The Electric Garden festival, Kent, England.



Another weekend away with Supergrass! It was for 2 more festivals the first was in the south of England and the second was in Scotland so it was time to board a tour bus for the duration. I was picked up by the tour manager again at the local motorway service station and had a leisurely drive down to Oxford, where the band are based. The band gear was loaded into a trailer and is was off to a local pub for a night-cap! It was an early start on Saturday as the band had been allocated a sound check before the doors opened at midday. So it was up at 8 in the morning to sort everything out, the local PA was all set up and ready for me, again it was all Nexo equipment, PS15 wedges and Alpha side fills, the console was a Yamaha M7CL-48. Sound check completed and stored on the desk. We all made our way to a local pub for some lunch and spent the afternoon sitting around in the shade due to the weather being absolutely glorious, not a cloud in the sky!



I had been approached earlier in the week to mix another artist at the festival, Kate Nash, who is enjoying a lot of good reviews at the moment and has the current number one single in the UK at present! I had also had the pleasure of working with her before on the Later with Jools Holland TV show earlier this year. On this TV show it was for only one song and she was only with her drummer, on this festival show she had her full band with her, which included another guitarist/bass/keyboard player and a violinist. I had a quick conversation with all the band members as to what they wanted to hear and they were on! They were very sensible with their monitor requirements and kept it very simple, to fill out the stage I created a full mix of everything on stage through the side fills. They all seemed very happy with what I did! And there is now an offer of me doing a lot more work with them in the future. Supergrass head lined the show again I had a great gig, 2 good gigs for me in one day!

Kate Nash on Myspace

The Kate Nash Website

The Loch Lomond festival, Scotland.



After the Electric Garden festival it was time to board the tour bus for the journey north, a 500-mile journey to Scotland. There was no sound check this time so we arrived at lunchtime. It was raining when we arrived and carried on raining all day and was still raining when we left, so this is where all the clouds had gone! There was a lot of mud everywhere, the stage was very small and I managed to forget to pack any of my waterproof clothing (for the first time this summer!) The changeover into Supergrass was chaotic! We had been given hardly any space backstage space for setting up and I was still putting the microphones on the drum kit as it was being rolled onto stage, I had a quick run around to check as to how the vocals sounded and made all the mixes onto the console by memory! And then they were on, I quickly cued through all the mixes as the played the first song, thankfully it was a console I have used many, many times in the past, a Midas H3000, my all time favourite analogue desk! The wedges were all Martin LE700s and the side fills were also Martin products, it was only a 45-minute show so it came and went very quickly! Time then to re-board the tour bus for the journey south to Oxford overnight and a lift back home in the morning.