In my "festival days" it was multiple stage boxes with multiple snakes on quick releases. And copious note taking: which stage box was plugged into which console for what act. Oh and the stage would rotate so that the next act up was behind the curtain, mic scratching, ready to rotate into place.

Ah, the good old days. Think Aerosmith with Ted Nugent, Journey, Boston, Scorpions and Kansas as opening acts. LOL!

I am having dinner tonight with a dear old friend, currently the Clair system manager for The Stones. I'll be fascinated to hear how the technology has changed in 40 years since I worked along side him for Clair in the 1980's.

D.

sounds like a fun evening! - i've been working for clair quite a bit, mostly as some kinda 'stuntman' if something somewhere went wrong in europe... these days, i don't do much large scale touring anymore but still get to do those gigs which are deemed to be 'complicated' (with a bit of everything: high level talking heads, orchestra, pop act, a bit of jazz or world music, tons of broadcast feeds etc. intercom, often with dozens of stageboxes across multiple venues, all hooked up via fiber). the tricky part (besides multiple formats) is redundancy so i've gotta use some rather serious gear (as above pictured stageboxes)!

Not acoustic music but still, pretty cool.

D.

Is that Dave Natale's analog Yamaha desk?

Sure is. The whole signal chain is analog. Two 40-channel copper snakes between the stage and FOH.

D.

tc 1128's, dbx-160a... - and a bunch of clair/lake processors! is the digico for redundancy or for the opening act?

Yep. Pretty old-school. Gotta say, I didn't feel out of place on stage. There were a lot of other old, grey-haired people. both working and performing.

The Digico is on tour with Joe Bonamassa who opened.

D.