mike257

I was their tour manager for the last year. Recently stepped down because of other touring commitments. Lovely bunch and all wonderful players!

I've worked with Lyndon a lot over the last year. Absolutely wonderful guy and insanely talented. Currently playing keys for Go West.

Anyone that wants to see evidence of PAT testing (or anyone with a clue, at least) doesn't want to look at stickers. They'll ask for your PAT certificate. This is less a certificate and more an inspection record on a big spreadsheet, showing the items tested, the results, and the date of testing. That's what venues are asking you to email over in advance, and if you've had your kit tested, the tester will have supplied you with this document. Their insurance will cover them if they're liable for, for example, an accident that causes someone an injury. It won't cover them if they're not liable. Your PLI is to cover your liability for something like that happening. That's not a new development because of someone cutting costs, that's just how liability insurance works and always has done.

The click track will be usually either fed to the mixing desk and returned to the drummer in their in ear monitor mix, along with the rest of the band as needed, or the drummer may have a small mixer as part of their monitoring setup which receives the click directly from the playback system along with their mix from the monitor engineer, allowing them to directly control how much click they want to blast their ears with!

I've used them in large scale touring productions right down to little club shows. It's a massively useful tool. One high end function/corporate showband I've mixed a few times had two different clicks outputting from the playback rig, each with different verbal cues built in - one for the band and one for the vocalists - so even a last minute dep jumping in on a show had cues in their ears for every section change, breakdown, ending etc - great when the band had loads of mashups and unique arrangements. I've seen some very sophisticated setups where a playback rig is sending clicks, automating patch changes on keys and guitar rigs, and feeding timecode to lighting/video to sync the whole show up. There's huge creative and practical potential in these tools that goes far beyond just keeping unruly tempo wandering in check!

Soooooooo good. Remember seeing the Used For Glue video on MTV2 back in the day and being instantly hooked. Such a great record. I met Walter when I was about 17 (20 years ago 😳) and he was an absolute gent too, spent about 45 minutes just hanging out and chatting.

The bigger the venue, the less you need a substantial backline. I'm usually pushing faders these days, but when playing I've tried to go direct and IEM as often as possible for a long time now.

You should! Loads to see. Lots of heritage sites, all the main museums are free to visit, tons of good food places, lovely architecture. Obviously there's all the Beatles stuff if you're that way inclined, but plenty to enjoy even if you're not.

Glad to see the old girl still getting some use! My Yamaha's are long gone, but my SQ5 is doing solid work. Currently piloting an SD12 around the UK and Europe mixing monitors, lots of fun....

The bleed is often down to poor quality sound cards within the laptop, and/or cheap cables. A half decent external interface should sort you out.

My experience of this over the years (having done the original band DIY touring thing in my youth, to occasional covers gigs around a day job, to full time muso/techy work) is that, broadly speaking, the more professional the act, the more accustomed they are to you having multiple projects on the go and to have to use deps from time to time. When I was depping around all over the place, I'd frequently drop in to reasonably high end function gigs with nothing more than the setlist and a handful of notes on the arrangements, and a Motown band I was involved with would sometimes end up doing a gig as a ten piece with seven players who'd never even met before turning up at the gig. Conversely, it was the part time pub bands looking for a dep who'd ask you to come in for rehearsals before playing for £70 at a local boozer. I remember one in particular asking me to come to a rehearsal to "try out" to dep a handful of pub shows for them, and to make sure I could play Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick, because they liked to "test out bass players with it". I think whatever the situation, whether it's a pro working band, a part time pocket money thing, or a fun rehearsal room project that might play the odd show, the important thing is that everyone knows what the expectation is going in to it and is on the same page. If you just want to jam and play the odd gig, and dip in and out of other projects, but the rest of the band want to be playing shows every week (or vice versa) it's doomed. If everyone knows the score, and is comfortable with seeing the occasional dep drop in, then it's definitely workable to be involved with multiple projects.

I've been trying not to do NYE gigs for the last few years, but after the work diary being ravaged by 'rona I'm currently saying yes to everything that comes in! Sadly no four string action - I'll be hauling a load of PA in to a fancy hotel and mixing a band.

Put two products in my basket (Polytune clone and the cheapo 3" monitor speakers), came to £56. Put the 30% discount code in and it knocked it down to £48. I'm no Carol Vorderman, but that's definitely not 30% off! EDIT: On further investigation - anything already showing as having a discounted price isn't affected by the codes. Ah, well!

Ben is great, I was production manager on a tour with him and two American Elvis chaps a few years ago. He's a cracking performer and a properly lovely guy, will be a fun show!

Absolutely bloody love Fighting With Wire. Two great albums. Such a shame what happened with the release of the second one. Have you checked out Jetplane Landing? Cahir from FWW played guitar for them from their second album onwards, and Craig from FWW is on drums for the final album. All recently disappeared from Spotify when their record label shut up shop, but well worth tracking down. Been on heavy rotation for me all week. Absolutely brilliant.