The band has been extremely busy with festivals in Australia, USA, Ireland, Belgium, Mount Fuji in Japan, plus of course the recent Mean Fiddler festivals in Reading, Leeds and Glasgow over the August Bank Holiday weekend, where Prodigy headlined. According to Hand Held's Nick Bruce Smith, the challenge has nothing to do with the gear spec, which is straightforward enough, although the licensing element has been time consuming given the number of different countries and sites the band has covered. The interesting part is seeing the state of the equipment on its return. "We just never know quite what we'll get back, or in how many pieces!" said Nick Bruce Smith. "It's a bit of a 'Guess the Mystery Object’ competition. We know it definitely left here in the shape of a microphone, but it could easily come back as something that wouldn't look out of place in the museum of Modern Art!"
By way of explanation, Bruce Smith described the band members as "quite exuberant" on stage and the Reading Festival was no exception. "At the end of the set, Maxim just flung his microphone [a hapless SM 58] into a sidefill. Luckily for SSE, the sidefill just bounced it right back, but sadly the mic didn't survive the encounter. Following an inquest a verdict of Death by Misadventure was reached. The funeral took place last week." He also went on to add that all funeral expenses were undertaken personally by Maxim and that there were no hard feelings.
(Lee Baldock)
