48 l July 2012
www.prosoundnewseurope.com livefeature On the road part one
For the next three months, PSNEurope will keep tabs on the diaries of several internationally-renowned sound engineers. Meet FOH engineer Jon Sword and systems specialist Graham Burton who share their tales of life on the road with Paul Watson
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www.turbosound.com www.yamahacommercialaudiosystems.com
The Feeling agreed to do this as full electric but stripped back with no bells and whistles – no in-ears or tracks. Monitors was from FOH and I had 30 minutes to totally strip the stage. The kit – a [Yamaha] M7CL48 driving a lovely old floodlit ground-stacked Turbosound rig.
Now, I have a rule when walking to a digital board on a festival turn-round (if not using my own file on my Soundcraft Vi6): if the house guy has been mixing all day, my first point is to check how he does a few bits… hit ‘select’ on the hi-hat channel, and if (and in this case WHEN) I see a low-end boosted on the EQs, it’s brown trouser time! Not helped by his admission that the drum mix is actually running post-fade. Er… why would you think that’s correct?
So that’s 15 minutes of my time wasted doing an almost reset – he hadn’t even inserted GEQ on mixes or rung them out. Eh? How? Why? I’m bereft!
Moving on… the gig took a while to settle, but we got there, all smiles, and I made my last train home – nuff said. And breathe.
19THMAY
ATHLETE, LAKEFEST, GLOUCESTERSHIRE
I probably get the call for Athlete once a year and each time it’s an utter pleasure. Wonderful people, run beautifully by tour manager, Ian Mizan. This was one of these bespoke festival weekends that are springing out everywhere these days – and very welcome they are too!
Any tent rammed with cider-drinking, rosy-faced music nuts gets my vote! So, another M7… I must say how I like these desks for fast accurate use of a digital board; I can fly round them as fast as any analogue desk. OK, I know its limitations and audio buffs can bang on about latency and preamp sound all they want, but for me, nothing wrong with this one, and it’s outsold any desk in history worldwide.
11THMAY THE FEELING, ROYAL ALBERT HALL, OLYMPIC CHARITY DINNER
A multi-artist affair including Gary Barlow, Noisettes, a huge house band, full choir, and even Bear Grylls!
Our performance setup was semi-acoustic, which we’ve done hundreds of times, and we never soundcheck. It’s second nature these days knowing what they want from these shows. A success rate to this method – probably 80%, so they don’t need to turn up too early, put it that way! Once I’ve line checked with the backline techs, BOOM! Gig on!
All was good for me, but not so for the poor Brit Row lads. The desks crashed BIG time. They dumped EVERYTHING (except my scene, strangely) so more than 20 in-ear and foldback mixes –GONE! How can a desk of this calibre do this? Panic all round, and some very unhappy musicians.
12THMAY
THE FEELING, THE PARK CLUB, ACTON
A real family day out, this one: a swimathon charity event outdoors put on by Tim Slater providing multiple genres of entertainment with one headline act each year. Funnily enough I did this with Sophie Ellis Bextor last year… but that’s another story…!
26THMAY
TONY HADLEY, ASCOT, WAITROSE CORPORATE DINNER
Held at Ascot racecourse in a huge marquee, and decked out like a ballroom (we have all done many shows like this, you get the picture). The support act was the dog fromBritain’s Got Talent – I know I’ve reached the pinnacle of my career now. I used to mix for Tony more than seven years ago and this made me realise how much I miss it. We all move through different clients, but some hold special memories – this is one of those.
As usual, this one is stacked against the audio boys; a long rectangle of a tent and the stage right in the middle on the wide side. ANOTHER M7, and I have to write a show from scratch. Tony had a sizeable set-up: big drum kit, bass, keys, eight channels of track, guitar, percussion, sax, backing singers, etc. Very slick band and SO good to see everyone again, especially my old mate John Keeble (also Spandau Ballet) on drums.
The band gave me two belters, then off for dinner. Er, did that really happen? Anyway, I use a [BSS] 901 EQ linked to [dbx] 160a inline for Tony’s voice and it purrs so beautifully. It’s nice to know my old tricks still work; if anything, Tony’s voice has become so much stronger over the years and his gentlemanly conduct remains impeccable. His vocal mic these days is the stunning Sennheiser 500 series radio with the MD5235 head. After lots of hanging around (and five episodes of 24 later), he did a 30-minute set of banging tunes and even a Killers cover (didn’t see that coming!) Back in the hotel by midnight – lovely.
Back to the gig… frantic 25-minute changeover, and my boy at FOH was perfectly happy for me to jump all over his system and ‘do my thing’ without comment (another hi-hat booster, unfortunately). What a well-seasoned band Athlete are – hats off, fellas!
Athlete: “Well seasoned”
JON SWORD’S MONTH For those who don’t know, Sword is arguably ‘the sixth member’ of UK pop act The Feeling. As well as being their FOH engineer for the past seven years, he’s also the band’s tour manager, which makes him a busy man. Add to this his plethora of freelance work and his diary becomes vast and varied.
Jon Sword (left) with The Feeling’s Richard Jones
Spandau Ballet’s John Keeble
Dan Gillespie Sells of The Feeling
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