The live setup comprises Murphy himself on vocals and various instruments, Nancy Whang on keyboards and vocals, Pat Mahoney (drums), Tyler Pope (bass) and Phil Mossman (guitar, percussion, keys and bass). They play at levels that are constantly on the edge of feedback yet Mary Alafetich, LCD's monitor engineer, says Murphy demands much more than sheer power.
"What James really wants is effectively an enlarged studio on stage built to his specification," she says. Band, backline and monitors are packed together, creating a hot, immersive soundfield. But Murphy himself says the unpredictability of locally provided monitor systems was a major issue until LCD played the Lowlands Festival in The Netherlands, where they discovered the proprietary Synco wedges provided by Holland's Ampco Pro Rent as part of the standard equipment for the festival.
He explains: "I'm super-specific about the frequencies on stage. There are lots of monitor rigs that I just won't use for my vocal, and I want the box to be able to handle 130-odd decibels easily. My wedges used to take hours every night to ring out and sometimes you'd just be fighting the box the whole night."
Alafetich, who mixes the band on a DiGiCo D5, adds: "What impressed James immediately was that the monitors already sounded good - he didn't have to do anything. They were ready to go. It was the first time that had ever happened for us."
(Jim Evans)
