LONDON – Britannia Row provided sonic support for Sharon Van Etten, who headlined recently at London’s Royal Albert Hall with her new band, The Attachment Theory. The show, staged March 10, also featured special guest Nabihah Iqbal. Pictured here, from left, are Monitor Engineer Rafi Lazzaro, FOH Engineer Mike Reina and Tour and Production Manager Stewart Chown.
More details from Britannia Row (www.britanniarow.com):
Tour and production manager Stewart Chown, who works alongside remote production manager Gareth Russell, has trusted Britannia Row’s services with many of their touring acts over the course of their careers. So, when American singer, songwriter and musician Sharon Van Etten announced she’d be touring a new record with her brand-new band, The Attachment Theory, Britannia Row’s high quality, budget friendly, and global expertise was required once again.
“The band aspect is quite a new thing for Sharon, and our brief was to bring everything up to a certain production level,” begins Stewart. “It’s not a huge tour – our audio package is economical – but we wanted to make it as efficient as possible to give Sharon and the band the best production for their touring budget.
“We’re good friends with our Account Executive Jonathan Dunlop, so he was our first point of call for audio. We’ve hand-picked our crew; we’ve got a mix of people from the UK and the States who as well as having the technical ability and professionalism required, we knew would click with the artists. We’ve ended up with a really amazing team that shares a strong work ethic, so it’s been really rewarding to oversee.”
When it comes to choosing a supplier, Stewart admits that “communication and responsiveness” is key.
He furthers: “It really helps us with budgeting, to have a clear idea early on in the process. With Britannia Row especially, being part of Clair Global means that we’re able to look at our tours in America and get an identical package quickly. This helps at the budgeting stage because we work closely with management to get the numbers where they need to be, while also knowing that the quality of equipment is going to match.”
Creating a flexible solution to varying venue sizes has also been a fundamental element for this new musical set-up.
Stewart continues: “The Royal Albert Hall in London is one of the biggest headline shows Sharon’s ever done, so finding the right audio solution that would fit our needs both there and for the entire tour was very important. Sharon was very emotional about that show; after playing in London for 15 years, she was so excited to be there, and it was also a big moment for the band.”
The ‘big moment’ was heard loud and clear by music critics, with London’s Evening Standard describing the show as ‘gothic reimaginings of classic tracks and lashings of drama… the most complete performance yet.’
Their newly written material has been heavily inspired by the darker, gothy synth sounds of the 1980s, and according to the band’s website, this album is ‘sonically different’.
“Artists like The Cure were a big inspiration with this new-found direction,” explains Stewart. “Fitting multiple inspirations from the band together and putting them into a record that would also work for their live shows, was crucial. Our FOH Engineer Mike Reina, has done an incredible job translating this. It’s closer to a rock & roll show than Sharon’s ever done before, and with such a great band, they’re making some very interesting live music.”
Mike and Monitor Engineer Rafi Lazzaro are a tight knit team, who cite total admiration for the musicians they’re mixing. The full band comprises Sharon Van Etten (lead vocals & guitar), Devra Hoff (bass & vocals), Teeny Lieberson (synth, guitar, piano & vocals) and Jorge Balbi (drums & machines), plus Shanna Polley as an additional guitarist and keyboardist for the live shows.
“I want to convey the impact and the power of this new iteration of what Sharon’s doing,” begins Mike. “I’ve been a fan of hers for a long time, but this is my first tour working for her. She sent me the record, and I was blown away, so I wanted to create as much impact for the stage as I’d heard on the record. She’d never written with a band before, but it just goes to show her versatility, because to be able to get into a room with people and create is such a challenge. Yet when it works, it’s a magical thing.”
Both Mike and Rafi use a cleverly configured Allen & Heath dLive system, building a shared arsenal that has treated them well.
Mike continues: “I’d never toured on an Allen & Heath console before – only jumped on them at festivals – and I was really surprised by how close to your face you can get the sound out of these desks! Rafi really liked the fact that they have the input boxes on stage, essentially pre-amps, meaning we could minimize not having a line system, which cleans up the signal path. It’s a lot easier on two people without a tech on tour to distribute signal that way.
“I wanted a Waves Server because I like to have a lot of control with the plug-ins. I like a studio sound on stage, clean isolation of each signal. I also must thank Rafi for advancing the tour as I was out with another band, but the quality and reliability of the package we got is testament to Britannia Row’s service – I was very particular about what I wanted!”
In monitor world, Rafi employs a Shure Axient AD600 Digital Spectrum Analyzer for wide band spectrum scanning and monitoring. Shure PSM1000s in ear personal monitoring systems are used with customised Ultimate Ears for himself and the band, while Sharon chooses 64 Audio.
He states: “I’m mixing 5 x band members including Sharon, plus 2 x techs who receive their own mix. I build every mix from scratch and it’s a very musical mix for everyone. Sharon also uses wedges; she likes to have both wedges and ears. It makes her feel comfortable to have the wedges there if she pops one ear out.”
For Sharon, there’s also very a particular kind of reverb involved in her live delivery: “I’ve been using the new reverbs on the Allen & Heath, the RackUltra FX card and the Spaces Reverb Designer are really great,” furthers Rafi.
The band wrapped a North America tour in Spring before they return to the UK, Ireland, and Europe for festival shows and more headline dates later this summer.
Rafi says the importance of equipment consistency with varying size shows is what creates ease for the audio team: “The idea is that wherever we go, we can rely on a company that’s able to replicate what we need. It takes a lot of weight off our shoulders knowing we that have everything taken care of, just as we like it to be packaged.”
In conclusion, Mike agrees: “Every night, we don’t want to be out there worrying about gear, we want to spend time in the creative realm as much as possible – without ever worrying about anything technical.”
