Hey Robb, great to have you here!

Have you got any horror stories from your time on the road?

What's the worst thing that's ever happened at a show? How did you manage it/recover? Importantly, did the majority of the audience notice?

How much redundancy is built in to everything you do with regards to issues that can happen with gear?

Thanks in advance!

My worst ever night was in Glasgow in Scotland my home country, at the SECC, with Manic Street Preachers. The band came onstage, punk rock, pints were flying and I could see one in my peripheral vision coming in from stage right, with a perfect head on it like a cartoon. It hit my desk, an analogue beast, full on. We did everything -towels, hairdriers- but we knew it was going to go, it was just a question of when. When the VCAs shorted out they all went to the end stop so eight VCas at +12, meaning the whole mix quadrupled in volume. It was the loudest thing you’ve ever heard, like the end of the world. Nicky Wire the bass player said he thought someone had let off a bomb. While 50 of my countrymen attempted to sort the situation out by climbing over the barriers and physically assaulting me we held them at bay and down stripped a complex mix of 50 or 60 channels and chose the ten most important ones because that was all the input channels we had left working on the desk. We patched them to a mono aux because there were no output faders left working and stuck that into the crossover. So we had kik, snare, 1 OH, bass di, two guitars, a mono piano, a mono hammond a vocal and a reverb. I’d like to say everybody noticed the difference but they didn’t, truth is with those essentials going on we had a gig again and the place went crazy. Twenty thousand people jumped up and down and got on with the party.

That is CLASS!
And that, folks is what REAL sound engineering is all about!
Robb, such a pleasure to read about your methods.
Rick.

That's a great story. Must be a similar feeling to a pilot at the controls of a 747 that's down to one useable engine... :D

Thanks again!!