Normally, fans don’t notice when there’s chaos backstage. However, during Howard Carpendale’s performance, the sound engineer screwed up the playback because a hornet was making himself comfortable on his iPad. Fortunately, Carpendale was relaxed about the breakdown.
Willingen – It was supposed to be a routine appearance by Howard Carpendale (76) on August 20th in Willingen. But Carpendale’s sound engineer Peter Birkholz describes a major sound glitch on Facebook that he accidentally triggered via his technical desk. The reason for this was not directly himself, who had made a mistake in the button, but a hornet of all things.
Technical glitch at Howard Carpendale performance – several songs play at the same time
Birkholz writes on Facebook about a “total failure”, calling the situation at the pop star’s concert “the chaos and the nightmare par excellence”. It was Howard Carpendale’s penultimate number on “Schlagerstern”, which also featured stars like Giovanni Zarella, Maite Kelly and Michelle, before it went wrong, as he describes in his Facebook post.
Howard Carpendale used to be successful in sports
Before Carpendale became successful as a musician, he was quite successful in sports. At the age of 17, Howard Carpendale became South Africa’s shot put champion. Carpendale played rugby in the 1960s, and in the 1970s he stirred up Formula 3 as a racing driver.
“Howard’s penultimate number, five to six seconds to go. I (deeply relaxed because everything has gone according to plan so far…) suddenly hear three playbacks from Howard at the same time… Huh…?” describes the sound engineer in complete despair. The Carpendale hits “Wem”, “Call me on”, “The greatest happiness”, “How free do you want to be…” and also “I’m all that…” all ran at the same time – what a mess !
Hornet triggers mega chaos at the technician’s desk at Howard Carpendale’s performance
The reason for the confusion: Shortly before, an animal had sat on the Birkholz iPad. “Look at the iPad and see on the green ‘Go’ button (playback start button) a big fat insect, moth or hornet, something bigger, triggered 3x start. I instinctively want to flick the cattle away, wipe them away. I trigger two more playbacks,” describes Birkholz on Facebook. Problem: “You have to stop each song individually with the software, which I managed to do after what felt like an eternity.”
The sound engineer had no choice but to whisper a soft “Sorry” into Carpendale’s in-ear. And Howard Carpendale? He was very relaxed about the mishap. After years of stage experience, one of the biggest hit stars of all time just can’t be bothered anymore. The sound engineer, on the other hand, admits: “I’ve never felt so ashamed at the podium as I did in Willingen. I hadn’t known until Saturday that flying insects could cause such chaos on the touch screen. Cool.”
Howard Carpendale recently predicted a bright future for Eric Philippi. He is “down to earth and intelligent”. Sources used: Facebook; IMAGO
