Article main picture is by Clearway Media
So, here’s a different post for you this time.
I am quite active in the live sound space, but I hadn’t toured for a while.
In December, Call Me Amour asked me to go on their first UK tour, supporting Dinosaur Pile-Up. The opening act was Big Spring.
Before I talk more about the tour, here’s a quick video of some of the shows, made by Clearway Media, just so you can get a taste!
Essentially we roamed across UK for 5 tour dates: Bristol, Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester and London so as you can imagine we spent quite some time on the road!
Here’s some pictures and videos from the gigs:
Bristol – Exchange
I was working on a Midas M32 on this one. The fence that was surrounding me was not very photogenic, so here’s a video for this one! You will also need to tilt your head!
Birmingham – O2 Academy
I had not touched any of the flagship Soundcraft desks previously in a live environment. Vi3000 was quite alright if I am honest but I would like a more simplistic workflow!
Glasgow – Garage (Attic)
Attic was probably the smallest of the venues we played. I used an Allen and Heath GLD80 on this one, not a huge fan of it’s workflow but it did the job in the end!
Manchester – Academy 3
Back for the home show! That was a wonderful experience I can tell you that! Using another Soundcraft desk, Vi1 this time. Similar observations as the Vi3000, however Vi1 seemed to be annoyingly slow in changing the settings when swapping pages!
London – Scala
Last stop for this tour, finally, the time had come to play at Scala! The largest show of the tour, using a DiGiCo SD9! Great sound and fantastic customisation. The workflow is a bit weird if you haven’t used a DiGiCo before but once you get your head around it, you can very easily get the results you want!
Throughout the tour, we used the microphones provided by the venue and depending on the size and facilities, we would tailor our setup. The only thing that stayed consistent amongst the 5 shows, was my lovely Audix D6 on the kick drum. I can’t really express how much I love that microphone!
During our trip, I did not find any real challenges in regards to the sound, apart from the fact that I had to manage different desks, and therefore, different offline editors! Turned out well in the end, as I made sure I had all my basic settings in place and anything more advanced that I could not find how to do it on the offline scene, I just did on the desk while setting up.
Random quick tip if you go on tour: Make sure you stay hydrated! Very important for avoiding headaches and tiredness!
Now, with all this being in the past, Call Me Amour are touring again in February with Lowlives and New Years Day! (See the poster below)
My question to you is, would you like to see more posts like this? Maybe with some more details in what I do when I am on the road? Something else? Let me know in the comments!
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See yaaaa!
