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Live techs have some pretty crazy road cases, incredible heavy, folding out like a transformer robot to reveal a multitude of stuff, from tools of the trade, supplies, spare parts, mementos of family or touring, and various other “stuff”, but I think this old one here wins the award for organization and style.
See more photos and the original post I found this on here.
More shows added in December for the Relentless 7 -> a late night show in NYC, an x-mass party in Asheville, and far away in April, some festival shows in Byron Bay.
I see now that I must have been imprinted at a young age to be a sound engineer as revealed by the first 321 Contact episode. It’s also great documentation of when recordings were made with actual people playing the parts, compared to today’s computer edited and created methods. And dig that funky groove.
Next up on the agenda, mixing the Relentless 7 on an upcoming California club tour. Back to the small clubs, it’s been almost over a year now since I’ve mixed on anything besides a Digidesign Profile, and now back to the humble beginnings of dusty consoles in dusty small clubs.
To see the dates check out the ‘Upcomming Shows’ page here on the blog, and also check out the bands web site – www.Relentless7.com
Ohio, Minnesota, Wisconsin get an introduction to the Relentless 7, a new group with Jesse, Jason, Jordan, and Ben Harper, as they joined the Get Out and Vote tour for four shows encouraging people to, you guessed it, get out and vote. Not necessarily for one candidate or the other, just to get out and vote, or as Ben put it “to give you the right to complain.”
In the live sound department, the Sheryl Crow tour basically turned into this tour, so I was mixing on their Clair provided Digidesign Profile, and Sheryls monitor engineer took care of us on a Digidesign Venue. Stacks and racks were “locally” supplied with Eighthday providing a V-dosc rig for the Ohio shows, and Audio Visions providing a Vertec rig for St. Paul and Milwaukee. And while all went well, all I can say is arenas are absolutely horrid rooms to mix a live show in (and waves plug-ins seem to take a really long time to load.)
It seems the plan worked, people voted.
I’m “home” from a great first leg of a US tour with Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals. Playing fancy theaters across the country including the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Radio City Music Hall, the Chicago Theater, and 2 nights at Massey Hall in Toronto as seen in the picture. The PA was supplied by Rat Sound and I had a L’Acoustics Kudos rig with Arc and dv-Dosc front fills and Rat subs. At FOH I was using a Digidesign Venue, and on the next run I’ll be taking out the Digidesign Profile for a nice compact FOH package.
But before we go out on the next leg of tour, through the southern states and then up (and down) the west coast, I need to find myself a real home here in Denver. I was in the middle of searching for a place before I joined the tour, and now have just under 3 weeks to find/confirm/move into my new place. In the next couple of days I’ll be looking at some that might be it. I’m itching to get setteled in, but not necessarily enjoying the search. Their are many places available in my budget, but being the picky person I am I still think I’ll find a needle in the haystack. Wish me luck!
I hope to have more pictures up on the site soon. A gallery page is in progress, and I should have some pictures up of my trip out here to Denver to start, and then some pictures from the tour (though there are many great pictures of the tour available for viewing at BenHarper.net). Till then…
Life goes on I guess, looking at it all through a reflection in a lamp at the Dour Fir in Portland, Or.
A short tour with the group Hot Chip, 6 shows in 7 days, starting in Portland, down the coast, across the country to Bonnaroo, and then back the other way for what was a heavy dance show in Lawrence, KS, and our final show in Denver, Co. Amazing that these Soundcraft Series IV’s are still going out here.
Kraftverk style the band is a line across the front of the stage of keyboard fun.
The extra great bit about these guys is that they actually play all the bits, rather than a computer somewhere playing back some tracks. Bonnaroo was well run this year, at least our stage, festivals are always a bit of a mess but it all worked out well. Sadly I sent a couple of Meyer subs into thermal protection, but with only 3 each side and a low end heavy mix, what else can ya do? All was good, that’s what the protection was for, and I was actually quite impressed with the low end coming out of the Milo’s above when the subs stopped working for a bit. On the funny end of things, as the band leaves the stage well before there set time is up, at front of house, knowing there is lots of time left, I expect that they will come back out for an encore if asked for, and sure enough it’s asked for. On the flip side of the coin, the local monitor system tech, thinking our show is over, recalls the generic zeroed setting for the PM-5D in monitor world, and sadly, our monitor engineer had not saved his settings, so the band comes back up on the stage, and all the monitor mixes are gone. Bravely the band carries on, and with no monitors on stage, I suddenly notice that my mix is clear as a bell, and the vocals are quite easy to get where I want them to be. I guess the monitors and the slap off the tent roof were effecting my quite a bit. So while the band and our monitor engineer were having a bit of a difficult time, I was having the time of my life. As the second song of the encore rolls around, my vocals suddenly have a “blur” effect on them, which I take as an indication that now the monitors are working again.
The Tour finishes in Denver, and I say goodbye to the band the next morning as they head off to the UK, to return home for a bit, and then play the Glastonbury festival. I stay in town for a bit to visit family and friends, and a bit of light work on my next project……..
Coming up next in the “touring†schedule, the Coachella Festival in Indio, Ca. About 2.5 hours east of Los Angeles. I’ll be there with Peaches, as we play on the tba stage. PA will be provided by Rat Sound. Looks like I will have a Heritage 3000 at FOH with a V-Dosc rig. If it’s not too windy it should be fun. There are also 2 Heritage’s at FOH, so I’m thinking I will have time to set myself up on one while the previous band is playing through the other. That will make for a much less stressful change over. On stage, our monitor engineer Adam gets to work on a Yamaha PM5D, of which there are also 2. This will probably be the last show with Peaches and Herms for awhile as her touring schedule winds down.
Audiosquid 
