I have to take an enforced sabbatical from going to gigs for a while due to my current financial situation being not quite as rosy as it could be, although it’s my own fault, spending close to £300 over the last two weeks I have been off work. So I will have to stay home and ‘make my own entertainment’ for the next six weeks or so. This whole situation came about from no longer having the extra income from the Phoenix as it is now closed for an indefinite amount of time, and the new owner doesn’t seem very interesting in live music, so I doubt that I will be working back at the Phoenix again. Unless another venue steps up and asks me to engineer, this situation will be ongoing for the foreseeable future, or at least a much reduced schedule of going out, which is going to test my resolve to the max!
Onto the gig last night, it was two of my favourite local bands, Redemption Unnamed and Grifter and a new band on the scene called Carnage Ensues, which has some nice eye candy for the lads in the band as well, and they seemed to have Slash’s younger brother in the band, so talented and nice to look at, ticks all the boxes for me. The gig went well enough, although the sound wasn’t the best it could have been, some tweaking of the EQ’s both front of house and monitor would have solved all the problems, the EQ’s were set almost flat. Most experienced engineers know that there are certain frequencies that need to be knocked out to eliminate feedback, and you might as well remove any frequencies below 30Hz as they are barely audible, also setting the 100Hz EQ to quarter level would help low end feedback. Anyway, it wasn’t my place to criticise, he was doing his best, at least I hope he was doing the best job he could; an engineer wouldn’t make it sound bad on purpose!
Anyway after some initial problems with Carnage Ensues, things settled down for the other bands, although they had some serious kit onstage, so most of the soundtrack was coming from the backline, although the kick drum was lost for the Grifter set, something that shouldn’t have happened as the venue has a decent Opus rig, which is known for its low end punch! Anyway, all the bands played a storming set, although Grifter didn’t think they played well, but everyone else in the building through they rocked the house as we expect from the Grifter lads. Redemption Unnamed were the headliners for the night as it was their album launch, and they played one of the best sets I have seen them play, they have certainly come a long way since the early days of the band, the only time I think they played better was when they played the Loud Arts gig in the Phoenix to a capacity crowd! So it was a good night, I drunk lots of beer, caught up with a lot of people I haven’t seen in a while, great music, although the sound didn’t keep niggling away at the back of my mind as I knew how to solve the problems, but it wasn’t my place, especially as I had been drinking!
The pictures from last night are here, if you’re interested in seeing them!