UK - Ben Howard's 10th anniversary tour for 2014’s UK No1 album I Forget Where We Were visited venues across Europe with Eighth Day Sound's audio services, looked after by account executive Stuart Wright.
Tour manager Martijn de Jong comments: "Ben's a musician with a wide range of records and songs that hold a recognisable sound. No two records are the same, and neither are his tours. He knows what he wants and strives to get there with his sound, look, feel, and the overall live experience of his shows, Ben and his band are inspirational to work with.”
To help provide this exact experience, de Jong explains what the production requires from a vendor: "We need answers and solutions,” he says, simply. “We knew what we were after and got there with Eighth Day Sound and Stu by our side. Their flexibility and an ongoing effort to jump onto any required adjustments and extras is also a plus. The tour couldn't have gone any better and we're all thrilled with the outcome and positive responses."
Taking charge of both production management and system engineering duties, Bobbie Caris has the insight needed to pull off delivering a tour which both marked a special moment in time and had to reimagine sounds for today’s audiences.
Eighth Day Sound provided an L-Acoustics system for the tour, which also uses in-house PA in the more intimate spaces. Caris comments: "With audio, it all starts with analysing the room plans and looking at rigging possibilities, followed by a thorough software simulation. Looking at size, capacity, stage width and many other aspects of the venue will decide the amount and type of PA needed. Most venue nuances are already known to either the vendor or me, so making small adjustments along the way helps to translate the best sound.
"One of my current favourite systems is the L-Acoustics K1/K2 combo. This system’s musicality reinforces the tone and harmonics of Ben's music very well, and in acoustically treated venues, the transients of an L-Acoustics system can really work to your advantage. I have a lot of information coming my way from the nine-piece band on stage, and the system is fully capable of translating the finest details therein."
Mixing at FOH, John Cornfield is using an Allen & Heath S7000 console with a DX32 Prime rack for local IO, and a DM64 stage rack with a 32-way Prime preamp rack for additional IO.
Well known for his studio work, Cornfield starts his live process by creating a playlist of 'contenders' for the tour's set list. "I had a fairly good idea of Ben's sound as I recorded the 'Noonday Dream' album a few years ago and mixed his 'Live from Goonhilly' recording too. Together with Mickey Smith, Ben's musical director, and a multi-instrumentalist in the band, we discuss how we are going to go about re-creating the songs as faithfully as possible.”
Cornfield's stage rack is fitted with the new A&H V2.0 Ultra FX DSP card, which he uses to add "wonderful-sounding FX."
For vocal, the Se Electronics V7 Dynamic Microphone came out on top. Cornfield furthers: "Ben liked what he heard, and I liked the rejection we were achieving. The rest of the band also decided on the V7 which made life much simpler! I'm running Ben's vocal saturation on the console using the new UFX saturation plug-in, Mickey also runs vocal saturation through his Quad Cortex pedal.”
In monitor world there are 13 IEM mixes at play; nine band mixes (with all manner of fun instruments from the flugelhorn and trombone to a cello and a live analogue tape looper), to guest and tech mixes. Monitor engineer Sander Van Laere comments: "Ben wants to hear the FOH mix; it was a very clear and simple instruction. I feed some of the FOH effects back to him, so his mix is in the same space as FOH, and he likes to hear ambience."
Van Laere uses a DiGiCo Quantum 5 console, with Shure PSM100s for in-ear monitoring.
In closing, Van Laere sums up touring with an Eighth Day rig: "It was great working with Eighth Day, every package, anywhere in the world, was built to my wants and needs.”
Read our full show report of Ben Howard’s recent anniversary tour in LSi November 2024
