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Some thoughts on festival sound;
I've been to a few festivals over the summer both for work and fun. The sound quality was to say the least variable; here are some of my sonic highs and lows;
Bestival: On Friday main stage sound was appalling, I understand that there were technical problems but Massive Attack were a waste of time. The audience voted with their feet and there was a steady stream of people walking away from the main arena throughout their set.
Saturday’s main stage bands did a bit better, presumably problems had been solved but nearly everyone’s sound balance was dominated by a 100hz boom, Lily Allen being a particular offender, although Mika’s engineer seemed to be able to find the graphic and turn it down so he sounded pretty good.
Kraftwerk sounded fab though, no boom helped by the wind having died down by the evening. They even managed to make the Funktion 1 delay stack sound ok.
When I was last at Bestival 2 years ago the main stage was in a different place and the sound was ok. Putting it on top of a hill is always going to cause problems if there is the slightest breeze. Also there was lots of spill from the nearby big top stage, talking of which, Speech Debelle had one of the worst mixes I have ever heard, may have been the system, the engineer or the band, it was too nasty to stay for very long!
Reading: Only went on Sunday and I know much has been said about the sound problems on the main stage at Reading but Radiohead who usually sound fantastic, great band, great sympathetic engineer, sounded ok much better than everyone else, Yeah Yeah Yeahs being particular offenders.
The other stages also suffered from unpleasant sound mixes, Gallows were a horrible row, I know they are a bit like that anyway and a Led Zeppelin tribute band on the Festival Republic stage (White Denim?) were pretty nasty too.
Lattitude: On the main stage here the good engineers got good sound balances, Doves were really clear and full sounding, Pet Shop Boys were fine and most of the nondescript Indie bands who filled the line up sounded well, nondescript. Sound on the other stages was pretty good overall too. Mika as usual having a good mix.
I know it seems obvious but it is the bands with good engineers who manage to deal with the problems and limitations of festival sound and come out with sound that is by no means perfect but is at least better than everyone else’s. Words by Andy Corrigan
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