As part of Tasmania’s Dark Mofo, Thelma Plum performed at Launceston’s Princess Theatre. Fortunately, the show was scheduled smack in the middle of an 8-week regional tour, so apart from a few extra stage pieces, the crew were very much dialled in and ready to go.
Dan Nash has worked with Thelma for around eight years, starting in the Tour Manager/FOH role, but as the team has grown, he now solely handles FOH mix duties.
Like many acts, Dan wants the records to be represented as much as possible; there is a fair amount of playback to deal with, plus a substantial amount of live instrumentation to reinforce it.
“The mindset I have with this project is to give the records energy and life,” he explained. “I approach this with punchy, exciting live drums, and we reinforce the track’s sub-bass with live punchy bass on top. I drop tracks in and out to create moments during the night and even adjust my FOH EQ as the set progresses to build excitement and energy. It’s important to me to create moments, perhaps that’s dropping in sub bass in a particular chorus or simply turning the main output up a few dB in a big moment. Equally, I may mute a kick-out mic here and there to draw the audience’s attention back in when it’s a ballad, etc.”
Dan says he is pretty much exclusively using DiGiCo these days, and for this show, he had a Quantum 338. The console was chosen for its sound quality, flexibility, reliability, and routing options, which he says are incredibly powerful for both FOH and monitors, particularly when rack sharing, as on this tour.
“I can customise layouts, handle my snapshots easily, and integrate with Waves, which is very important to me,” he continued. “I ran a lot of Waves for this show, and the integration must be quick and easy. It’s rock-solid on tour and widely accepted on riders, which means the shows can be moved between consoles if needed.”
Dan notes that Thelma has a powerful voice, and the current live band (Dan Williams – Drums, Izzy De Leon – Bass, Toby Lee Chew – MD and Guitar) makes his job very easy.
“The band is comprised of some of the best musicians in the country and delivers consistent quality every night,” he said. “Working for an Indigenous artist gives me great pride also. Thelma has some strong messages in her music, and I strive to convey these to the audience each night, creating moments where appropriate. Every gig is magical, and I consider myself very lucky to be involved in this project.
“The set has a lot of dynamic range and layered instrumentation. When using playback, a lot is happening in the mid-range, making it challenging to create space. I spend time building detailed scenes and snapshots to match the energy of each song. I ride vocals heavily because they’re the emotional centre of the performance, and I automate FX changes to suit the feel of each section. There’s also a fair bit of real-time problem-solving — adapting to different venues, stage volumes, or crowd noise — so I’m constantly adjusting EQ and compression on the fly to keep the mix tight, balanced, and emotive. It’s essential to me to create moments.”
The setup features only 15 live mics on stage, primarily drums and vocals. Dan runs a mix of Audix and Shure mics on the drums, saying it’s a very standard setup with no hidden gadgets. He’s a firm believer that the right instrument, with the right musician, is far superior to an expensive microphone.
“Thelma was using a V7 capsule for the last few years, but we have recently gone back to the old faithful Beta58 capsule,” he added. “I think the V7 starts to sound a bit tired after a couple of years, so I’m starting to steer away from them, unfortunately.”
Sarah Madigan is on monitors for Thelma, starting just after Dan, who comments that she is one of the best monitor techs in the country. Thelma has a mix of wedges and IEMs to handle, so it’s always a bit of a challenge moving between venues and festivals. Sarah also uses DiGiCo, and when they choose to rack share, this is the best system for the job.
“We have click tracks and cue tracks running from Ableton, which also sends timecode to our LX,” Dan elaborated. “Thelma likes wedges as well, so it’s vital to have them ready and tuned well.”
Playing a theatre and being seated for some of the gig, Dan’s biggest challenge was deciding how much sub information to let loose with. Thelma is a pop act at the end of the day, and they love their sub-bass and low end.
“Being an old theatre and technically a seated gig, it’s hard to know where to start the journey,” Dan said. “I generally smash sound check as if it were the last song, so I know where my limits are for the space and what I can get away with. In this instance, for this show, I decided to drop my sub matrixes by about 5 dB at the start of the show, and I also rolled off any sub-kick or sub-bass information at about 30 Hz. By about midway through the set, these channels were back to flat, and by the end of the set, my sub-matrix was at +3 dB, so quite a swing from the start of the show. This is not always the case, but as the crowd gets more excited and the bigger hits come, ending the set with her biggest song, ‘Better In Black,’ I need to match that intensity and ride with the crowd. As I’ve said before, moments are a big part of my mission, and simply “turning it up a bit” can make the crowd come alive when it’s used sparingly.”
Lighting Design: Thomas Herterich
Show Photos: Scott Atkins
