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Again a 'Deja Vu' : last autumn, with Ulysses and Sons of Seasons. And tonight we are back with Knight Area and Mangrove. Location is a beautiful old building with a very high tech core. Located in the city centre of Heerlen. After a couple of one-way streets and some searching we arrive at the venue. And it is good to see that they are expecting us.

The venue.

Wanted: Dead of Alive

After a quick coffee we unload the car, and I set up my equipment at Front Of House. The venue stuff is pretty good, so I just patch in my compressors for vocals, guitars, bass and kick drum. FX and rest of stuff will be the venues. No CD player tonight, the band will play a mix of old and new songs, from all three albums. Usually I patch in a CD player that I use to play intro's and outro's for the Realm of Shadows Songs, but that is not necessary tonight.
One by one the rest of the band arrives and we can start the sound check. There is time for just one song, then it is diner time. In these situations it is an advantage that you know the venue, know what it sounds like, how it responds. In this venue it is difficult, because FOH world is located on the balcony upstairs, the PA covers the balcony very good, but there is still a big difference between upstairs and downstairs sound.

Hey I can see your bold spot from here...

Front of House world with Arie.

After diner, we make some room on stage for Mangrove, and they start their sound check.
No real problems there either. As a matter of fact, technically it is all very smooth, both on stage and at the light and sound world.

Then 20:15 it is show time for Mangrove, and the Knight Area guys either watch the show or kill time in the dressing room. Each band plays a 90 minutes set.

The Mangrove guys, all dressed in white.

Mark Smit updating the Knight Area Twitter account

Then, change-over: get all the Mangrove equipment of stage, move the drum microphones back to Pieter's drum kit, get Gerben's gear on stage again. Do a quick line check, and then: hit it!
Sound is smooth and the guys are performing good. Gijs is enjoying his new Moog Taurus 3 bass pedals, this is the first gig and they sound huge!
In the last song, Mark Vermeule goes completely wild during the solo in at end of the song, a pretty clear sign that he was enjoying himself.

Oke, some shots from a familiar scene,

...more...

The Immortal, Mortal Brow solo.

Thank you and good night.

Then after the show: get everything in car again, and don't try to forget anything. And after a 2 and half hour drive I am back home again. By 3:30 I go to bed, we left 13:30 this afternoon, so that makes a 14 hour working day... And we are doing this for fun remember :-)

April 17th 2010, P3, Purmerend (NL): Illumion

Feels like we have been here before! Yep, last autumn, with Knight Area, Ulysses and Sons of Seasons. And tonight we are back with Illumion and Montany. Illumion prog rock and Montany playing metal. Sun is shining and weather is nice, all most seems shame go inside. But we are invited for a cup of coffee and we cannot resist that call.
Rest of the band arrives a bit later and we start setting up the gear. Didn't bring my own FX rack this time, cause I knew that P3 had the right gear, so for me setup is easy: just the desk, do the layout, get some FX ready and another coffee!

The venue and we're expected!

Front of House world.

Arie is happy because his mixer is an Avolite, and he is standing right behind me, so we this night we can share our candy. We always bring goodies and treats with us. to make life in FOH world more comfortable.
Setting up takes some time, because just like Ulysses, Illumion uses their own In Ear Monitoring system. And their setup is a bit more complex than Ullysses.
What is even worse, is that there is no drummer! So how do we do a sound check then? Esther steps behind the drums with just one drum stick and that is our drum sound check.
We do have time to get the other instruments, but without these loud drums it will have to wait for the show to make a proper sound balance.
18:15: Time for dinner. We have to wait a while for the kitchen was still serving the staff and artists from the theatre that resides in the same building. Hungry pack of musicians, not a pretty sight!

This his how the world looks from an Illumion point of view

Hungry pack of Wolves waiting for their dinner.

Food arrives and everyone digs in.

Eveline is happy with the Huge Whiskey.

At last I managed to give Eveline her present. We bought it on holyday in Scotland last summer, and during our absence she looked after our house and cats. For some reason I have not been able to give it to here. I must have carried the presents with me on 3 Illumion shows but always forgot, or was to late. But now I have fulfilled my task.

After dinner it is relaxing time for Illumion and set up time for Montany. Sound guy from the venue does their sound, so for me some time to relax.
Then at show time, no more relaxing. Illumion is not a band that mixes it self easy: lot of small nuances in keyboards and guitars. Constantly looking for the right balance and trying to keep the vocals just on top of that. Hard work , not completely happy, but Arie convinced me otherwise.

Quick smoke for the addicts and then ...,

Showtime: Montany,

and Illumion

Gerton during his piano solo on (midi) guitar

April 4th 2010, Bosuil, Weert (NL): Ulysses

Easter Sunday! We enjoy an Easter Breakfast with Michael and Peter (who stayed the night over at our house) and are joined by Arie round 10:00. We drive to Limburg, Weert to be correct. And Arie already warned us: we should not expect to much: it is an old shed and everything. But to our surprise they have rebuild the BosUil into something pretty nice actually.

The venue.

Setting up 3 bands on a small stage.

We unload the gear and Andromeda arrives just as we are ready so start setting up. Today it is a 3 band gig and first band starts early: round 15:30. So Andromeda should be finished by 19:30. Means we could get an early night sleep today? But hey: rock n roll and work waits! Lets get on with it.
Set up goes smooth, and sound check does not give much problems. I set up Andromeda on the first 16 channels of the desk and Ulysses on the 17 till 28 channels. So the first band to play today will share channels with Ulysses.

Front of House world

Arie with the local light engineer

Setup and sound check are uneventful. Problems start right after that: waiting. We didn't get much sleep, we all are tired. So backstage it is a matter of staying awake. Not enough time to do a proper power nap. Not enough space either. Arie also handles the lights with the first band, so at last he has got something to keep him awake

Ron, Rene and me, trying to stay awake

Arie "Ghost behind the Machine" ;-)

What strikes me during the Ulysses show, is that during prog concerts there is a trend visible: The number of visitors is going down and the number of photographers is going up. Is it that more people rather read about music than actually go to it. Do they just list to it on the internet and at home? Watching DVD rock concerts? At least yesterday in the Boerderij was an exception. Good crowd! But the bands perform as if the house packed. First songs a bit tired, but then the adrenaline and magic kicks in, and they just rock.

Rene van Haaren

Ron Mozer

Peter Boer

Sylvester Vogelenzang-de Jong

And Michael "Mad Maikie" Hos

Ulysses during show

Andromedas famous last notes ;-)

20:00 o'clock diner time, 2 bands sharing a cosy table.

So, that wraps it up. Get the gear in the van and drive home. It was a fatiguing weekend, and I am glad I have 2 days holyday after this.
Everybody enjoyed it, and although it was a tough weekend, most guys had trouble adopting to every live with a job and a wife and so on. It is kind of addictive... ;-)
And ofcourse this show would not have been possible without:

Sylvester: making the arrangements in the first place

Arie Groen, Light Enigineer

Vincent van Haaren, Merchandise, Photos and helping hand

Yours truly handling sound.

April 3rd 2010, Boerderij, Zoetermeer (NL): Ulysses

First things first today: break-fast! We meet at 8:30 in the restaurant for some very good food and coffee. Which is essential, the coffee that is! I only slept 3 hours this night and had to wear ear-plugs because of Arie snoring. I think it is a first ever that a sound engineer has to wear silencers because of the light engineer, usually it is the other way round :-)

The band and crew, more or less awake at breakfast.

Breakfast of champions! Michaels...

Then it is highway time again. We have to drive to Zoetermeer, we drive via Peters house to pick up his car. Before we drive off, Ron (the keyboard player and van driver) does a refill on the oil. Because last night a lot of warning lights suddenly appeared on the dashboard. Does not help! Still warning lights but engine runs pretty good. So: "en-route"! We pick up Peters car and Ron wonders whether he will come in for a quick coffee or just drive on to Zoetermeer? He decides to drive on, and that is our luck! Because the van only makes it to the Boerderij in Zoetermeer, and when parked there the engine no longer starts! Batteries dead? Luckily the loading dock is on the end of a ramp. So take of the hand break, push the car down the ramp, and it starts again (will it be the last time?)
Sylvester manages to hire a replacement van, so that we are not forever stuck in Zoetermeer.
After this it is time to set up!

Setting up here is great fun. Because it is a bigger venue with lot's of helpful people walking around. And the great thing is: they actually help! That is why I like performing with bands in the Boerderij, not only do I know a lot of the guys (a couple of years ago I got a chance to do some trainings there) but they all know what they must do and they do it!
Example: the stage manager walks up to the band, introduces the two stage-hands and says: "they are yours, everything you need, all that needs repairs, anything just ask". The bands looks at me with a strange look full of questions in their eyes, "There yours! use them!" I tell them.
After a while someone from the band comes over to me and says: "We don't have to ask anything, even before we can think of something the have it fixed or show up with the stuff we need".
In a smaller venue you have to do much more yourself, and things end up chaotic and stressful. In a venue like this, I can wire up my own equipment to the desk, knowing that when I am ready and turn around, everything on stage will be fine.
Makes it a great experience! So from me: "Guys from the Boerderij: thanks for a great evening!"

Not only do we need to get a band on stage, also all the lights need re-adjusting for the locations. And different colour filters have to be applied.

FOH world in the Boerderij

This is how FOH looks with venue lights on,

and this is how all the lights and knobs look during shows.

So how do you remember all these settings? With 2 bands and a venue like today, it is no problem: the drums are shared and all the other instruments are separated and spread across the FOH desk. But with smaller desks and venues you have to share instrument channels also. This means that you have to recall your changes. On a digital desk this is no problem, but on an analog-desk like this weekend you have to do the recalls manually. You can write the settings down, but with digital photography it has become very easy: just take snap shots like this:.

And you have (all though not instant) total recall. People always look funny when they see me taking close-ups of the mixer.
Meanwhile in the normal world, the musicians take their time to relax and prepare for the show.

Dressing room snap shot #1
This is where the musicians dwell when not on stage.

Snap shot #2. Another view on this endangered species in their natural habitat that we don't get to see often.

Then it is time for Ulysses to hit the stage. And the show goes very well! Lights are great, sound is good and the energy flowing from stage is tangible. And after the introduction to "Anat", suddenly the magic is there: you can feel that special "something" going through the crowd, the vibe and the connection with the musicians and the music. Magic! Very cool!

...Anat...

... good bye and thanks for all the fish ;-)

A quick change over, basically just getting Ulysses of stage and plug Johans amp into the Box of Doom instead of Sylvesters amp and away we go. Well that was what should have happened, but during the first song: no guitars! Johans cables were faulty, and first on stage they thought it was a patch error from the changeover but after much cable swapping we again had Johan with us. Rock on!

Andromeda during a more quiet song,

and again: a heavy song! These guys ROCK!!!

It was hard work, but it was worth it! Great shows!

April 2nd 2010, Romein, Leeuwarden (NL): Ulysses

12:45 Arie picks me up for a drive up north. It is the begin of a 3 day tour with Ulysses and Andromeda from Sweden. Arie and I will be handling the light and sound for the Swedish guys also, so we have been listening to their songs for the last 2 weeks. We drive North to pick up Michael and Peter and in the car we listen to Ulysses and Andromeda.
The first gig is in Leeuwarden in the North on the Netherlands, it is in an old Church that is transformed into a theatre. Usually churches are a disaster because of their boom and echo, but here they installed bass traps and did a lot to get the acoustics right.

The 'Romein' from the outside...

...and from the inside during set up.

We meet up with the Andromeda guys who are already a bit tired, having done a gig yesterday in Denmark on a festival. We get them on stage and start the sound check. We will be using their drums so that makes it more efficient during the change over between shows. Both the Ulysses guys and the Andromeda guys use in-ear-monitoring (IEM), so for them no big monitors on stage and no loud guitar amps and base amps, just a loud drummer. And loud he is! It is amazing! I now understand why they use IEM, any normal guitar or bass amp is useless on stage with this guy ;-)
Setting up the backing tracks (click track and sound effects) is more of a problem and it takes a while and some re-routing to get everything right. For their IEM Andromeda relies on an external monitor mixer, while Ulysses has a mixing desk next to Rene (the drummer) and all their signals are split at that desk, with some going to their IEM and some coming over to me to front of house (FOH). Advantage of that system is that we only need a line check (see if al the signals from the stage reach the FOH) and away we go. Setting up the compressors and EQ on the FOH desk is basically always the same for them, using the same settings.

Arie settings up some lights,

and Sylvester (right) can't stand Michael's jokes anymore.

After the sound checks it is time to eat and to relax. And of course, time to set up the rest of the stuff. Clean up the stage and venue, get the merchandise set up and than: just wait for the shows to start.

Michael and his lovely assistant in merchandise world,

venue as seen from FOH world,

The musicians relaxing (not! all very nervous :-) in their back

stage dressing room world.

The Brazilians rocking away,

rock Ulysses, rock!

more Ulysses, and ...

Andromeda.

So it is of to bed, get some sleep and tomorrow we will be playing the Boerderij in Zoetermeer.

March 6th 2010, Scum, Katwijk (NL): Knight Area

Today we have an evening organized and hosted by ProgWereld with three bands: Nice Beaver, The Aurora Project and Knight Area.
Place to be is Katwijk in the Netherlands, close to the sea. Venue is located next to a huge parking space, with the Dunes to the west, the building of the coastguard and Scum the venue. I have been in bed for the previous week suffering from a cold or the flue, so I will have to see if I can make it through the night.
After the gear is in we set everything up, change the digital mixing desk for an analog one, and start setting things up. After a bit of problem solving with channels and stuff we get everything working. I brought my own replacement CD player, but it only plays through 1 channel, and I checked it the day before! So I will use the venues player then.
After sound checking Knight Area, I grab a bit of food that they called diner…
The venues sound guy checks the other two bands, we agreed that I'll be mixing the Beavers and the Knights, and he will mix the Aurora's, giving me some time to relax and get some more aspirin.

Preparing the Stage

Chris has all the Merchandise under control!

Shows go pretty good. Audience is happy. Not a packed house, but enough folks to get a friendly and good atmosphere.

The Beavers on stage...

.. The Aurora project...

... and the Knights!

February 12th 2010, Manifesto, Hoorn (NL): Knight Area & Illumion

First gig of the year. And we have trouble finding the venue. The navigation keeps sending us (and everyone) in the wrong the direction. There is a short note on their web site which tells us how we should get there, but off course we haven't read that. We do find it, and it is a small but nice and friendly venue. We only hope that our fans can find it. I have visions of Knight Area fans for ever lost in the city of Hoorn. Trying to find their band. But we'll see.
Getting there was not the only problem: the desk was different from the one their rider, so I got the wrong cables with me for my compressors. However, adapt, improve and improvise got it working. Then our CD-player failed to read the FX CD, any CD as a matter of fact. And I did test the whole rack 2 days before! Everything was fine. But the venue had a spare player so that got that problem fixed.

The good news: everyone was on time, and almost everything was already set-up when we arrived. We managed to get both KA and Illumion on the mixing desk next to each other, so no swapping and channel sharing. Which was good!

Stage with Illumion banner

My office. The crates were already empty by the way!

Sound check started with Knight Area and went pretty smooth, I tried the same set up as in P3 in Purmerend last time, and was very happy with the results. Got lot's of control on everything, it takes a hell of a lot of compressors and gates to get it working, but it smoothed out the sound. And yes, the fans could hear that also, afterwards the were very happy, and that is what matters: happy band and happy fans.
Oke, happy band? Stage was good, sound on stage was pretty good. Dressing rooms were very good! See below.

Gerben, Mark V, Peter, Esther and Tom

Mark S, Gerben, Pieter and friends

We arrived at 17:00 and by 20:00 both bands were ready, had had their diner, and I could sit down and have a break and eat something. In the main while, Arie our LD (light designer) was still working hard to get the lights working and everything set up. The desk was OK, but did not have as much programming options as he had hoped. So that called for a lot of hand work. Making sure that all the moving lights moved correctly on their faders, instead of pre-programming movements. And during the shows moving lights manually (through a fader, he did NOT climb up a ladder during the shows to move the lights!) and he has only 2 hands! So have I but, I was able to route all the instruments through 8 faders/groups so I could mix the whole band with just the faders directly under my finger tips.

Our light in the Dark: Arie Groen Light designer

From those 8 faders I can control the rest of the 32 channels

21:30 Showtime! This Illumions second show with Gerton on keyboards (and also on guitars surprisingly for me. It didn't make it quite clear where which guitar sound was coming from, so I had some problems getting that right) and Toms first show on drums! With only 3 weeks to learn the songs and everything. He did a pretty good job.

Illumion on stage

More illuimion on stage

Then just before 23:00 Knight Area hits the stage. And the 2 month rest from touring was not noticeable! Tight, powerful and energetic as ever!

Knight Area on stage

I think I have seen this band before...

Show was good, sound was good, lights were great, fans were happy. Yes, it seems that some of the fans escaped the horrendous inner city labyrinth of Hoorn and found the venue.
Afterwards I realized how true it is, the best practice is perform. With Knight Area we have done over 40 shows in the last couple of years and 10 in the last 3 months, and we have grown as a team. Both Arie and I know the songs, so we can anticipate, the guys know their routines on stage and know that no matter what problems we face during build up and sound check or during the show: we'll work it out and the show will be great.
It is good to realize that they can still rock even me of my socks! Tanx guys!

Live shows Jankees 2010 2009 2008