconcerts to make sure and only saw the 85 one. He must have meant that one. Makes more sense in a way. Still, it would be nice to delve further. I think I'll ask Brian on his website.
Peace,
Adam.