Sound Engineer For Live Sound, just want to bounce questions off you. Options

[soon2be]

I'm very interested in making music but right now live sound is more important for me to know. And even though Im learning the baby of basics when it comes to making music and sounds on the computer I want to be able to focus more on live performances. So I need to be able to bounce some simple questions and have them anwered in simple terms.

What (to you, the answerer) is the most important quality in a live sound engineer? What is the first thing I need to focus on?

I know things here and there from listening and watching but I dont have a starting point, so therefor I dont know which way is up. I dont know if there is a way up really because the more you know the better huh?

[tunetwister]

On doing sound yes your ears are the most importent thing. You also must understand gain structure and E.Q.ing.
When something gose wrong with the equipment you need to know where to look first and fix it fast. Most problems are operator error, then bad cords, ground faults ect. You need to learn to isolate the offending equipment, by looking at your system as a hole and as smaller parts, anything is simple when broken into smaller parts. Best to keep extra cords around you will most likely not have time to fix them at a gig.