U.S. Tour with Francis of Delirium
I recently had the immense honor of touring with Luxembourg-based band, Francis of Delirium, as their Front of House engineer. My duties included everything from mixing their shows every night, to being the acting tour doctor. It was a long and extremely rewarding 6 week run across the entire U.S. opening for Philly-based band, The Districts, and supporting with LA-based band, Vanillaroma.
From March 8 to April 18, we strolled along in our van packed with equipment - including my Allen & Heath SQ-7 console and a case of microphones ranging from the ever-present SM57 to my new Earthworks DK7 drum microphone kit.
I wanted to present my Top 3 venues as it relates to sound, fidelity and room impact.
#1: Union Transfer - Philadelphia, PA
To me, Union Transfer was a near-perfect balance of qualities that a room can have for a live show. It’s a professional venue with great vibes from it’s historic features, it’s wonderfully treated with a mixture of absorption panels and natural diffusion from the architecture, and it has a beautifully spec’d and tuned PA with great lighting as well.
The d&b Q1 system installed here is a perfect match for the room in my view. When run hot with a packed house, you get a nice amount of “squish” and loudness that doesn’t feel forced or harsh. It’s delivers amazing punch for huge rock drums, while retaining enough headroom and clarity for the vocal to soar over the mix for an excellent delivery to the audience. The translation of my show file in this room was one of the best on the entire tour. I felt like I had complete control, and a lot of detail on my FX throws for reverb and delays. My favorite thing about a great PA system is when you can get the loudness and impact you want, without any pain from harsh resonances!
The Philly audience definitely helped - filling the room with passionate music fans that added the perfect amount of energy to the room to make this show one that I won’t forget. Not to mention, great monitoring on stage with d&b M4’s so that the band felt their best in order to deliver an amazing final performance for the last show of our tour.
#2: 9:30 Club - Washington D.C.
Surprise! Another big room with a d&b system. The main d&b J-Series array in this venue really blew me away. It sounds huge! And as it should for a legendary spot like 9:30. It was an honor to mix in such a historic venue and the vibe, hospitality and audience were hard to beat. The room sounded a little cavernous compared to a tighter space like Union Transfer, sure - but it didn’t take away from the energy at all!
What really made this place special, aside from the top-tier sound reinforcement, was the incredible hospitality, kindness and professionalism of its staff. From the moment we walked in the door for soundcheck, we were greeted with food, water, and a smiling group of professionals who were enthusiastic to help us with whatever we needed to have a good show.
When the touring party is well taken care of, it’s sure to be a great show. And it was. Shout out to 9:30 Club!
#3: The Basement East - Nashville, TN
After being completely destroyed by a tornado in March of 2020, The Basement East in Nashville only needed a year to rebuild and create a really awesome space to see live music.
This was easily the tightest venue I mixed in on tour - almost to a fault. The curtains and acoustic absorption scheme in this room, along with the Meyer JM1P mains, make this room feel like mixing in a glorified studio control room with an audience! It is so dead (acoustically speaking) and dry, which meant I had extremely fine control over the ambience in the mix, and even the smallest fader moves were noticeable at FOH.
At times, the relatively “quiet” room could feel a bit awkward between songs, from an audience perspective, but as a mix engineer, it was a real treat to have a room and a high end system that was so incredibly responsive to the decisions I was making. We got a lot of complements that night, and an even better recording from the stage. Monitoring was also excellent, with the Meyer MJF208’s, which made it a pleasure to perform in for the band.
Honorable Mentions
Truthfully, there were so many venues on this tour that were a lot of fun to mix in - so I’m just going to list off some of the other rooms that really stood out to me!
Mr. Smalls Theater - Pittsburgh, PA
Metro - Chicago, IL
Bluebird Theater - Denver, CO
August Hall - San Francisco, CA
Meow Wolf - Sante Fe, NM
The Sinclair - Cambridge, MA