Go West Live |
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Robbo
Old Croc Joined: 05 December 2005 Location: Shropshire Status: Offline Points: 4221 |
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Posted: 28 May 2020 at 10:22pm |
Just been reminiscing in the back garden with a few of my old touring colleagues from back in the day and surprisingly we all came up with the same conclusion that the best sound that we ever got on any of our tours was the Go West Runaway train tour which anyone can see on Utube.
Now considering that all of us worked with most of the real big worldwide acts from the 1970s to 1980s era, we were all rather surprised at the result but when we really dug deep into the reasons why, it was not a real big surprise to be honest. The drums were all triggered quality samples so no live drum mics at all. The backline was extremely small hence low volume which is always easier to work with--Alan Murphy (lead guitar) was playing through a Fender 18watt Champ Combo. Peter Cox---Awesome voice and he had still got hair then as well. The whole band were real pro musos at the top of their game and we even had the three Wolverhampton girls on backing vocals--Brilliant. Rather large Meyer MSL FOH system courtesy of Wigwam along with quality monitoring and even a dancing lighting rig. All in all it was just one great gig after another and I still look back with great thoughts about my good friend Alan Murphy who was and still is the BEST guitarist that I have ever seen---A life cut short by yet another terrible virus. And yes before anyone shouts out we were observing social distancing measures---Yes we were as we are all over 70 years old so we are all in the danger zone and if Dominic Cummings can do what he wants then I am sure that we can stretch the boundaries a little at our time in life |
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mk2_ginger_biscuit69
Old Croc Joined: 03 November 2008 Location: Brighton Status: Offline Points: 7801 |
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i just had to youtube who they were.... youth strikes again
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''Remember that the object of a subwoofer is to enhance the output of your main speakers, not overpower it''
''Dubstep - an elongated electronic fart'' |
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djeddie
Old Croc Joined: 26 April 2004 Location: Bristol Status: Offline Points: 4125 |
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Yeh, cheers Pat. How to make us all feel old! Bloody youngsters!!! And John, I never realised about Alan Murphy's talents until recently. You're right, an excellent guitarist. By the way, is that book nearly finished yet? But small back-lines are always the best to work with. When I was a tech in a school the sixth-form put on a 'band night' in the school theatre. Kids turned up with little practise amps, which was brilliant... apart from one (who thought he was Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vai and Yngwie Malmstein all rolled into one*), who arrived with a full Marshall stack. That didn't work too well as "his sound" was pretty much everything turned up full. * - he wasn't. It was just Daddy had shed loads of money. But then you weren't allowed to tell a kid, "Uh... actually you're quite sh1t at the guitar. And music in general. Have you thought of taking up drawing with crayons instead?".
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Chas n Dave : it's like Drum and Bass but with beards. E=mc² ±3dB
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jacethebase
Old Croc Joined: 23 September 2009 Location: Somerset Status: Offline Points: 5697 |
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Loads of artists from the time have really high audio quality expectations.
I worked on a large 80’s festival for a couple years we had the current line up of Go West through, the one that really stood out to me was OMD their front of house sound was fantastic. I’ll try and find their patch / channel list in a mo. Might even have Go West’s 2016-2019 ish channel list.
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www.wedding-production.co.uk
www.stage2sound.com |
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jacethebase
Old Croc Joined: 23 September 2009 Location: Somerset Status: Offline Points: 5697 |
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www.wedding-production.co.uk
www.stage2sound.com |
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Finjby
Registered User Joined: 19 January 2016 Location: Shropshire Status: Offline Points: 74 |
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I had the pleasure of mixing Go West on a small tour around the Brannigans wine bar venues in the late 90's.
No full band, just Pete and Richard singing live to DAT tracks... both guys were on the money every night... thoroughly nice chaps and a pleasure to work with. It's still engrained in my memory how good Pete's vocal was/is. Never worked with the full band, but like many acts of that era, they are so professional and tight. Did a show with the Christians two years ago, and again was blown away by the experience. John, it's great you post these memories.... get that book written!!
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Robbo
Old Croc Joined: 05 December 2005 Location: Shropshire Status: Offline Points: 4221 |
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Yes Steve its coming along but very slow as somehow my missus keeps finding me really important jobs to do like spending yesterday fitting venetian blinds in the conservatory.
Always a pleasure to work with Go West as they were always so professional both onstage and off it as well and the line up changes were pretty regular as well. We were also chatting about some of the worst bands that we worked with as well--Squeeze were usually a real pain in the arse as they were always arguing and bickering both onstage and off but my real pet hate was The Damned and Rat Scabies in particular. I chased him into the dressing room one night when the band had just come off stage as he had done his usual party trick of walking straight through his drum kit at the end of the show, scattering a couple of grands worth of mics and stands all over the stage.I caught hold of him and lifted him off the floor by the throat and pinned him against the wall--just about to have a good swing at his horrible ugly face and Dave Vanian grabbed my fist and stopped me in mid flow. Never had a scrap of trouble with him for the rest of the tour but when I was asked to quote for sound on the next tour with them, I politely declined the offer and we went out with Magnum instead. |
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madboffin
Old Croc Joined: 03 July 2009 Location: Milton Keynes Status: Offline Points: 1537 |
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You must have taught him well - I remember him at a small festival, early 80's. He carefully arranged all our mic stands so that when he scattered the drumkit at the end of the set, none of the mics were touched! |
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Robbo
Old Croc Joined: 05 December 2005 Location: Shropshire Status: Offline Points: 4221 |
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Yeah, he was a bit of a flimsy wimp really and back in those days I was built like Anthony Joshua so he probably realised that he might have had a few more teeth missing by the end of the tour.
The bands manager probably had a strong word with him at the end of the tour when he got presented with a large bill for Sennheiser mics and K+M stands |
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csg
Old Croc Joined: 17 September 2007 Location: bedford Status: Offline Points: 6086 |
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He must have really been throwing things around if he managed to break K&M stands!
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“The fact is this is about identifying what we do best and finding more ways of doing less of it better”
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Robbo
Old Croc Joined: 05 December 2005 Location: Shropshire Status: Offline Points: 4221 |
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They were mainly the small boomstands Chris and quite a few of them as he had a decent sized kit--no real breakages as such but a few bent arms and legs with a couple of locking knobs broke.
With his attitude throughout the tour, the whole crew and the rest of the band were pissed off with him and was the main reason for the big breakages invoice but in all fairness they did pay it in full without any queries and it paid for a nice meal out for all of the crew after the tour had finnished |
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csg
Old Croc Joined: 17 September 2007 Location: bedford Status: Offline Points: 6086 |
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Hmm, I remember having a similar experience with the fall a few years ago, with Mark Smith causing general havoc. My FOH man nearly had a nervous breakdown that night...needless to say i knew what to expect and they got the crappiest, smelliest, most ancient selection of mics i could muster from the back of the mic filing cabinet!
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“The fact is this is about identifying what we do best and finding more ways of doing less of it better”
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