When Johnny Cash Calls: Mac McDonnell on Life on a Concert Tour Crew (Episode 92)

Everything you do is an audition.

Picture it: the early 1970s. You work at a sound company in Nebraska, and your boss tells you there is a call on the other line. It is Johnny Cash, and he wants you to come do his lights. That is how Mac McDonnell's touring life took off. After graduating from Kearney State College with a degree in technical theatre, lighting and makeup design, Mac went out as a road tech with Stanal Sound and toured with Johnny Cash, John Denver, Paul Simon and many more, including Grammy-winning saxophonist Kirk Whalum, where he met Nomad.

On Kirk's tours, Mac was production manager, front of house engineer, tour manager, stage tech, backline tech and lighting director, all at once. Nomad spent eight years in that camp and calls Mac, or Uncle Mac, one of the people who taught him how to conduct himself on the road. If you want to know how to work on a concert tour crew, or how to be the musician a crew loves, this episode is for you.

Your instrument is just different

Mac opened by saying he found it interesting to be invited on a musicians' show, since he is not a musician. Nomad corrected him on the spot: an engineer plays the faders, EQ and compression, which means playing the whole band. Mac grew up with a piano teacher grandmother, played trumpet through college, and reads music. He says that is what separates a mixer from a knob twiddler. But more than reading, you need passion for the music. If you don't have it, don't do this.

And the rule Mac taught Nomad years ago still stands: treat the janitorial staff just as nicely as you treat the artist. Everyone in the building gets the same courtesy and respect.

When the door opens, run through it

Mac was not headed into music at all. He was saving up for New York, selling and demonstrating organs in a mall, when a former classmate walked by and mentioned the sound company was hiring. Mac called from the back room at 2 p.m., got an interview for 4 p.m. that day, 60 miles away, and left for his first tour on Monday morning.

The interview itself was a lesson. The owner told him flat out that he hated lights, then spent the time asking about Mac's life, family and habits. It was a psychological interview, not a technical one. Mac got the job because, as a student technical director, he spoke fluent theater and could direct a crew.

That is Luck = preparation + opportunity. The opportunity walked through a mall. The preparation was already in place.

Get some patience

Mac tells on himself here. At a venue in Detroit, the promoter had canceled the backline Mac ordered and left the gear from the band the night before. Mac lost it, and the promoter ended up in tears. Then Kirk stepped in.

"God has cursed some people with alcoholism, with drug addiction, with gambling, and he cursed you with a lack of patience, and I suggest you get some now."

Mac McDonnell, recalling Kirk Whalum, 12:44

The lesson: take a breath, step back, fix it. As Mac says, we're not surgeons. He used the same psychology on a drummer who kept complaining about his kit. Mac asked him about the first drum kit he got for Christmas as a kid, the happiest day of his life, and told him that from now on, that was the kit he got every show. The complaining stopped. That is Low maintenance / no drama, from both sides of the stage.

Mac's teaching blackboard had one rule anybody would get fired for erasing, and the clean version is this: don't be that person. One bad attitude walking onto a stage can sink sound check and the whole show.

Your name is not on the marquee

Asked what a young engineer needs to make it on tour, Mac started with the mindset.

"You also have to understand that your name is not on the marquee... The band is the pop star, not you. Your job is to make them smile all day long, period."

Mac McDonnell, 53:55

Then the skills. Mac taught four things in order: signal flow, gain staging, EQ, and finally the mix. If your gain is wrong, you can't EQ it. If you can't EQ, the mix will sound awful. And do your homework: before you mix a band, go through their library. Mac once took a tour without listening first and walked into harp, strings, acoustic piano and six open vocal mics with nobody else on the crew.

The payoff is the day the band stops noticing the sound. When everything sounds the way it should, a band goes from hating their job to remembering why they are in this business. Mac calls himself the band's secret service. Nomad lived it: when he hired Mac for a 2018 South by Southwest show in Austin, he made one phone call and stopped worrying. That is Reliability beats virtuosity.

The best boss knows everyone's name

Mac's stories from John Denver's mid-70s tours are a masterclass in leadership. John knew everyone's name. The first thing off the truck was a roadworthy ping-pong table the crew built, and John invited everyone to play. He took care of the crew with real catering, came by crew dinner to hang, and hired spectacular musicians, including legendary drummer Hal Blaine, who once showed the crew a room floor to ceiling with gold and platinum records.

The hard truth Mac learned out there: if you did your job well, you were respected. If you didn't, you very quietly disappeared.

Don't be afraid to get fired

Rheumatoid arthritis eventually ended Mac's heavy road work, and in 2017 he spent a full year unemployed, hearing he was too qualified and too old. He didn't give up. He looked around his own town of Austin and ended up at a new jazz club. Tenacity, he says, is not being a bulldog. It is thinking it through and not getting discouraged when people say no a thousand times.

"Do not be afraid to make a mistake, and dear God, don't be afraid to be fired, because it happens... But you cannot ever let that affect your self-confidence."

Mac McDonnell, 1:00:41

Nomad teaches the same idea as the delicate balance between arrogance and confidence. Mac's version: shut up, do your job, and let your work speak for you.

The takeaway

Johnny Cash, John Denver, Paul Simon, Kirk Whalum: Mac's resume is the kind most people only read about, and his lessons apply to anyone on a stage or behind a console. Respect everyone. Jump when the door opens. Get some patience. Learn the fundamentals cold. Make the band smile. Everything you do is an audition, and the crew is watching too. If you are ready to go after the next one, start with the free Get the Gig guide.

Get the gig. Keep the gig. Build the career.

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