#68 Adam Wells | From Pub Sound Guy to Ed Sheeran's Audio Systems Engineer

Adam Wells has spent nine years inside Ed Sheeran's touring operation, working his way from PA tech to audio systems engineer, the role responsible for the entire technical backbone of one of the most complex stadium shows on earth. He was offered the job twice before he finally said yes, then stepped into it for the first time in front of a quarter of a million people at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Along the way he's worked on productions for Bryan Adams, Tom Jones, Queen & Adam Lambert, Russell Brand, Tim Minchin, and the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Adam sits down with Nikki to talk about coming up through South Wales' concert sound scene, losing his first freelance tour overnight before it even started, and what it actually takes to run audio for an artist who refuses to use a backing track or a click track anywhere in the show.

What you'll learn:

• Why Adam turned down the top audio job on Ed Sheeran's tour twice before finally saying yes
• What happened when his first freelance tour fell through nine months out, and how he rebuilt from zero
• Why Ed Sheeran's show has never used a backing track or a click track, and what that actually costs the audio team
• How growing up around South Wales' concert sound scene shaped the way he works
• What it felt like to run audio for a quarter of a million people over two nights in Melbourne for the first time
• Why humidity, elevation, and an empty stadium change how a show actually sounds
• The one piece of advice Adam gives every young engineer starting out

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Adam Wells Bio:

Adam Wells is an audio system engineer who has spent nine years with Ed Sheeran — working his way from PA tech all the way to the top technical role on one of the most complex and distinctive stadium productions in the world. He grew up in South Wales and got his start at a production company called Sonalyst.

Adam has a vast array of experience not only in concert touring but in large scale theatre production, broadcast, festivals, and television. In addition to Ed Sheeran, he’s worked with Bryan Adams, Tom Jones, Queen & Adam Lambert, Russell Brand, Tim Minchin, Strictly Come Dancing UK, and the Tokyo Olympic Games to name a few.

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Host: Nikki Sanz

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

When there's no band on stage and he's playing to 80,000 people, there's like, how can you actually make that entertaining?

SPEAKER_03 0:06

Shouldn't work. One man and the acoustic island loop pedal for three hours. He has three hours on stage every night. But he has people in the palm of his hand. There's nobody like him in the world.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Now, on that tour with Ed, you guys don't use tracks.

SPEAKER_03 0:17

No click track, no backing tracks. He's always been of the mindset is everything is live. It makes our job hard.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

So hard. So what was that first gig that made you want to be in the industry?

SPEAKER_03 0:27

I think a lot of the guys who end up in audio in our industry are build musicians.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

What does a system engineer do?

SPEAKER_03 0:32

Working with your team to help fly the system. And then once it's in the sky, it's your job then to tune it and to optimize it for the engineer and for the audience. Favorite place we've ever done a show? We were invited by the king and queen of Bhutan, where we played to about 400 people in a tiny little room.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

If you work in live events, whether you're on tour, in production, or just trying to break in, Gigs is built for you. It's the largest community and career platform for the live event industry where you can learn from people doing the work, connect with others, or hire and find your next job opportunity. And if you're liking the show, please take a second and just give us a five-star review. It genuinely helps. And lastly, we just launched a brand new merch collection made for the road, just like this one. And this one. And many, many more. Go to gigs.live and shop our whole merch collection. It's really fun stuff that's built for people who are actually on the road. Everything you can find at gigs. Through bedside and virtual programs, Musicians on Call has delivered the healing power of music to over 1.2 million people in hospitals across the country. And now, MOC is looking for new volunteers to help share the joys of live music. Volunteer guides are the friendly faces who host the programs as volunteer musicians perform hopeful songs to put a smile on the faces of hospital patients, families, and caregivers. To learn more about becoming a musicians on call volunteer, visit www.musiciansoncall.org. Welcome to the Giggs Podcast. I'm your host, Nikki Sands, founder and CEO of Giggs, the professional career platform and media company for the live event industry. Today we have Adam Wells. Adam is an audio system engineer who has spent nine years with Ed Sheeran, one of my faves, working his way from PA Tech all the way to the top technical role on one of the most complex and distinctive stadium productions in the world. He grew up in South Wales and got his start at a production company called Sonolist. Adam has a vast array of experience not only in concert touring, but in large-scale theater production, broadcast festivals, and television. In addition to Ed Shearan, he's worked with Brian Adams, Tom Jones, Queen and Adam Lambert, Russell Brand, Tim Minchin, Strictly Come Dancing U A K, and Tokyo Olympic Games, goodness, to name a few. Adam, welcome to the Gigs Podcast. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I just want to say thank you for just your early support and belief in gigs. It's been cool. Like we had a phone call years ago. And you were at with Ed, obviously at that point. It was just so cool to not only hear about your career and like your whole story there, but then also like, yeah, your support in gigs and our mission was everything. But I slowly realized like I just loved hearing the story. So it's cool that we get to actually share your story.

SPEAKER_03 3:32

100%. Like I was, I know. Yeah, we met a long time ago online. We started talking. We had a phone call, and it does feel like a long time ago, but it was such an interesting concept. And I believed in everything about it from the beginning. So it's very cool to come and hang.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

I'm excited to get into this. So I'm excited to go to the Edge Shearing show here in Nashville. And I want to go back all the way to the beginning of how you got the start and now where you're at managing all of the audio systems, which again, I don't really understand. And I want to, I really want to get into like what is that, how do you do it? Of one of the most complex shows. Yeah. So what was that first gig that made you want to be in the industry?

SPEAKER_03 4:09

I grew up the drummer of bands. I grew up with musicians. Okay. I think a lot of the guys who end up in to audio in our industry are failed musicians. Like and I we I was in a touring band in the UK. We were together for quite a while, and we just just never really it never really happened. We were playing a lot of the same venues, sleeping in a van, driving around the UK every summer, and it just never got it never got anywhere. And I got to the point where I was I was done with it. Yeah. And I kind of I thought I left the band in a very rock and roll way, but it didn't, it just wasn't that case. And I went, I'm kind of going travelling. And I left the UK, I did some travelling, and I realised I missed the music industry. And it took me a while to figure out how what what that looked like. But before I knew it, I was mixed, I was just looking after sound in pubs in the UK and mixing like just looking after open mic nights and mixing some local bands, and it kind of just grew from there. And I just loved being behind a console and looking after the audio side of it.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:02

And it gave me the same buzz that I had playing drums on stage.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 5:07

And that was kind of the light bulb moment where I was like, this is what I want to do.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Was there any formal training in that or was it kind of learning?

SPEAKER_03 5:14

At the time, no. But I went, I then kind of did a lot of homework and while I was travelling realized that I needed to do the some form of formal training, or at least trying to have a bit of education in it. So I went back to the UK, went to college, uh, got a degree, and then went straight into work full-time with a sound production company in Wales. And that was kind of the road into it, is I left college knowing full well I wasn't ready to go on the road yet. So I had to start somewhere. I think I had a lot more real-world experience to learn, and I think that's that's a big theme in our industry right now is younger people coming in who still have a hell of a lot to learn and starting at the right point and starting at the bottom of the ladder and just keeping your head down and being patient and learning your trade is a big thing. And I just knew I wasn't quite ready to throw myself into touring. So it was uh start from the ground up, work at a production company on the floor. I ran this on company there for about five, six years and uh and then made the big jump.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Okay. So what was and I think that's really smart too, of recognizing that your 20s are literally for learning and not knowing shit, and then building up to finally be trusted in a leadership position. Yeah. So you're doing that. Um where were you when you were working at the warehouse?

SPEAKER_03 6:29

So I was in South Wales, in Portland, a tiny tiny town called Port Talbot, South Wales, a company called Sonolist. Okay. A guy called Rory Madden, who owns and manages the company, is teenager was teenager's monitor engineer for 30 plus years.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

What does that job look like? Like what are you doing with that job?

SPEAKER_03 6:45

So it's largely overseeing uh maintenance of equipment, overseeing prep, over helping facilitate tours, get ready for shows, get ready for prep, and leave the warehouse. It's everything that's involved in that, all the pre-prep before the touring team arrive, um, all the understanding of the infrastructure. And I learned so much in my time there. It was invaluable. I was very, very lucky that the guy who ran the rigging department and kind of overhel helped me with the sound department was also Mark Knopfler and Destratus production manager. Oh wow. So it was like it was I was surrounded, I didn't know it at the time when I started, but I was surrounded by some of the best engineers in the world at the time. All the people who had transitioned from touring to be on the road later in their careers. But we had like Clapton's when I was engineered come through. We'd have Mark Knoffler and Diastratus engineer come through, we'd have um the Who and ACDC's engineers come through. So we had like some of the b biggest talent in the world for me to sort of just glean and learn information from.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Wow. Well, and that's also like a lot of delayed gratification that we were doing. And I I I'm staying on this for a second just because um a lot of, as you were kind of mentioning, the younger engineers coming out of school or just wanting to start right away don't realize how important that is and what you actually gathered. Even if you weren't getting something every day, it was also just the fact that you were around these greats and you weren't doing the fun creative part of like mixing the show or anything. You were getting it ready.

SPEAKER_03 8:09

Yeah, 100%. And it was just it was just the the hard work. The sometimes it's sweeping warehouse floors, it's painting speakers, it's all the boring shit that nobody wants to do.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:17

But that time was fully invaluable to me, and I learned so much. When I left, I was ready to work.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Okay, talk to me about that.

SPEAKER_03 8:24

Which, like, just rewinding a sec, like, I think the younger people in our industry who are in their 20s, who do start touring, there is such a thing as too much confidence, which we all we're all gonna fuck up. We're all gonna make mistakes and they will make or break you.

unknown 8:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:41

And I think there's a lot of humility in you're not learning the success, you're learning the failures. I think there's a lot of humility in that. And um and if you the the wrong mistakes too early in your career can really, really be tough. So I think it's about understanding your place, having patience, and just keeping your head down and getting on with your job.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

And when most of your hiring really depends on your reputation, mistakes are forgivable as like why you made the mistake and then how often. And 100%. Yeah. I mean, some of the things that I kind of assumed or thought when I went on the road was it's so embarrassing to think back of of how I acted in certain situations. I was like, oh my gosh. Like it's just so embarrassing until you learn it. But that I was really young. So you that's that's amazing advice. Um, so then you're like, all right, I'm ready to do this. And I want to kind of perform and because you kind of go back into a performance role then. 100%. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:36

But I was also like completely shitting myself. Yeah. Because you had the security of every like lots of people in the industry would be in that same position, you know, the security of a full-time job. Yeah. You're like, I was doing gigs, but I was doing small bits and pieces, or I'd do like a week tour and come back to the shop, or a two-week tour and come back to the shop. But I was like, now I'm ready to go. Yeah. So I quit I quit the job, I had my first tour, which actually was a theatre production.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 10:01

Um, and between the point of taking the tour and starting prep, the audio vendor had pulled out the tour and I'd lost nine months' work.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

No.

SPEAKER_03 10:11

Immediately. Like my first gig had gone.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Oh my gosh. And that's after you quit your job.

SPEAKER_03 10:16

And I was unemployed. So it was That's off.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

I mean, that happens.

SPEAKER_03 10:21

It happens, and there was it was political, it was financial, and it didn't feel the vendor didn't feel comfortable, and they pulled the pin. And we're not involved, you can still be involved direct for production. Yeah. But we don't advise it. And it was tough. It was it made for a really, really tough first year of work. But probably the hardest, without doubt, the hardest I've ever worked in my life was the first 18 months I started working. What did you do after you realized nine months that you I picked up a phone and I called every single audio vendor in the UK? And over the 18 month to two-year period, I probably worked for every single audio vendor in the UK.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Really? Yeah. In what capacity?

SPEAKER_03 10:55

In everything from like weekend festival stuff to one-off gigs to a couple of small little tours. It was no like massive big chunk stadium tour or arena tour. It was really little bitty things as it kind of is when you start. Yeah. It was bits and pieces, but it was I was driving all across the UK. I was all over the place. I was barely home, but it was it was exhausting. But it was, I think, the best thing I've ever done because you've got amazing contacts to all of these companies. You build a name for yourself really quickly, and you learn so much about working with different companies and different infrastructures and different and you learn about yourself at the same time as well.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Wow. It was building you. And so yeah. That's really interesting. And again, like that's and that's why you have so much success right now is because what do you do? You don't wallow in it. It's head down to the biggest, yeah. Because you are your own business at that point. You took the lead. So you had to make it work.

SPEAKER_03 11:44

But it was also at a time where it's a the audio industry is very different now. You have two major powerhouses in Soto Deck and Claire.

SPEAKER_02 11:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:51

And they've they've kind of dominated a lot of the industry, and there's a lot of individual bespoke companies that are no longer bespoke companies because they're part of the brand. Back then, I'm going back almost 12, 15 years ago, that there that wasn't the case. You had Britannia Roe with their own company, Capital Sound with their own company, SSE with their own company, and there's all these Wig Ram with their own company, Major Talmud, who are still a very bespoke company who have the Ichean contract. They're they're not part of a brand, but they're one of very few who are bespoke niche company. Everyone else is kind of part of that brand.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Do you remember like an early mess-up that you might have had in your career while you're doing that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:30

Like tons, Nick, you're still making mistakes now. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Which one do you think about now and you go, oh but it really taught you a lot.

SPEAKER_03 12:38

Really stupid things, stupid things, and lots of people have made this mistake earlier on their career. When you start in the audio, you tend to start stage-end, you tend to start patching stages or running RF mics around or looking after RF or Monitech or whatever it is, but it's usually stage-end focused, and you kind of go from there. Um I remember doing a show with Russell Brand. Okay. And it was an arena in the UK. And we'd we'd done a sound check, Russell had left. I was re-battering for the show, and part of the process is you take the batteries out and put fresh ones in before I start the show. And the mic was on the stand. I thought we were good. And he goes, and there's no batteries in the mic. No. He walks on stage and I'm the spare is next to me, so I went out and grabbed the spare and give him the spare, and it's all good and wicked. But it's just a rocky mistake. Yeah. And it's it's one of those things you do things in a panic, you do things in a rush, you're not thinking. Yeah. It might be like my second show, but Russell, like it was crazy.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Oh my gosh. And also you're sleep deprived potentially, too. So like those easy mistakes that yeah, that's interesting. I wonder how many people have actually.

SPEAKER_03 13:43

I can guarantee you I quite agree. It's a really, really stupid mistake to make, and one you really only make once, but it happens.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

There it is. Yeah. And you learn in you learn in the failures. Yep. Okay. So so you're working these gigs for the first first 18 months, you're saying, of doing your own thing. Was it lonely? Because it like after one gig, you were like, shit, I gotta get the next one. Like, what were you feeling in that freelance starting out time?

SPEAKER_03 14:08

I was honestly mostly excited. I wouldn't say I was lonely at all. I was I was exhausted, but I was just excited to be out gigging and working for different people and learning. Like, yeah. I I I worked my ass off, and it is probably the hardest I've ever worked, but it was some of the most enjoyable stuff I've done. There's something to be taken from variation. While I love what we have with Ed, and it's incredible, and I think it's invaluable, and I'm very lucky to be where I am and have achieved what I've got. It's kind of we do our best to replicate the same show every night. Right. Working in that situation where you're working for different people, and it's completely different artist every day. It's a different, it can be anything from a corporate show to a festival to whatever. It's there's so much variation in that, and that I really enjoyed.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Now it's just how do we make it perfect? The exact same show every day. Consistency.

SPEAKER_03 14:48

Yeah, consistency is what we what we strive for every day.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Huh. Good and bad in both.

SPEAKER_03 14:53

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

Tell me about how you landed on this crazy job.

SPEAKER_03 14:58

So it's kind of all part of the same process. So as a process, it was it was almost a goal of mine because I knew Major Tom as the audio vendor. They're very have a very close relationship with Sonnalist, the company I started working for. Um so I knew getting a foot in the door would be possible. Yeah. I knew it would be, I knew the people to call, and and I did, and I kept calling the project manager at the time, um, who I just pissed him off because I kept calling. And he was like, I don't have anything for you, I don't have anything for you. And that was my thing. I was like, I'm just gonna cold call everyone until I can find a gig. And I was like, if I piss people off, I don't really care because I just need to get in the door. So I kept calling him and calling him, calling him and eventually just threw a gig at me. And it wasn't it wasn't Edge here, and we were doing like random little festivals. They do a lot of like the UFC shows in the in Europe, so we go and do a couple of those in different cities in Europe, um, and then it would be like a bunch of festival stuff, and then it would just be like two years or so, or three years or so, just bitty little gigs and bits and pieces here and there. Um, until I had a phone call from him, and it was 2017, and the it was the start of the divide tour without, and they were there was a one-off show booked at the O2 in London, in between two legs of the tour, and they just needed an extra pair of hands on it, and he's like, Are you available? I was like, No, but I will be. Yes. And I had a gig booked in and I caught and it was I was booked to do Glastonbury Festival, and I was like, Do you know what? I I need to get out of this because I see I see longevity in this this gig. Oof. So I kind of went, I'm really and I I hate pulling out of shows, and this is another lesson for people is like if never pull out of a show if you said yes to something. And if you do, find a replacement before you pick up the phone. And be like, I can't do it, but I've got a guy who can. There it is. And which is what I did. I was like, look, I'm really sorry I can't do this, but I could give you somebody who's just as good who can't. And it sometimes doesn't go down well, but uh it was a selfish move, and it was like I've got to I've gotta follow this.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

You gotta follow it. Did you just like feel like like you just kind of had this intuition about that?

SPEAKER_03 16:51

Yeah, yeah. Like honestly, and it was kind of the the the move to Major Tom was kind of all about that. So I was like, do this gig, nail it, see what happens. And it went, it was I kind of came in, helped the system engineer at the time who's now a very good friend of mine.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Cool. What does a system engineer do? Let's break it down.

SPEAKER_03 17:06

Okay. Uh system engineer is essentially responsible for uh the configuration, the design, the implementation, and we call it the optimization of um a PA system. That's kind of the best way to describe it. Got it. And it's everything from the amount of speakers you use, where the speakers rig from, uh, where they point, the angles at which they use, uh dealing what working with your team to help fly the system safely. Oh wow. And then once it's in the sky, it's your job then to tune it and to optimize it for the engineer and for the audience.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Is it usually the lead, uh the the crew chief? Where does the second person usually fall?

SPEAKER_03 17:43

It's kind of it depends on the scale of the tour, I'd say. So usually on a stadium show, you would have a crew chief and assistant engineer's two different roles. Okay, okay. There would be two different people because they're both very, very busy jobs with very different needs and demands. Got it. And on a stadium show, you're usually a crew of say 12 audio guys. It's a lot of people to manage. And stage managers and production need somebody to go to who's going to be readily available.

SPEAKER_02 18:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:09

So that's usually a crew chief is somebody to manage the department and manage the team on a tour of that scale.

SPEAKER_02 18:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:14

A system engineer is somebody who's solely dedicated to the audio design and to the PA system. She is because it's so involved.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:22

When you get to that level, it's so busy.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

These large places that with the house PA, it's so echoey. Like when I think of a football game, like it's echoey. But when you see a show and it's perfect everywhere with not that much lag, with not I how the hell you're a part of engineering that.

SPEAKER_03 18:38

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard. I won't lie to you. Like stadiums are awful acoustic spaces. Yeah. They're not designed for it. They were never designed, especially as new. If you look at SoFi and you look at um Allegiant Allegiant. Allegiant, yeah. Thank you. Thank you. In Vegas. And you look at like Atlanta's another one, Lady's Bend is another one. They're indoor spaces, they're greenhouses. They sound they're covered in glass. They sound awful.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 19:01

Acoustically, they sound horrendous. So once you put an amplified peer system in there, it just gets worse. So it's really hard to get those right. Those are the really the tricky ones. Like here in Nashville, in this hand, it's open air. Yeah. So it's you're kind of it's the best case scenario for those environments.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

But they're all going closed. Yeah. Like our new one's gonna be closed.

SPEAKER_03 19:18

The new one's gonna be closed, and that's the route everyone's going down. Yeah. And I I understand why for football, they don't lend themselves like nice for concert touring. Yeah. They're awful. So it's really hard to get that balance right. It's really hard to like our in the round show is even worse because in the round is so compromised for audio.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

Ooh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 19:34

In the round is very, very difficult to get right for audio, even harder in stadiums.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

Why oh, because you have the whole 360 instead of just pushing out one way.

SPEAKER_03 19:42

You have a whole 360 to cover. Coverage is the hardest thing to get right. All 360 to cover to make sure. Like our brief on the last tour was to make sure Ed is seen from every single seat in the house. Wow. Like he had always wanted to do an in the round stadium tour. Yeah. For a long, long time. So when the opportunity came around after COVID, it kind of steamrolled very quickly.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

It was epic.

SPEAKER_03 20:03

It went when we were doing it. And it was, it was I that's my career, accolade, and that's something I'll remember forever. Is that like it was I I'm biased, but I think it was the most beautifully engineered and amazingly produced in the round show, possibly of all time.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Could not agree more. I saw it twice.

SPEAKER_03 20:19

Um I was like There were so many firsts ever done on that tour, first time a cable net system had ever been told Metallic and How are very similar design. Really? But we were the first to ever do it. There were so many advances in technology that happened to that toll. There were so many like brand new firsts. Really? We had a PA system on that toll that had never ever been heard before by not even by the manufacturer. And we were doing a show on it in Dublin. What? Yeah. We took the first 200 speakers off a factory floor before anybody had ever heard them. And we put them in the round and we did a show on it in Ireland.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Wow. When do you get involved in the design and the production pre-tour? Like when are you involved?

SPEAKER_03 20:56

Kind of relative early on. Um it's usually part of the process of when you start looking at a show design and the concepts of how it looks and what the staging looks like and what the structure looks like, and what it's usually like now I as much as I I disagree with it and I hate it, the world is based on giant video screens. Yeah. Like everybody wants the biggest video screen on the biggest hole. True. And we're wear one of those now. So like it's it's largely like you always fight battles, and you always feel like you've got to fight the corner of putting the speakers in the right place and getting the speakers to the right height and getting the arrays in the right place, and just trying to optimise it. And it it unfortunately always feels a little compromised. Um, but it's it's a conversation that everyone tries to have at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

Everyone wants the best for their um thing.

SPEAKER_03 21:42

I get it, I get it. Everyone's a good looking show, and we want a good sounding show, so it's yeah, it's part of the process. But early on, you try to talk logistics of what speakers you're gonna use, how heavy they're gonna be is a huge thing for the ringing department structurally. Yeah. Like we're a huge like stadium tour, like all the other big stadium tours with flip flop steel structures and multiple. Steel teams and there's over 150 people involved in the production. So it's a lot of people, it's a lot of stuff, it's a lot of trucks, and early on you try to have those conversations to make sure you nip things in the bud early to stop to kind of just fight fight any fires before they catch.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

Mmm. Dang. So you have kind of an idea of what's going in, and then how long is rehearsals for you guys?

SPEAKER_03 22:23

That was tough.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:25

So we finished the Mathematics Stadium Tour in Düsseldorf in October of what year are we? 2025. We finished it in October of 2025.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

That was like a three-year-long tour.

SPEAKER_03 22:38

Yeah, we finished it October of 2025. Two weeks later, we were prepping for a test build for this current tour. No. So we went home for we went home for two weeks after a three-year tour.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 22:52

And we went straight back to the UK to turn around an in the round system to turn it back into an end-on show, to then do a test build. Oh my gosh. To then put it straight in shipping containers and send it to New Zealand. And we opened the tour, the loop tour opened in January this year in New Zealand.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

Okay. You're also working for a man that never stops.

SPEAKER_03 23:13

He doesn't. It's insane.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

He has to play all the time.

SPEAKER_03 23:16

He's he's addicted to it. It's a point where he loves being on stage and he just wants to play. Yeah. He'll play Nike, he plays in pubs. He just turns up and busks. He was just busking in Ipswich Town in the UK. Oh my gosh. He just plays everywhere. He will play to anyone anywhere. He loves it. He loves it.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

He loves it. That's why I think I admire him so much. Because he's just it's cool. I love watching people do the thing they're so good at. And like you can just tell how much he loves it.

SPEAKER_03 23:40

He absolutely adores it.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

Wow. Yeah. But you don't get a break. Does he keep his same crew?

SPEAKER_03 23:46

Yes. Well, the the core team, honestly, has been there since day one. Whoa. So his manager, Stuart, who's who's a lovely human being, and is his right-hand man, has been there forever. Um, our production manager has been there since since he was he used to mix the show, he doesn't make the show anymore. But he's he's been the production manager and was the song engineer for a very long time. Um and the core team has been around him since day one. To the point of he told he we have like three of his best friends who you went to high school with who were on the tour.

unknown 24:18

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Okay, well that's loyalty that says so much about the topic.

SPEAKER_03 24:21

Surround yourself by people you love and you trust. And I got that's why when you're in, you're in.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_03 24:26

But it's just grown and grown. It started with way, but way, way before my time when it was four people to 150 people on a stadium tour. And the team's just grown and grown and grown. That doesn't count steel and it's no, it's it's we're about 80 of production now. Okay, okay. And then we're uh we're over 30, I think over 30 per steel teams.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

Yeah. So sick. Um okay, so you liter you have really not taken a break. When do you I mean how how do you feel about that? Do you enjoy that?

SPEAKER_03 24:55

It's Nikki, it's tough, honestly. It's especially we we were just in South America. Oh my gosh. South and Central America. So we finished New Zealand, Australia. We went home for about a month, we flew out to South Central America, we just did a month out there, went over a week, and we've just did our first show for the US run, and we're here till November. Then then we go back to South America till December. This all finishes mid-December.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

So see the entire year.

SPEAKER_03 25:20

And it's and I'm not gonna I'm not but by no means am I complaining. I love I love what I love what I do, it's a passion. Yeah. Um, I I'm very, very lucky to do what I do, what I love every day. Um, would I like to be home more? Yeah, absolutely. It wouldn't. Yeah. But it's I'm very, very grateful to be where I am. I don't take that for granted. And and we're just it's a team that keeps on rolling. It's not without its struggles, of course. Of course. And the the the the stresses of being on the road that long are really hard.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

Let's talk. I would love to get into that just a little bit. Um again, still loving your job and grateful for it, but there's like a really tough side. I don't feel like I have as many people that are on for like truly a whole year at a time.

SPEAKER_03 25:58

Nobody does that. Nobody does it.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

No. Yeah. I mean, I and I didn't because again, Ed is is the I mean I would say he's the biggest star in the world in like that everyone in the entire world.

SPEAKER_03 26:12

In terms of people playing stadiums, yeah, I don't think there's anybody. And you can probably put Taylor in the same bracket who's been doing it consistently for as long as Ed has.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 26:21

He's been playing stadium since 2015.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Yeah. Yeah, you get on a moving train and you do not stop. Jeez. All right. So what are some of those when you're out for a year? How big is your suitcase? Like how how do you travel?

SPEAKER_03 26:35

How do you um I mean I I'm of the mindset of I'll take for a year what I can take for two weeks. But I try and battle.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 26:45

I mean we've all only got 50 pounds on a flight, so it's got it's got off it. Don't get me wrong, there's this crew cases and there's stuff, like your home comfort stuff that you kind of have. Like people have those, like for sure. Yeah. But it's I'm lucky that at least this leg of the tour and a lot of the guys, we have some a lot of US guys on the tour, so they pop home whenever they can. Got it. This tour is kind of set up where like I'm on the I mean Vancouver, so the West Coast, I can kind of get home a little bit, and that gives the brain a reset.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

Why we even have a home? Do you have a home?

SPEAKER_03 27:12

It's a good question. It's a very good question.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

What is that like when you do go home?

SPEAKER_03 27:16

I don't I currently I'm I'm I I'm out of a pla my own space. Okay. Because it just didn't make sense. No. Whenever that and Vancouver's an insanely expensive market. So I will I'll be buying a new home in Vancouver next year, which I'm pretty stoked about. When you get a break. Pretty stoked about.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

Okay, that's a really big one.

SPEAKER_03 27:31

So um, but yeah, but currently it's just when you're when you're on tour for what are we, over 290 days this year. It's not worth it.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

Oh my gosh. Wow. Yeah, it's it's not worth it. And it because okay, the other side of stadium touring is you're here, you got into Nashville on a Monday because it's stadium and it's only one show, right? This weekend.

SPEAKER_03 27:52

We do one show this weekend on Saturday.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

But it's being built currently, right? At Nissan?

SPEAKER_03 27:56

Yeah, yeah. So it's a three-day steel build, three-day structure build. Day four is production.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

Okay. Day five is show. When do you get involved?

SPEAKER_03 28:05

I will usually go to the venue on day three of the steel build. Okay. And all um I'm there for maybe an hour or so. And it's really simple, is I go in, I measure the room. So it means I've got my my laser and I go around and I just check the dimensions of the room uh as per the prediction I have planned. So I have use software and we in 3D space model the venue. Oh wow. And we predict what the sun system is gonna do ahead of time. That's sick. So basically means that a lot of and I if you get that right, if any system engineer gets that part right, so much of your work is done ahead of time. Like inversely, if you get that wrong, you're gonna have a horrible day. You're not gonna have a good show.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Is that newer technology or is that always the concept has been there for a very long time.

SPEAKER_03 28:47

It's definitely improved in leaps and bounds by all manufacturers across the board, whether you're using Lacoustics, MySound, whether you're using a DMB, no matter what it is, that prediction software is rapidly improving. But the concept has been there for a very long time.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

Got it. So a lot of uh heavy importance on the prep.

SPEAKER_03 29:05

So yeah, it's all it's all about the prep. And that's that's everything else. That's everything.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

Are you loading in? Are you physically doing stuff? Yeah. How is your communication with the production manager and with the audio team?

SPEAKER_03 29:15

Our production manager, Chris Marshall has been, like I said, been with Ed for a very long time, and I have a good relationship with Chris, and uh and we work well together. So it's anything we need. Our stage manager is probably again unbiased, but probably one of the best stage managers in the world. A guy called Matt Cayley, who's been around a long time, been with Ed for longer than I have. Wow. Very long time. Um and he's part of the family. And he makes that show happen. So anything you need, you go to Matt, you go to Chris, and you just you get it done. So there's good communication amongst the team. Uh I'm very lucky, and we're very lucky to have an incredible audio team of people who really care and really, really work their ass off. So they know their job. So it doesn't you don't need it doesn't need to be micro-managed, it doesn't need to be huge. You just people just get on with it. And I'm I'm confident that like the guys can deliver what we need.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

You're working with the best in the business, so you yeah, you can expect them to deliver at this point too, of trusting them. Yeah. But with this kind of show, if you're doing an arena show, an American arena show, yeah, there's not much difference in like, except if we like I remember like going to the saddle dome, I was like, oh, that was a tough load and like what it could hold and all that. But like there's not much difference in most American.

SPEAKER_03 30:23

Especially in the new the new the new arenas? Yes. They're a blueprint, so they're very, very similar.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

But you're going to stadiums that are not built for music, and you're going around the entire world, which is all built so unbelievably differently, so many different cultures and a lot of different um types of ways that people work. And you just came from South America, which I've heard is just a whole nother world.

SPEAKER_03 30:43

It's a whole different world.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Yeah. What's your most favorite continent or country to tour in?

SPEAKER_03 30:49

I've got two.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 30:51

So my favorite country to ever touring and ever visit is Japan.

SPEAKER_00 30:55

Ah, that's what everyone says.

SPEAKER_03 30:56

It's Japan. Japan or Australia? Japan. Japan is amazing.

SPEAKER_02 30:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:00

I lived in Japan for over four months. Oh, cool. When I did the Olympics out there, I moved over and I lived there for almost five months. And it was amazing. It was the first place I've had where full culture shock. I love the food, I love the culture, the people are amazing. I fell in love with Japan. To the point I started looking at houses, I'm like, maybe I'll just move to Japan. Hello. That's cool. So I every time I go back to Tokyo or Saka or Kyoto or wherever it is, like I just love it there. And I snowboard a lot, so I escaped to the mountains. Gosh, yeah. We have breaks. I'm like, see ya. And me and like three buddies went off to the mountains and we we lived in the Japanese mountains for a week. It was amazing.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

When are you going back to Asia for this tour?

SPEAKER_03 31:36

I don't we we were there not that long ago. Ah, okay, okay. We've we've been there multiple times in the last couple of years, so I don't know when we're going back next. Got it, got it. My favorite place we've ever done a show. Place called Bhutan. Is that a country? It's a country's kingdom. Okay. It's called the Kingdom of Bhutan, and it's sandwiched. I'm probably gonna get this wrong on the map, but above China and sort of below Bangladesh. Okay. It's kind of right in there. It's a tiny little kingdom with the most nobody tours there. Nobody does shows that. We were invited by the king and queen of Bhutan.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:08

As you do. Ed was invited to do a show. We did two shows. One was to the king and his invited guests, so we played to about 400 people in a tiny little room. Oh when we turned up, it was a building site, and we were like, what is going on? And within 24 hours, this team of people had turned this into hand-painted murals all over the walls, stained glass windows. It was just this beautiful thing that was made by hand in 24 hours. It was incredible.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 32:31

And then we played a stadium in Bhutan, but they'd never seen a production. They've never seen speakers, they've never seen lights, they've never seen a video ball, they've never seen a mixing console. To the point of you had like Mojo Barrier with the footplate. No, they were stood a meter off the barrier because nobody thought they could stand on the footplate. They'd never seen barrier before.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 32:51

It was just incredible to be in that world where like this these people just don't see this. It was very, very cool.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Yeah, were they in just awe?

SPEAKER_03 32:59

It would it was just blown away. Like just people gobsmacked and people coming up to you, shaking your hands and saying thank you so much. And they were the the most not the nicest people in the world.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 33:10

The most polite, nicest nation in the world. I'm just very grateful for you to be there.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

And that we don't even really know that that exists. It's crazy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:16

It's crazy. And you never get you would never, ever, ever get to go there on tour.

SPEAKER_00 33:20

Right. And uh the infrastructure was built for you guys too. That's what's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 33:26

And so much stuff was brought in from India. And it was the start of a this is the other thing with Ed, he's he he wants to take his show to different places. So special. We did a six-week tour of India. Wow. After straight after Bhutan, we went into six weeks in India in places again, people would never go.

SPEAKER_00 33:43

Well, and that's like his new album is really inspired by India.

SPEAKER_03 33:46

Yeah, he really wrote a lot of that in Goa. He took a little break and he went to uh Goa and he sat there and he finished off this album. So a lot of it is very Indian inspired.

SPEAKER_00 33:54

Yes, I really like this one. That's that's super cool. Did you get a break when he took a break?

SPEAKER_03 33:59

Uh we did. That's great. A small one.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

So he just needs to go write some music.

SPEAKER_03 34:03

But but uh but the thing is, Nick is he's he's always writing music. He doesn't, he doesn't if he's not on stage, he's in the studio. That's cool. He's got a studio on the road, he's recording on the road, he's always, always, always writing music.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

His wife is an angel.

SPEAKER_03 34:17

So there's always his wife is an angel. Has to be. His wife and his kids are are amazing. Wow. But they but he's always got an album ready to go. Wow. There's always a new album ready to go.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

True. Gosh. Um can we talk about the Olympics?

SPEAKER_03 34:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 34:30

That what year was that?

SPEAKER_03 34:31

That was it should have been in 2020.

SPEAKER_00 34:33

Oh yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 34:34

It should have been the COVID Olympics. It should have happened in 2020.

SPEAKER_00 34:38

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 34:38

It happened in 2021. But it happened in 2021 with no spectators.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

Oh my gosh. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 34:46

Contractually, we still had to put in every single PA system to every single venue, even though nobody came.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

What? Yeah. Oh, contract. Hey, good for the vendors. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 34:55

Yeah, yeah. I just yeah. I would do what I was told. I was okay, this seems like a pointless job, but that's fun.

SPEAKER_00 34:59

A pointless job. But they got you. So were you there already in uh oh no, because it was in the summer of 2020 in the summer of yeah, we it was supposed to be summer.

SPEAKER_03 35:06

It was the COVID Olympics, so we had to go over and we had to quarantine and we had to COVID test every day. Oh gosh. That was probably one of the most toughest things I've in terms of work things I've ever had to go to because it was two weeks of not leaving your hotel room. Oh literally couldn't leave your hotel room. And you're in a brand new country. In in Japan. And but there was all the guys who forgot to, it's quite funny. Like all the guys who forgot together kind of were in the same situation. So while you were banned from living your hotel room, you'd open your door and you'd all stand there and like you just have a beer and you stand in your doorway. No. And you just all talk to each other in the corridor. The highlight of that day was there was like a dentist across the road in the balcony. So you just go there have a beer on the balcony and watch someone's root canal.

SPEAKER_00 35:44

Oh, that's so funny. Oh my gosh, that's your entertainment. It was amazing. Did you get good like takeout at least? Like could you get door pictures?

SPEAKER_03 35:50

I mean, they would we could, so there was a there was so there was a little we had her like our own runner, I guess. And she would go and get you anything you wanted. You text her and she'd bring you things. That's cool. Or you had like the Japanese government-issued food, which I shit you know, was bread and water. No, no, no. It was awful. It was like cold, cold, cold noodles. And the breakfast was like bread and water.

SPEAKER_00 36:10

Yeah, like the one place you don't really want to be in a pandemic, global pandemic, is not your home.

SPEAKER_03 36:16

Not your home.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

Like being somewhere else alone. So you're 20 this is 2021.

SPEAKER_03 36:21

Yeah, I was very grateful. The caveat is we were all grateful to be back working.

SPEAKER_00 36:25

That's true. What did you do in 2020 when you really stopped?

SPEAKER_03 36:29

It was that was tough.

SPEAKER_00 36:31

You don't like a break.

SPEAKER_03 36:32

I don't like I'm not used to a break.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

It's a good gig, man.

SPEAKER_03 36:34

I'm not used to a break. So we kind of I had a whole year of work planned and it all fell apart. But it happened. So Ed we finished the divide tour in 2019. Okay. Divide tour was done in 2019. Ed was taking a natural break at that time anyway. So he was breaking 2019. He was always kind of planning on coming back around 2020. Then COVID happened. And it just kind of all went to the wall. And nobody knew what was going to happen. So we all went like my entire work year of work disappeared.

SPEAKER_02 37:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:03

So I was like, I kind of sat down for a minute. I was like, well, but this like this will last a couple of weeks. Right. This will last a couple of months. Yeah. And six, eight, ten months later, we're all still not working, and money was rapidly disappearing. Yeah. So it was like, okay, I'm going to have to do something. So I worked on work on bars. And then Mars? On bars. On bars. I wish it would have been on Mars.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

I got out of hers.

SPEAKER_03 37:24

Yeah, it would have been a good time to get out of it.

SPEAKER_00 37:26

True. Not to work on bars in the UK. Yeah. I think everyone had to swallow their pride a little bit that year. 100%.

SPEAKER_03 37:32

It was different. It was very different.

SPEAKER_00 37:33

I was nannying. I was like, what am I going to do? Yeah. I was supposed to go on a world tour for the first time. And then yeah, I was like, well, how do I make Venmo money? Like, what the hell? Yeah, that's crazy. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 37:44

So we went from like working on bars to like COVID gigs would happen. So we'd go and do like socially separated gigs, or you'd go and do like everything. You'd go and do like these comedy shows, but people would stream in from their sofas. So instead of people, we had televisions and they were all streaming from their televisions. But it was coming back from that gig that I was driving back with the video director for Ed at the time, a good friend of mine. Um, and he said, You need to come to the office at Major Tom and we need to show you something. And I went in and looked and saw the production manager, and he like rolled a scroll of A1 out, and it was the designs for the mathematics tour.

unknown 38:21

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 38:22

And I just said, Holy shit, you're crazy.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

Oh, because this was the in the round.

SPEAKER_03 38:27

Because this was the in-tround show. And I just looked at it and I went, Are you out of your mind? Oh my gosh. This is this is impossible. Every like everyone said this is impossible. It's just like this is crazy. Huh? But this is I at that point I that these got these designs have been happening. I wasn't the system engineer at the time. A good friend of mine was, and all these conversations were kind of happening. And then I was brought in. It was like, this is what we're dealing with. And it was like shit, okay. Before we knew it, let's go, but it was like full steam ahead of ordering everything. Everything for that show was brand new, brand brand new. So we used a COVID pandemic to manufactur. Um it was it you wouldn't have delivered that show in that time scale if you didn't have a pandemic. That's kind of interesting. Because all the manufacturers weren't working. Wow. So you had like the best in the business sat home while we were building a stadium show. Whoa. But everything was happening brand new. K every bit of cable was brand new, every bit of infrastructure was brand new. Everything, when I say everything, I mean every single element of that show was brand new.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

Why was anyone else doing in the realm in stadiums?

SPEAKER_03 39:32

I mean, the people have definitely done it, of course. I mean, you two, the 360 Solver U2 still still is out there as like one of the first to do it very, very well. Yes. And Ed's thing, or Ed always referenced that of like, I want to be the modern version of that. Cool. I want to do that. I want to I want people to remember this like they remember that tour.

SPEAKER_02 39:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:51

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 39:52

And I think we achieved that honestly. Like to do the I'll never forget the feeling of doing the first show at Crow Park in Ireland.

SPEAKER_01 39:58

Oh.

SPEAKER_03 39:58

And just the feeling after that of like the guys worked their ass off on it and the design and every just everything about it was just it's a moment that I'll live with you forever.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

Well, and it the structure of it too is so memorable. I'll never for Yeah, I'll mean I'll never forget. It was yeah, it was so well done.

SPEAKER_03 40:13

It was, yeah, it was a beautiful show. Wow. I think that's I don't think I've again I'm biased, but elegant is the word I'd use.

SPEAKER_00 40:20

Yeah. Okay, so you're brought in, yeah, you at that point weren't systems engineer. Um, but I know that they were asking you to take a job that you said no to a few times. How did that happen?

SPEAKER_03 40:32

Um I I will say I'm not the first person to say no to a job that's been offered to them on that topic. Oh, wow. Purely out of like, I think for me, it was simply like not feeling like I was ready for that. Okay. It was not a it was a belief I didn't have in myself, but it was a belief a production manager had in me. Um and the it was we finished the first year of the mathematics tour, it was 2022, and uh a good friend of mine, Charlie, who was the previous system engineer, and he had been for 10 years with it, he'd been there forever. Um he decided he was done touring and he was gonna be home and he was starting a family, and it was just that time to do that, um which comes for everyone, but it's definitely a time that happens for everyone. So um and he told me kind of before he told anyone else, he was like, I'm I'm leaving the tour. And I was like, shit, okay. Um who's replacing you? And he's like, I don't know, but he's like, I've I'm about to tell the production manager, I'm about to tell Chris, and I thought I'd tell you, kind of let you know ahead of time. I was like, mate, I wish you all the best. I'm I'm sad because I'm losing a friend. We worked together a long time. And I remember the day, and Chris came down from the office and said, We need to go for a beer tonight. And we left the warehouse, we went for a beer, and it was me, the stage manager, and the production manager. And he said, So you're doing it. I said, I said, doing what? And he said, Charlie's job. I was like, No, absolutely not. Yeah, and he was like, No, you're doing it. I was like, Chris, I'm not. I was like, you need to find someone else. And this went on for like for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

Why why was you why was it a no for you?

SPEAKER_03 41:58

I thought personally, I thought the tour required somebody that had stadium system tech chops, we'd call them. It's like somebody who has that like that balls and that experience, who's like done. I've I've been a system engineer in all other tours in the past, and I had done before that. I just worked for Ed for long enough at that point in different roles where it was almost just a memory, and I hadn't done it in a long time. Okay. I'd done it at a much smaller level at theatres and arenas. I'd never done a never system tech or stadium tour, and I'd definitely never done it in the round.

SPEAKER_02 42:28

Ah.

SPEAKER_03 42:28

So I was very nervous about it and just I didn't think I was the right person.

SPEAKER_02 42:32

Whoa.

SPEAKER_03 42:32

So I kind of said, I think you need to go away and find the right person for the tour. Which to be fair, they did, and I suggested a few people, and everyone kind of went away and different people were thought about, and Crystal came back and I went, You're doing it. Wow. And I think after the third, fourth time of him saying it, I was like, Okay, I'll I'll do it. But on one caveat, yeah. I was like, if this goes wrong, it's your fault, not mine. Yeah, this is so much. That was it. I was like, if you're doing this, I was like, until we get this right, I was like, this is non-me. Wow. He's like, fine, I'll take that. Okay. And it was honestly like it was a beast of a show. It was a big thing to get your head around, but it was the design, the audio design on that was so well implemented that it looks way more. And it was is very complex and it was very complicated, but it looks way more than it, actually. You're you're if you're inclined and you like understand the role, yeah, you can get your head on it pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_00 43:24

And that's also probably why you take such pride in it too, because it was like you were jumping off a cliff. Like, oh, it was a it was a free fall. It was absolute free fall. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:33

And it was it was like straight in. We were before when we were in Australia, it was the start of the leg. It was 2023, and like the third show in was MCG, which is the biggest show we've ever played. We took 120,000 people, and we did that for two nights.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

220,000.

SPEAKER_03 43:47

200 almost 230 over two nights.

SPEAKER_00 43:51

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 43:52

Yeah, over a quarter million. That's in Australia. Yeah, over a quarter million people in two nights.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

What sport do they usually play in there?

SPEAKER_03 43:57

That's um cricket.

SPEAKER_00 43:58

Cricket. Yeah. So big.

SPEAKER_03 44:01

It's huge. But the stadiums in Australia are.

SPEAKER_00 44:04

Well, and then it's in the round, so you can fit so many people in that stream. So many people in that. Yeah, I think that's.

SPEAKER_03 44:08

The floor is huge. Like the floor is huge. I'll have to show you some photos, but that show will live with me forever.

SPEAKER_00 44:13

You uh with the Nashville, I think, broke the record when you guys came through of the most attendance.

SPEAKER_03 44:18

That show broke the attendance record at for a concert at almost every stadium we played on MATLAB. Yep. Because of how the logistics of it, how it all worked, and it was just maximized capacity for getting people in the room.

unknown 44:32

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 44:32

Yeah, it was very cool to be like, we've broken it again, we've broken it again.

SPEAKER_00 44:36

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 44:37

80, 90,000 people every night. It was crazy.

SPEAKER_00 44:39

That's like that's worth the crazy, crazy hours in the crazy job.

SPEAKER_03 44:43

Still like numb to me, but you normalize it.

SPEAKER_00 44:46

Yeah, yeah. Just being the best in the world. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:48

You just normalize crazy. You just normalize that many people. And it's just crazy. And you look around and you're like, yeah, it's it's huge. They're terrifying. And the like the the that terrifying moment before show never really leaves you. Wow. But you normalize working in stadiums and it's for that many people. You shouldn't because it's fucked up. It's weird. It's insane.

SPEAKER_00 45:08

Yeah. That's that that has never happened in human history. That's the other, like not that many people being together all at once. I was telling the team, I'm like, I I've always been a big Ed Sharon fan, uh, musically and like songwriter-wise, but when you see him live, it really is a whole different because you know he's using the loop pedal, but when there's no band on stage and he's playing to 80,000 people, there's like, how can you actually make that entertaining?

SPEAKER_03 45:30

And so it shouldn't work.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:33

If you look at it on per on on the on paper and you go, it's one man and an acoustic guitar and a loop pedal, yeah. It should never work in stadiums. It shouldn't. Because it's just for three hours. He has three hours on stage every night.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

Mm-hmm. It's just insane.

SPEAKER_03 45:46

But he has people in the palm of his hand. He's an increase. There's nobody like him in the world.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

No.

SPEAKER_03 45:52

He's one of a kind for sure.

SPEAKER_00 45:54

And that's why you can't stop.

unknown 45:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:56

That's why you can't stop. You're working with one of the world's.

SPEAKER_03 45:59

But he's yeah, he's honestly very reluctant. It blows me away to the point of like a huge part of this show. I won't spoil all the secrets. Okay, okay. But we have we have a B stage on this show, and he's in the middle of the room and he's 40 metres away from a big hanger PA, and it's horrible. And there's not there's nothing to help him out there apart from his in ears. He's like 300 feet away from 200 feet away from a PA system. Oh my gosh. He's 200 milliseconds away from PS. It's horrible, horrible place to be on your own, very isolated. Um the top of the like before the very first show, all the guitar text and the backline text stood on stage and went, I can't do this. I don't know how anyone can do this. Because it's all about timing for him. He's the boom on his guitar and he said, get the timing right in the loop pedal for anything to work. And if that's wrong, the whole song's done.

SPEAKER_00 46:44

So basically being that close to a whole PA system, he could potentially be hearing that in some.

SPEAKER_03 46:51

It's like two everything you're doing is coming back at you 200 milliseconds late.

SPEAKER_00 46:55

Oh God. But because he's talented.

SPEAKER_03 47:00

And he just turns up the first show and just nails it, wow.

SPEAKER_00 47:05

Oh my god. That's cool.

SPEAKER_03 47:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:09

So it's all about placement and size. And because I I'm wearing a t-shirt, went to Stapleton show at Nissan, and I it was so sick. But like he's he's got some upbeat, but a lot of it's the slow and like um very emotional. So like he would do great in a small room, obviously. But to be able to have that intimacy in a in a stadium was I'm I was like having a moment, I was like, I need I can't wait to ask questions about the audio of this because you have the stage over here and the audio PA, but then you have extra over here. When you have these seats all the way so far away from stage and you have the 300 levels, how do you not have echo?

SPEAKER_03 47:50

It kind of depends where you are. The people play a huge factor. So a stage, an empty stadium is a key is like sounds totally different to a full stadium.

SPEAKER_00 47:58

Got it.

SPEAKER_03 47:58

And you kind of rely on that a lot in our role. We listen to when I'm finished tuning the PA, me and the engineer will walk, and we listen to usually playback from the show. So we record every show, and it's the best tool any audio engineer has in their toolbox is playback from the previous show. We record every show, we track every show, so we can listen to last night's show. If we have any issues, something went wrong, we're like, cool, that happened there, that happened there. But it also like allows us to reference the show before to listen to it and be like, less. And we pick usually it's the same couple of songs, and we listen to the same couple of songs, we're listening to the same things. And we walk around, we're like, it's good, but I hope it cleans up. And you could you kind of go like fingers crossed. Like you don't some rooms change, some rooms get worse, some rooms get significantly better. Thankfully, like Nissan's an outdoor stadium. Okay, good. So it only gets better when it fills it was filled with people. Glendale, Glendale was tough because we had the roof on in the roof on stadiums are really, really hard. Wow. Yeah, they're just cavernous, cavernous spaces that there's nowhere for a big thing is like for sound to travel. Okay. If the if the air pressure can move and if the sound can physically move and not get constructed by anything and not bounce back off anything, then then you're usually off to a good show if you've done it right.

SPEAKER_00 49:09

Does weather have anything to do with sound?

SPEAKER_03 49:12

100%.

SPEAKER_00 49:13

What does that even mean? It's humid. It's humid as hell here.

SPEAKER_03 49:16

Humidity, temperature, even elevation, all those things play a huge factor into essentially it's all about the speed of sound.

SPEAKER_00 49:24

Ah!

SPEAKER_03 49:24

It's all about the speed of sound.

SPEAKER_00 49:26

Whoa.

SPEAKER_03 49:26

We're getting boring now, we're getting geeky.

SPEAKER_00 49:28

No, no, I'm like, I'm in, man. Sorry if you don't want to talk about this. Okay, so so like, and then we'll move on. But like humidity, does that make sound travel a little bit slower?

SPEAKER_03 49:35

Yeah, so it it changes, it changes speed over like over humidity and temperature. So and it that changes throughout the show. So in we say in normal air pressure, sound travels at about 340 per second. So it's kind of like you get used to those working in those environments. And when it changes, especially during the day, you have to adapt. So you this thing like air conversation is a big thing, and and atmospheric correction is a big thing. So we we adjust for that throughout the course of the day.

SPEAKER_00 50:09

So openers that are playing usually when the sun's still up is slightly different than how it's gonna sound with sun.

SPEAKER_03 50:14

I mean, we'll use the US will definitely find it as we go through this run because humanity changes a lot here. Europe is a little bit different. We don't get to you don't generally it stays pretty consistent.

SPEAKER_02 50:24

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:24

Um but we've definitely played shows where we've done a sound check the day before at a very different time of day, and we've come back to do our show in the evening, totally different PA.

SPEAKER_00 50:34

That's so wild. And no one that's just a concert goer thinks about that. No, but what is something for your role? Um, like what could go wrong for a front of house engineer or an audio tech is very different from what could go wrong for you as a systems engineer. What are some of those things that that could blow up that are SOS?

SPEAKER_03 50:51

That kind of I mean, in the audio world, uh like the the the problems are very fairly consistent. I mean, the problems in audio from a show perspective are kind of the same problems in video. We could have power problems, we can technology can fail. Okay. That's a big thing. And it it happens, it's part of it. As much as we pretend like we love we and we want a perfect show, nobody wants things to ever go wrong. Yeah. But it happens. Not you're telling me like if people have never done a stadium show and a generator's failed. Like it happens. It shouldn't, and nobody wants it to, but it happens. And we're not paid for I think we're paid the money we're paid to fight fires and fix things when they go wrong. Yeah. Nobody's paid to have a good show and not do anything. Yeah. So like it's and it's about how you deal with those stressful situations. A lot of my job can be dealing with complaints of people thinking the show doesn't sound good in a certain spot. Oh. And trying to fight fire for promoters and and and venues and production come in and saying, Can you go and have a listen to you? Because there's been complaints. And those are like nobody wants that. We're very lucky in the sense that like we don't get that too often.

SPEAKER_02 51:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:55

I'm very, very lucky in the sense that people come to the show and they generally leave happy.

SPEAKER_02 51:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:00

And people know the words to his songs. So you go, my my key thing is I'll walk the room, and if I'm at the top level of a stadium, I'll look around. And if people are singing and people are dancing, yeah, we're good. True. If somebody's singing the words to his songs, they can hear them. Oh, that's and that's my that's my that's my like my click. I'm like, okay, we're good.

SPEAKER_00 52:20

And if they're dancing, they're hearing it. Happy. You're not just dancing for lights. You're you're dancing for the sound.

SPEAKER_03 52:26

That's what nobody goes home singing the lightsnake.

SPEAKER_00 52:28

Yeah, yeah. Skylighting designer, Mario, LDs. Um that's that's really interesting. And that in so many of these episodes, I'm like, you know, just say yes to all the opportunity, even if you don't feel totally ready for it. But I think that there comes a totally different level of complexity when it comes to something like this. Because if you had started that before you were actually ready or had the proper training, you really could have hurt your reputation.

SPEAKER_03 52:50

Oh, 100%. And not just my reputation either. The show's reputation. And that was the thing I was most concerned about. I was like, I just think Ed and the show and the production deserves somebody who can just get in and nail this. And to be fair, I knew I was ready for it. I was just terrified by it. Scary. And I knew I like it wasn't now I look back and I'm like, best decision I've ever made. I can't believe I said no to that. Because I'm very I don't I don't take it for granted. I'm very, very blessed and lucky to be where I am. I'm I'm grateful to be given the opportunity every single day. Yep. And I do thank I do have to say thank you to it for my production manager for for making that call.

SPEAKER_00 53:26

No.

SPEAKER_03 53:27

Because he saw it and he was like, You've got this. It's fine.

SPEAKER_00 53:30

Yeah. That's really important. What is your favorite part of you're you're going out for a whole year. Maybe if you have a couple things that you love the most of tour in general for you. Because again, you're not getting the this is pop, you're not getting the break.

SPEAKER_01 53:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:44

You're seeing so many different places, but you have to still sleep. You are uh doing a really cool job. The show is great. Like what part what parts of this do you love the most that keep you in it?

SPEAKER_03 53:55

A huge part of it for me is not just the the show, the show is a huge part of it, and delivering the show and and pulling off a big stadium show is a huge part of it, and walking away with a happy engineer and me being happy how the show sounded is a huge thing. And that's where I know like we've done the job well. But a huge part of it for me is the design side of it, is like the earliest concepts of putting a show together. Like that's the stuff that I actually really kind of really love. It's just like the early design phases, whether it's like rack building, infrastructure, whether it's like system design, a speaker deployment, like all of that stuff I actually geek out on. I really like so it's the con it's bringing something from like concept into reality, into tour that like I've had the the benefit of being able to do, and I absolutely adore it. And like the taking something from concept to deployment is something I really enjoy.

SPEAKER_00 54:48

Yeah. You just get to do it over and over. Yeah. Um that is very cool. So when you were a kid, did you uh you always knew you were gonna be in this because you were a drummer and you wanted to do it?

SPEAKER_03 54:59

I always wanted to work in music. It was like the only thing I wanted to do. It was either that or try and be a pro hockey player, which never happened.

SPEAKER_00 55:04

Okay, so hockey, you were doing hockey in the UK, which is like so niche.

SPEAKER_03 55:08

Nobody does that.

SPEAKER_00 55:09

No one. Is that what led you to you move to Canada?

SPEAKER_03 55:11

I live in Vancouver, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:13

Okay, for hockey?

SPEAKER_03 55:15

So, yes and no. We I grew up playing hockey in the UK, um, which is a minority sport. So played at played at a level in the UK, and I was um I just loved the game. And just the two things I did like every, like every day, was watch hockey, play hockey, and go to band practice. And that was good. My life growing up, and my brother's life that we all did the same thing. Two older brothers, we all played hockey. My dad was my first hockey coach, it was like a whole family thing.

SPEAKER_00 55:40

No.

SPEAKER_03 55:41

Um, and at 19 when I quit my band and moved to Canada, I was like, I'm taking my hockey gear, we're going, we're gonna see what happens. I took my hockey gear and I moved and tried out for a couple of teams, played some teams, and it just it was never gonna happen. I just wasn't good enough. Ah we moved to Canada and kids play hockey at three years old. So true. It's just not a thing.

SPEAKER_00 56:01

Kids are like, yeah, yeah. People are trying to give birth at certain times of the year so that their kids could be like really hard. Canada's no joke.

SPEAKER_03 56:07

Seriously.

SPEAKER_00 56:08

Wow. Okay. But now so then why didn't you go back to Wales?

SPEAKER_03 56:12

I did eventually. I had my bees ran out, and I went back to Wales, then I went to school. Oh, that's it. Got it, got it, got it. But I I uh when hockey was like a no-go, we played at B league. I still played hockey, played like B leagues, and we had some good time playing in the men's league. Yeah. And I w and I snowboarded for like a couple of years and just hung out in the mountains and kind of took a break from the music from everything because I was like burned out from playing in a band, and yeah, and that was when I missed it. That was like I love my life with zero responsibilities and and no and no money, I guess. But yeah, it was time to get back into music.

SPEAKER_00 56:43

When you get to the level that you're at, are most people on that tour with Ed musicians?

SPEAKER_03 56:49

I wouldn't say most.

SPEAKER_00 56:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 56:50

I wouldn't say most. There's a lot, like a there's a lot are of it. Like the back line guys definitely are. For sure. Um, the guitar text definitely are, um, and very talented musicians at that. And every like a lot of people have played in bands in some sort or another. Yeah. Even people you don't even know. Like people, you'll see people randomly, like we had it was my birthday party, we were in Bangkok, it's quite a few years ago, and um we were ended up in an Irish bar in Bangkok for some reason. Some reason the Ed Tour ends up in Irish bars all the time.

unknown 57:17

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 57:18

We drink Bad Coke.

SPEAKER_03 57:18

We drink Stella and they end up in Irish bars. It's kind of it's kind of a known thing.

SPEAKER_00 57:21

I love it.

SPEAKER_03 57:22

So we're in an Irish bar in Bangkok, it's my birthday, and just like three of the guys just get up and just play some Chris Stableton.

SPEAKER_00 57:27

Hey!

SPEAKER_03 57:28

We just smash up Tennessee whiskey, and I'm like, come on, are you talking about?

SPEAKER_00 57:32

Where did that come from? Wow, that's what yeah. I mean, I feel like that's that's what keeps you in, too, is like just that energy and being able to create because so many of these roles, like what are you doing during a show as a like there's so much pre- What are you doing during and what are you doing post?

SPEAKER_03 57:48

During the show, usually if I've if I've done my job right, I'm very like relaxed doing the show. Cool. I need to walk, I need to and I get a lot of steps in, a lot of steps in walking around the stadium. But I as soon as the engineer's happy and we're we're a couple of songs in and he's happy, I go for a walk and I'll try to walk as much the stadium as possible, try get to Rose Ed, try do as as many levels as I can, as many seats as I can, and check I'm happy with coverage. And as long as as long as I've done my job right, nothing's changed too much between the afternoon, we're usually okay. There'll be some minor tweaks. There's kind of always minor tweaks, there's bits and pieces that I want to improve on. Um and it's so much of it comes down to Ed, honestly. So much of it comes down to him on stage. Interesting. And how he's he's so consistent and he delivers so well. But he's he's always busy and he's always singing. Yeah. So he's always on the go. So if and it and he usually knocks it out of the park every single night. But if if anything weird is happening that evening, then I need like sometimes there'll be tweaks in the PA system based upon that. Cool, okay. But usually it's minor stuff as long as everything's been done well beforehand.

SPEAKER_00 58:58

Yeah. Yeah. How long is a loadout for uh actually for this current production?

SPEAKER_03 59:04

For this current production. For the uh do you know what for production then versus steel? For production versus steel. So steel is usually within 24 hours of the show finishing. Steel are usually out. Dang. Yeah, it's quick.

SPEAKER_00 59:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:14

Um production in Australia, production we're usually getting done around 4 a.m. Show coming. So within five hours.

SPEAKER_00 59:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 59:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:21

Okay. And then you don't have a show the next day. We don't have a show the next day.

SPEAKER_03 59:24

But audio, we're done like Glendale, we were done two hours after he was off stage.

SPEAKER_00 59:30

Wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 59:31

Audio is where we're a it's a good team of people who've been doing it a long time. It's quick. When's video out? It's a pretty that's a different story. Yeah, I was gonna say, damn. There's a lot more of them, but that's a different story. Yeah, those guys, those guys work hard. Yeah. We've uh we yeah, that there's a lot of people who work very hard not at all, but the video guys, there's a lot of them, and it's a big video screen.

SPEAKER_00 59:50

I'm so excited to see it. Yeah. Okay. I come to a show, anyone goes to an edge show or like a big stadium show. What should I, now that I've listened to this podcast, now that I kind of know all these factors, like what should I be kind of listening for and and expecting, or should I just let the show totally take me over?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:09

Like, is this you never seen the show before? Or you because you've seen it three?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:13

I've never seen it.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:14

Kind of just expect the unexpected, I'd say. Oh. Because I don't everybody and I've brought lots of people to the show over the years, but everybody who's never seen it before just leaves with their jaw on the floor because it's a it's a roller coaster of a show. He's known for quite emotional songs. There are songs that really strike home emotionally for him. There are songs he doesn't like playing because they really mean so much to him that he does play, so you can see him tear up and he tells the stories of that. He talks about what the songs mean to him and why he wrote them. Yeah, um, so you feel part of it, and that's the thing with him is it's a roller coaster, and it's such a dynamic show. There are like huge moments where he's beating the shit out of a tiny acoustic guitar, and every sub in the room is limiting and it's going crazy, and it's it's loud. There are loud people come to the show and they're surprised by how much sub and low-end energy there is. Yeah. People really get shocked by that, and I'm like, it's it's Ed Shearing an acoustic guitar, but it it bangs when it needs to.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:12

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:12

And it's it's always been that way, and he's always kind of shocked people in that sense because he's such a diverse artist. It goes from being fast rap lyrics to very slow melodic ballads, and it's kind of everything in between. So it's a roller coaster of a three-hour show.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:28

That's so sick. I remember like some of his old stuff where yeah, where it would just be like absolute mayhem, yeah, but controlled chaos to quiet and just yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:37

It's it's very, very cool. So sick. And the loop pedal thing is such a unique beast.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:42

That like, like I said, nobody out there is doing it. But if you he explains it really well now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was a show at Glastonbury Festival a long time ago where he got slated for EV and backing tracks.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:55

No.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:56

Which is why the whole thing, he there's an intro that introduces the loop pedal and he talks about it and he does a demo and explains it. Yeah. Because and he's done that ever since. Because it's like, well, no, let me show you what's actually going on here.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:08

How else is it different audio? Like, you guys don't use tracks at all.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:12

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:13

Is there anything else that you guys don't use? Do you use um like what is the counting in the case? A click track? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:18

None of that. No click track. Even when we had a even when there was a big band on the mathematics tour, yeah. His thing was no click track, no backing tracks. Everything is live. Jeez. Which is really on it. When you're at that level of on like you've got Taylor, you got the weekend, you've got Beyonce, you've got all these like huge artists who are all incredible, but every single one of them is using tracks like and it's it's it's an expectation to deliver very like polished pop show now. Yes. You have to have it. Even if you have an incredible band, you need beds, you need weight, you need stuff to add to that. Yes. He's always been of the mindset is everything is live, and nothing, nothing is to be added to that. Which makes like it makes our job hard, honestly. So hard. It's like it would because it's there's nothing to hide behind.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:01

But he'll like, you probably saw it at one of the shows. If he messes up, he'll stop.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:06

If he's like, if he's if he and he know, like we all know we're like the timing's off, or like that one's wrong. Or like there's so many channels on Loop Pep. If he starts on a different channel, he'll be the one to go, nope. That's how you know it's live. We're stopping the shit, we're starting again.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:19

That's cool. Yeah. Even after you get the 10,000, 30,000, 50,000 hours that he's got like way more than that. But um that's very different, especially for like because that affects lighting directors. That affects like every single person that affects backline, that affects like everything.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:35

Everything. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You've got these like time-coded shows that you're gonna be able to do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:38

Yeah, that sucks for you guys. That's uh Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:40

We'll never be a time-coded show, we'll never be a like a truck show with tracks, it'll never be ever be that show, but that's part of the charm of it. Cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:47

Is there any band that maybe that you love or you admire or something that you would want to work for? Like, is there a type of music or sound that you would have fun with?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:56

Yeah, tons of stuff. Like I I've always wanted to do a country tour.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:59

Ah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:00

I've never done a country tour. Okay. I've always wanted to do a country tour. Um, I started listening to country a couple of years ago thinking it was a fad and it was a phase, and I could listen to so much different stuff when it goes. But I still listen to it today. Like, I I like so much different ones and so much different music. Um for years I I I thought I love Bruno Mars's band. Bruno would be a really, really cool thing to do. Cool. Even like McNamore. Oh, yeah. McAnible were really, really cool. But they're actually they're all supporting us on the back end of this US role.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:29

Oh, see.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:30

So I'm very excited for those guys to come out and just to kind of see the show. It'll be cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:33

Yeah. Who's opening in Nashville?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:35

Uh Nashville, we've got uh a guy called Marles Smith. Okay, cool. He's very, very good. Um, UK artist, another guy and singer-songwriter, very talented. He's definitely worth coming into checking out. Um, we've got an uh Irish band called Amble. Yes, we're also folky and very, very good.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:51

I love Irish music.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:52

Yeah, I think you'll enjoy it. It's kind of folk Irish. They're great. You'll enjoy it. Okay, sweet.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:56

Is there anything that I mean where you are now? I think we've already heard a lot of the lessons that you would that you would give to people kind of starting out. Yeah. Or what about if you have advice for people who are on a grueling tour that you're out for a long time? What would advice would you give to those people that may be struggling with it?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:14

You've got to find something to you've gotta find your happiness outside of work. You've got to find something to focus on to keep your mind sane. Whether it's like going to the gym, keeping yourself healthy, whether it's like I've just taken up golf. Love it. Because you can do it anywhere. Yeah. And like well, and I I'm I'm terrible, like I suck. But I love being out there and a couple of beers with the boys, and it's like four hours in the day, and it's very like I'm I'm enjoying it.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:41

So that's like something well, and you've got to like a thing for me for ages would be get out of town, get out of a city, yeah, go on a hike, get in the mountains, and just escape it for a moment, escape the bubble. And that was a reset, like that would always be a reset for me. That'd be like, Oh, cool, now I'm gonna go back to work. That's but you've you've got to find something to focus on outside of the gig.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:58

There's a golf course here now. Nashville with uh sheep all around. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:04

That's like playing golf in Wales.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:04

Yeah, I was about to say, yeah, but it's like a lot more human in the middle.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:08

There's more sheep than people in Wales, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:10

I love that. That's so cool. I'll have to find the name of it. I want to do some rapid fire because I don't even notice the time. Uh we've just been talking about the first concert that you went to.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:18

First concert I ever went to. A Welsh band called Catatonia. Okay. Um I went to two within the same week. I saw Catatonia and Elton John in the same week when I was ten years old.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:29

Ten? Okay. What was the first gig you worked? Um not as a musician, but as a as a tech.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:34

Excluding like the pub stuff that I was doing. Yeah. Because that was kind of how I got into it. And what was the very, very first one? I think it was a British comedian called Bill Bailey. Cool. Um, who's who's very well known in the UK, been doing it very long time, hilarious. But that was through the company called Sonolist. And um and they do a lot of the like the touring comedy, arena comedy in the UK. That was Russell Brand, yeah. Russell Brand, Bill Bailey do you do like people like John Bishop and they used lots of that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:00

Cool, that's fun. What's your favorite venue to work and be a part of?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:03

Favorite venue to work and be a part of. Um that would involve multi one room being to multiple times. Um I don't know. Uh a really good one in the UK for me is Hammersmith Apollo. Okay. Um it's quite infamous. Um it it's kind of it's a rock and roll venue. That's still a rock and roll venue. Everyone goes through there. Um it's just got nostalgia to it. And it's just one of those things that like there's a pub around the corner from stage door that you people generally go straight into after a sound check. Oh, fine. Um, it's just like there's just memories and nostalgia there. So those like, and I've got lots of those in the UK. Like the Royal Albert Hall is a cool one to do. It's a pain in the ass to work in for so many reasons. But it's got nostalgia and it's iconic. There are cool things like that. Like, those are the cool ones.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:45

That's cool. Yeah. What uh what do you wear these shoes? Like when you're walking all these millions of steps, like these exact shoes. Really? Yeah. You so vans are comfortable for you to walk.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:54

They're flat as hell, but yeah, they are.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:56

I was gonna ask you.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:58

If I'm lo if I'm loading in, I'm I'm wearing like like something way more comfortable, or or my steel toe cap shoes or trail runners just because uh it's it's easier to get around the venue. I'm not walking the stadium stairs in steel toe cap shoes. Oh, okay. Which is where like I'll put my trail runners on and we'll get upstairs easier. But once we're once we're in like gig mode, yes, the the vans go on.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:16

The vans. All right, and it's a vibe.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:18

Uh what is a tool or like something? Again, if you're packing for like two weeks for the year, basically, what is something you cannot tour without other than your laptop? Just something that you're like, ah, I can't forget.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:32

I shouldn't say this on the podcast, but I'm ever fire stick with like everything I would ever want to watch on.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:36

A fi Oh, that's fun.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:38

But it's also got like every live TV channel from anywhere in the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:42

Oh, is so this is illegal. That's what I wasn't gonna say on the podcast.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:47

But yeah. You need that. And there's there's a couple of guys on the tour who got them. It's like I like I'm a big hockey guy, so we just watch the Standing Cup finals. But I'm not. I was watching that from my hotel room every night. Nice. Yeah, cool. But all the World Cup football, like every TV channel from everywhere in the world, every series you would ever want to watch, all strains of the hotel room TV.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:03

That's baller.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:04

So that's that comes everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:05

We're not cutting that.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:05

That's I'm the coffee machine that lives in the toolbox, those are two things.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:08

That's it. Okay, copy that. There we go. What is the best piece of advice that you've received that you still remember and that kind of keeps you going and maybe you would give to your younger self or to someone else?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:20

Slow down. Like genuinely slow down, because I used to and I made mistakes early on by rushing and not thinking and not going through the process. Got it. Things like stupid things like turn up to the venue and meter the feeder before you plug it in. Like things like that that live rent-free in your brain when you make a mistake. And yeah, it's just slow down. Slow down. Let yourself learn. Everything's a learning opportunity, and just it's although sometimes we're on a time crunch and sometimes you've got to get the PA in there and the truck turned up late, and that we didn't get the points till two in the afternoon or whatever it is, like slow down. Cool. Like I hate guys, I hate PA guys whose main objective is to get the PA especial loadout, get it on the floor as quickly as possible. I'm like, get it on the floor as safely as possible. Like, I don't care if we're out here 10 minutes later, 20 minutes later, because your PA came down a bit slower. Just let's just be safe, Ken.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:14

You had to learn that the hard way. I've made mistakes. Yeah, that's so cool. Well, this was I can't like this flew by for me. This is so cool and answered so many questions that I just have had when I'm seeing shows. So thank you for doing this. Oh, thanks for having me. A blessing to be able to finally meet you in person. Be in the States and take a break for a second. Well, you're not taking a break, but I'm excited to go to the show in a couple days. And uh good luck with the rest of this year.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:39

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:39

And hey, if there's a country tour somewhere, someone in the show.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:43

I'm done.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:44

That's awesome. Thank you so much, Adam.