When Crowded House’s sound engineer Kerry Furlong suffered a serious health issue whilst touring with the band in Spain last October, he admits that he lost a lot of confidence and started second-guessing himself on the rest of the tour.
Judging by the sound quality at Crowded House’s second Sydney Opera House Forecourt show, he did not need to be so harsh on himself. It can be a tricky venue to tackle audio, and despite not having his usual PA of choice, Kerry nailed it to help enable a magic evening.
“The first time I mixed Crowded House at the venue was in 2016, and the constraints were fairly strict,” he commented. “Not so much this time around, but I think they’ve moved the front of house closer to the PA to probably give you a sense that it was louder than what you would normally have it, and I found that a bit of a struggle being that close to the stage.”
Kerry has been a long-time user of the Avid VENUE S6L, and this tour was no different. Kerry said that he loves the integration with Pro Tools and that the surface is easy to get around.
“It’s all intuitive,” he added. “It would be a big call to change over to a DiGiCo. Now that we’re so far into it, we’d certainly be starting from scratch. I like the DiGiCo consoles, but the firmware thing gets to me; turning up to a festival and the firmware’s not the same and the stress I’ve seen it cause. I’ve seen front-of-house guys turning up, hearts beating through their chests because the firmware is not right, and it’s a festival for 60,000 people. With Avid, if it’s not the same version, it will still work. You might drop a few functions, but there is nothing that I’ve ever noticed.”
Kerry notes that he’s running the S6L reasonably similar to the last time ALIA caught up with him in April 2022, adding that he would love a week in the production rehearsals to start from scratch and revisit it all.
“You do run the risk of digging yourself a bit of a hole and going around in circles, overcomplicating things,” he remarked. “I’m certainly a big advocate of the path of least resistance, but the problem is that when you keep building and building and building, it’s tough to return. The band evolves one way or another, making small tweaks and getting new tech, but 90% it’s the same as it’s been for the last three years.”
JPJ Audio supplied the audio gear and crew for the SOH Forecourt gigs in early December and the band’s Australian tour, apart from Perth. Whilst the tour specifies a d&b audiotechnik PA, all shows at the Forecourt had to utilise an L-Acoustics K1/K2/KARA PA, not that Kerry was complaining.
“I love the K1 for outside gigs,” he commented. “It’s just something special about them.”
The main FOH speakers comprised 16 x L-Acoustics K1 and 8 x K2, with 12 x KARA II and 2 x SB18 on the sides. Subs and Infills were 16 x L-Acoustics KS28, 9 x KARA II and 4 x A15 wide.
FOH Speakers for the Delays Steps were 24 x K2 and 12 x SB28. FOH Speakers for Delays Stage Right were 8 x K2.
According to Kerry, microphones are 90% Shure as they simply ‘do the trick’. There are a couple of DPA on the toms and AKG 414s on the guitars as he adds that there’s something nice about those on a clean guitar cabinet, and nothing’s in stereo anymore as they’ve reversed back to just being mono.
“We keep those just because they seem to blend well with the Shure SM57,” Kerry continued. “Again, when you’re jumping from tour to tour and show to show so quickly, it’s hard to go out on a limb and try something new. We still use Shure BETA 58As because they’re what Neil knows, and it’s what he’s used to. Can we go to sound check and tell Neil we’ve got 10 mics we want to try? Do you mind? It’s such a hard thing to make the call because nothing really is what it says on paper. You have to listen to it.”
A significant consideration is that people are used to hearing in a certain way when a band has been around for a long time. Kerry has Shure BETA 58As that are 20 years old and still sound fantastic. Plus, when hiring them, you know everyone has a Shure mic package.
Kerry commented that JPJ Audio has looked after him extremely well, saying he loves that it’s such a friendly bunch of accommodating guys.
“There are no grumps in the industry anymore,” he said. “Even the grumpy ones my age seem to have chilled out. Everyone in the industry is nice now. The world’s out to get us as it is; we might as well look after each other. I love JPJ. They’re a good bunch of guys who go so far out of their way to give you what you want.”
