There are some people who painstakingly pick out their targets and visit touring productions solely to experience hi-fi sound at concert levels; not many, but a few. For Gary Bradshaw mixing ‘house sound’ on George Michael’s ...
From the beach to a bunker, the journey of Mr Naji Gebran is one of the more unusual tales to emerge from Beirut and the world of clubbing. “I am a musician firstly, and was also a DJ. Back during the war I used to make... 
Push the point hard enough and consolidation is inevitable; that’s the premise presented to Simon Foster as he prepared to take the revitalized Pixies around north America once more. “We had already confirmed the LED video and...
Nick Warren is one of those methodical sound engineers; he looks at the task, notes all the details, and then maps out how he will assemble the sound. For the Roxy Music tour he was presented with some old markers, “there’s a...
It’s a pleasure to find a contemporary hard rock band unafraid to include a harmonica to drive the vocals; and drive they do. Volbeat’s Front of House engineer Mads Mikkelsen is contending with a band whose music embraces three...
Ryan Knutson, co-founder of Brown Note Productions, Inc. is in the rather enviable position of being able to claim the iconic Red Rocks Amphitheatre as his local venue. Stir into the mix a six year tenure as FOH engineer for the...
Making a successful and credible leap from X-factor winner to bona fide live performance artist was always going to require skill and support, both in human and technical terms. In May this year, Leona Lewis chose Sheffield...
With a career in sound spanning well over two decades, Paul Dieter is now enjoying himself mixing for one of rock and roll’s more enduring, if understated, legends, Jackson Browne. “I started mixing live in the 80s, then spent...
Franz Ferdinand has just completed an extensive tour around the world; trips to North and South America and the Far East were book ended with tours of Europe, the band choosing to visit the festival circuit this summer to round...
Lighter than air, Lily Allen somehow seems to float above her songs; her girlish voice a tantalising wisp on the airwaves. That lightness and charm belies her work as wordsmith, hers is a young innocent voice that imparts knowing...
"Actually Skan (Skan PA Hire) make it incredibly easy for me. Before the tour started we focussed on how the PA would be packaged," Production Manager Chris Vaughan outlines his approach to mounting the current tour by Muse. "We...
'Same service, different continent'. It's an oft repeated mantra, though when it comes to rock and roll touring it rarely lives up to the promise, unless you can afford an Antonov. Not so for Bruce Johnston, front of house...
The allusion to the French Revolution is well made. With its heady mix of heroism and a very human sense of common purpose it works at many levels for a band that likes to wears its heart on its sleeve. On Coldplay's current...
Matt Peskie has been mixing front of house for Jars of Clay on and off since 2006. Mixing is a job that has taken him to some of the wider corners of the world; Brazil, Tokyo and China to name but a few, and with Jars of Clay...
Elton John has made a speciality of taking his music on the 'road less travelled' of late; since the end of the nineties when he began a tour of England's stately homes, to more recent years, when he has graced many a...
After a prolonged hiatus of eight years the enigmatic Portishead, a band that ardently refuse to be musically pigeonholed, produced one of 2008's surprise successes. Released in the spring, 'Third' quickly rose to reach number...
At sixty-two Neil Young has weathered a few brickbats in his time; Lynyrd Skynyrd took a light hearted pop in the 70's; more recently Young was the first North American to publicly question USA President GW Bush about the...
For a band that gets a lot of exposure on MOR stations Scouting for Girls manage to sustain a pop credibility that sees them fill halls around the UK with hoards of adoring girls. Their recent tour saw them play universities,...
Whatever your views on the curtailment of the Spice Girls tour, there's no denying that the legs in North America and UK have been overwhelmingly well received. Who can blame band members for being tired and exhausted, the...
Easily the most anticipated tour in a decade, George Michael's highly acclaimed performances just before Christmas 06 were universally rewarded by the European press with glowing reviews, not least for the sheer brilliance and...
It has been a painful rearguard action that has seen record companies deny the evidence of their eyes and acknowledge that downloading has destroyed their business model and it's time they found a new one. Whilst the major...
"An enormous variety of shows, and that was just our first week." Andrew Craig of Western Audio in New Zealand's capital Wellington, giving a brief glimpse of the daring this company applies to new technology. "We took delivery...
Five bands a night is tough by any measure, make that five bands from the dark side of metal and you can begin to imagine the levels demanded of the system. But that is not the only pressure. "Some days we have to open doors at...
"You've got to feel sorry for the English football team," said a tongue in cheek Roger Daltrey, "having to play for ninety minutes in all that heat." This from a man old enough to be their grandfather, who for two hours,...
Westlife: No, not Yul Bryner playing a cowboy automaton in a nihilistic vision of the future, that was Westworld. This is Westlife the band, another weird vision of the future perhaps, and similarly endowed with technologies...
"This is a first for the band," said John Tinline of Encore. "For the first time ever this is not going to be a synth' show, Erasure will all use real musical instruments." Encore has been providing sound services to Erasure...
Maybe with the prospect of Hillary Clinton sitting in the Oval office some day; Americans everywhere are flocking to see a story about a woman grasping the ultimate political office in a nation of the Americas. Evita is...
For those who are not versed in the world of opera let alone mezzo-sopranos, Katherine Jenkins is a beautiful 23-year-old former schoolteacher from Neath, Wales who has signed the biggest deal in classical recording history and...
To sell two million copies of your first album, and to have already sold one million of your second without even a hit single probably gives you a hint that Jamie Cullum is an artist who really sells on reputation and ability....
Yamato was founded by Masa Ogawa in 1993 in Nara, 'the land of Yamato', which is said to be the birthplace of Japanese culture. Presently based in Asuka Village, Nara Prefecture, they travel all over the world with Japan's...
Besides being an established icon of the fifties rock 'n' roll revolution, Joe Brown is a revered guitarist and in spite of his low profile on the current pop scene, his prowess with this instrument sees him associating with...
To make this years summer a little hotter Tchibo, the German coffee company, invited three legendary soul ladies to form a comeback on stages in Hamburg, Munich and Oberhausen. Whitney Houston was of course star of the show -...
It is their first live tour for thirteen years. Kraftwerk, positively the most influential German musical formation ever, are back on the road again. Not only synthesizer based pop groups like Human League or Depeche Mode have...
