I guess I naively would think they were asking whether the performance was enjoyable, not about whether anyone has noticed the third mic is overcompressed.

Well said. Henceforth I shall never ask this question from stage.

1: If they have to ask, then the answer is "no." Or, at best, the kind of "fine" you say to your mom when you're 11 and she asks how your day went, even though some kid spit on you and you got in trouble for not doing your homework.

@3 I want so, so badly to agree with this, but I can't. The unfortunate truth is that, while there are plenty of great sound men/women out there, the vast majority are the enemy. Asking a couple friends up front, who have seen you play many times, is not unreasonable when your sound person is a fucking douchebag. And that is like 85% of the time.

4: 85% of sound people are douchebags / enemies of the band? No. Sure, we've all been called names but it's not a war.

Good Lord. It always is two songs in, isn't it? You think I'd have that timing memorized by now. But it's true.

@4 Sound people get paid to run sound, just like you (theoretically, if anyone shows up) get paid to play music. If the music is good, the sound is good, people have a good time and spend some money at the venue, then you both win and improve your reputations. You're on the same side. I guarantee that if you go into your gigs with that mindset and attitude, you will have better interactions with your soundman/woman.

@4: "Asking a couple friends up front, who have seen you play many times"

That is not at all what this was referring to. I guess if there's only two people at your show, they consist of the entire "crowd".

I've been in all three corners of this triangle, sound guy, musician, and listener. It's not often that I hear a really well-mixed band in a club. It seems the current rules are that the kick drum and bass guitar should take up at least 80% of the sonic space, in every genre of music. The worst recently was a roots-country show *in Nashville* that was mixed like hip hop from the car next to me - all subwoofer, all the time. They don't even know how country music is supposed to sound in Nashville. On the other hand, I saw a band last week in Seattle where the guitarist's un-mic'd amp was 5 feet to his left, at knee level, pointed not at him but at the heads of the patrons. He could not have known how painfully loud it was, since it wasn't pointed in his direction. Rather than asking him to turn it down, the sound guy just jacked everything else up into distortion to try to compensate. I think it was a good band, but it was hard to tell through the pain.

I think "How does it sound?!" means about the same as "HOW'S EVERYBODY DOING?!" Just space filler, begging for a response, not a request for a critique of the sound tech's work. I don't ask either of those questions from the stage.