Audiosquid

Mercury Rev completes touring “All is Dream” with shows in Australia. Always a pleasure to visit Australia with the exception of the long flight there and back, though the flight wasn’t too bad as I slept most of the way. Three festival shows for the Livid festival and four club shows to end the tour. The club shows were a mix of stuff, though mostly old desks in need of some loving care, that or the trash! 😉

The Livid festivals present a mix of line arrays. We played on the main stage before Oasis, well, that is the second main stage, as they had two “dome” stages right next to each other. This made for a very easy changeover, and more prep time for me at FOH and Oliver at MON to get our desks set up. From the audience point of view its also a nice set up as there is nothing blocking the view of the stage, as the mix position was set up in between the two stages. Though while good for the audience it wasn’t the best for me, as I basically listened to the center line array, mixing in mono per se. And with Powderfingers desk in front of mine I was a bit secluded in the FOH tent, I couldn’t even see any PA at the show in Brisbane. So I spent a lot of time on headphones and hoped the local crew would tell me if anything was out of whack.

The first show in Brisbane was with the EAW line array, and I can’t say I was too impressed. Didn’t seem to have the dispersion and sound quality of many of the other line arrays. Though the dome stages were working against us. The roof came out a to about the barricade, so if you were in the first 20 rows or so you couldn’t even see PA. The Brisbane rig didn’t have any front fill, but the Sydney and Melbourne sights did. The ceiling at the mix position was too low, and a basically couldn’t hear any of the PA directly. Oh well…

In Melbourne it was the Vertec rig, which is pretty good, still sound a bit like JBL but carries for days, and If your going for a rock NS-10 sort of sounding mix, they will do the trick. In Sydney it was the V-dosc, and here I was happiest. While the Vertec was good, a go for a bit of a high-fi mix with Mercury Rev and the V-dosc gave me what I asked for. So our tour ended on a good note for me. Now the boys head into the studio to work on their next masterpiece, and hopefully I will be around for the next go round.

Big thanks to all the Australian crews, and especially to Al our local Tour Manager who did a great job. Will be a pleasure to experience Australian hospitality in the future.

A set of really good shows in Denmark and the Reading/Leeds Festivals. Back again from a European trip with Mercury Rev and some really good shows in Aarhüs and Copenhagen. Some of the best crowds all tour long. Reading and Leeds went well. Things are much easier at festivals when there are two desks. The first day at leads was a bit rough, PA sounded a bit like, well, ass, well, maybe not that bad, but not like nexo. Not sure they tuned the thing any, though it got better as the day went on. The boys at Leads the next day had there shit together and the rig sounded like a nexo should. The funny thing was the Strokes brought there own XL-4 in, for 14 channels or so from stage. They did sound good though. But even better, and the band that I think should have headlined – Jane’s Addiction. Nuff said. Thanks to all at SSE.

Mason Jennings Tour – I’m set to go on a tour of the eastern us with Mason Jennings and his band, which will be keeping me busy mid September and than again in late October. Quite a change from the 6 piece of Mercury Rev to the 3 piece of Mason’s band. Thanks to my roommate Mike for hooking me up, I’m looking forward to the tour.

Mercury Rev Australia Tour – And to top it all off, the Rev have been called back to Australia for the Livid Festival, expanded beyond Brisbane, the festival will be at Sydney and Melbourne in addition. Main stage right before Oasis is our slot and we ain’t complaining. We shall sneak a couple of club shows in to keep things interesting.

Back from Canada eh? and “How about a bimonthly new update” Back in upstate New York with the rev after two shows in Canada opening for Oasis. All went as well as could be expected. Solo Tech of Montreal supplied me with an XL-250 for our show at Molson Centre. Thunder Audio supplied a good Nexo rig, though the strangest thing was, in the two isles that were just stage left and stage right there was absolutely no low end. In the center it was power alley as per usual, and way out on the sides there was booty, but down the isles (which happened to be where my mix location was centered, there was nothing. Weird. Good local union crew, and a friendly and helpful Oasis crew.

The Molson theme continued in Toronto at the Molson Amphitheater, this time with an XL-4 (flying faders and all) from Thunder audio. Lot’s o bands, no sound-check, and not one of the better sounding amphitheaters made for a challenging show, but all worked out. Big thanks to Oasis’s Crew and the fine folks at Thunder Audio.

European Summer Festivals – and since I have been a bit lazy in updating nothing was mentioned of trouncing through Europe with the Rev on the festival circuit. Well, in brief, highlights included… a rough start in Germany as expected (though not as bad as expected really)… sabotage? in Holland… fun with Garbage… a show for the thin white duke… a good show at Glastonbury with wonderful assistance from Skan… speakers for days at a rock Werchter… more fun in Holland… a reverberant hell hole in Italy, followed by a Cadac desk (way cool) and a great show with a partially working Turbosound rig… in Italy… Austrian and German fun, including a party at our monitor engineers house with live, well, something are best left unsaid… the Montreaux Jazz Festival… fun with Sonic Youths gear and lots of mud in Ireland… a monstrous tent at T in the park… a return to some clubs in UK… a family picnic at Guildford… and finally, heat and dust, and mixing sideways at a fest on the island of Majorca.

In June we did a short west coast US tour from San Diego to Seattle. Our last stop was at the Showbox in Seattle where they have a wonderfull Gambe and Nexo rig. The board is in great shape and one of the best sounding consoles out there.

Here we see a fine collection of gear supplied to me for our show opening for Garbage at the Zenith in Lille, France by ArtoTech SA. A nexo rig made this a very enjoyable show.

Mercury Rev at the Zenith in Lille, France. Our lighting designer James seems to be having a good time. Thanks to Garbage for letting us make use of it.

We return to London once again for a show at the Royal Festival Hall for David Bowie’s meltdown festival. The in house system consists of a bunch of Meyer and a Yamaha PM-4000. A bit tricky mixing in the hall but things go well.

The Squids point of view at Glastonbury. SSE supplies my favorite desk at FOH, the Midas Heritage 2000. The turbo rig wasn’t half bad either.

We visit a new Italian town for the Arezzo Festival in, you guessed it, Arezzo, Italy. And what do we have here, a brand new Martin line-array and a Cadac at FOH. We even get to do a bit of a sound check during the day, only problem is, in the day light you can’t see the lights on the desk to save your life, so that made things a bit tricky. And what you would do with so many VCA’s and sub-groups/buses I think I’ll never know. But a damn fine sounding desk with a very beautiful layout. I wonder what you could do with the usb ports on the back…..?

You can’t see it in the picture, and you can’t hear it either, but the new Martin line array sounds pretty darn good. A very natural high end, a very flat in your face sort of box. A rep from martin was there, he spoke of trying to design a box that works compared to loads of processing on many line array boxes. Seems they pulled it off pretty well. Sounds much better than any of their old stuff I have mixed on.

Another festival show in Italy, this time in the wonderful town of Bergamo. Been awhile since I’ve mixed on a Europa. Big monster of a desk, but I always liked the soundcrafts having grown up on a delta. And I think we only lost power once during sound check! 😉

Montreux Jazz Festival – Miles Davis Hall – Inside the hall I find a Meyer line array and a Soundcraft Series V. I was thinking there were going to be extreme sound level issues, but with the limit at 100db SPL-A I have no problem. On hand they had the new TC-M6000, and it has to be the coolest effect unit out there. Sounds great and has a remote to die for with a touch screen and flying faders. I could use just one of these for a tour to do it all but at $6000+ it probably wont be happening any time soon.

To finish up this run we find ourselves on the island of Mallorca off of Spain. A beautiful day in the sun, and a dusty night at the show. We open up for Oasis and a find my self mixing sideways with the Xl-3 facing the FOH tent wall. They hadn’t really set up the house mix/lights/video tower to accommodate another desk, so they did what they could.

If the effects rack is right in front of you it does make a convenient stable surface for getting some long exposure pictures.

4/20/02 – Is that the day to be in Amsterdam or what? Great show at the Paradiso, not the greatest sounding room, but a great crew and sound system. Must be nice to live in Amsterdam and work at such a cool venue..

Back to the UK, and after a gig at a Disco in Brighton (which went great none the less), we find our selves in Liverpool. Good to see some friends from Adlib Audio bring in a mighty fine Nexo rig. The Series 4 looks a bit small without it’s meter bridge, but works out great.

We return to the Rodon club in Athens. Though if you saw it written in Greek you might think it was the Podon club. Once again George is there to greet me at front of house. Always good to see familiar faces.

After a battle with the monitors at soundcheck, we settle in, and I thought this show kicked the last show that we played here’s… butt. And a great opportunity for me to get some camera angles from the balcony.

An old and battered Soundcraft Venue, EV MT-4 rig with no where near enough subs, and the audience members that cram onto the staircase.

In the middle of the town of Coimbra, we play this large sort of festival thing. A fantastic PA provided by SoundLights and Crew or Portugal. My first time behind the new JBL line array, and I must say, JBL have finally made a box that sounds decent.

A big thanks to Miguel and all the crew here for a great job.

The month of April found Mercury Rev returning to Europe for a months run of shows supporting the release of their new album “The Dark is Rising”. After a couple of days rehearsal we started the tour in France with a show at L’Ubu in Rennes ( a very small club to get things going) and then a show at La Nef in Angloume.

La Nef is a nice room, good PA and an Amek Recall, though they don’t have a computer to run the recall. The two small racks on the right is what I was carrying with me. The top rack is the bands, and the bottom one was rented from Canegreen.

Next we move on to Italy, and four shows with an Italian band called After Hours. Here we see them at soundcheck, the third show in Milan at a hall in the Centro Sociale, a sort of “squat” like Christiania in Copenhagen. A big reverberant hell hole of a room. They stole there power (which only cut out twice during sound check), they stole any phone lines they had. A 6000 capacity hall run be the locals.

After our sound check, including an all star jam of your favorite zep hits the band comes out front to hear just how wonderful it sounds…

Live in Rome..

We were using in-ears for Jonathan, and he finally wore them for a show (besides just trying them for sound-check) in Rome. All went well, and though there are still a bunch of things to work out with the mix, it seemed that things would eventually work out, that is until Oliver, our new monitor engineer, left the in-ears behind in Rome. So much for that idea. Otherwise Oliver has been doing a fantastic job and the band has seemed much happier on stage.

Our four shows with Afterhours went really well. We had separate front of house set ups. I got a great set up from Imola Audio Scene – the one in front – midas XL-200 and more outboard then you could shake a stick at. The desk behind was a trusty Soundcraft Vienna II for Afterhours.

Big thanks to Dedia and Thomas for all their help. After Hours put on a great show with Flavio mixing house and Mamo on lights. The crowds were loud and into the show.

After a sad farewell to our new Italian friends we go on to play one more show on our own in Turino at a club called Hiroshima mon Amour. Here I find myself in a scaffolding perch high above the crowd and behind a Yamaha M3000. Note to self… Don’t buy a M3000…..

A good show none the less. A fond farewell to the fabulous Italian food and back to France we go.

We then made our way to Paris for a pre taped TV show. We crammed into this very small bar with a massive amount of TV and sound equipment, and then somehow they crammed a small audience in to watch the event. Me, I spent most of the time in this nice air conditioned truck down the street….

One last show in France, this time at a very cool purpose built venue in Clermont called La Cooperative De Mai. Here we see a nice fuzzy photo of their front of house including my personal favorite, the Midas Heritage 2000.