Currently touring with Crowded House as their Monitor Engineer, Anthony Mathews has been a live touring engineer and production/tour manager for 16 years having studied under Ian Taylor at Southbank Institute. He was put forward by his friend and colleague Marcus Catanzaro, who has been Neil Finn’s guitar tech for several years, including his time as guitarist for Fleetwood Mac.
“We have worked and toured together with Flight Facilities and other Australian artists in the past and he felt I would be a good fit for the touring party so when the position opened up, he kindly put me forward,” remarked Anthony.
Anthony is currently touring an Avid S6L 32D saying he has always been a fan of Avid consoles and they have been his preference his whole career.
“I like how they sound sonically and they suit my workflow,” he explained. “On a show like Crowded House that has a high channel count and is quite involved, I need the power, flexibility and reliability that the console offers. I love the ProTools integration, it is invaluable during the pre-production phase to be able to record sessions when time with the band is limited. As the show is fully snapshotted, to be able to jump seamlessly through the ProTools sessions to listen back to songs and make changes and adjustments during my own time is a massive asset. I also have two Waves Extreme Servers integrated into the system to support the Waves plugins I’m using.”
Anthony does use a few instances of Waves SoundGrid on the console saying that latency is always an issue to be mindful of with monitors, especially when dealing with IEMs and vocalists. For this tour, he tried to keep plugins to a minimum. The SSL Master Buss, NLS Bus, CLA76 and C6 Multi are his most commonly used Waves plugins on this show.
Anthony’s initial brief when he was offered the role was that it was going to be a mix of IEMs and wedges so he was aware of the challenge ahead of him.
“In knowing that, my first thoughts were, “What are the best tools for the job” and without hesitation I knew d&b M2s for wedges were required,” he said. “I needed something that had clarity and the volume if I needed it. For the IEM component, I also knew I needed my standard go-to, which is the Shure PSM1000 range. Accompanied by the Shure AXT600 spectrum analyser, I knew I would be covered in any scenario, whether it be arenas or festivals. I also opted for the Shure P10R+ packs on this tour, as the wider stereo image those packs provide are a great tool for artist that use a range of acoustic instruments. There was also the addition of side fill for this tour. I opted for two L-Acoustic Arcs on an SB28 sub per side. These were installed laying down end to end as I needed something that would work in low profile mode to avoid sightline issues in the arenas, so this was the best option.”
When tuning and placing wedges for Neil and Liam Finn, Anthony had to ensure that he had plenty of headroom if needed so he had to be conscious of not over EQ’ing the send. Neil’s mix is predominately his vocal and his acoustic guitar so it was essential it was loud, clear, and most importantly, no chance of feedback. Liam wanted his side of the stage to feel full and not isolated from the rest of the band. Each day Anthony made sure he had a nice full mix of the band and a good balance between his floor monitors and the side fills. Nick Seymour on bass has become more comfortable with IEMs and opted to solely use them. There was minor re-enforcement through the side fills that was a generic band mix just in case he took his ears out.
The whole backline is a mix of both IEMs and wedges. The keyboard player Mitchel Froom has become very comfortable on IEMs and only had a single M2 as a backup. Elroy Finn on drums was predominately IEMs. There was also a d&b M2 on top of a Q-Sub on his riser and he did opt to take one ear out to enjoy listening to the wedge mix for some of the heavier songs. Anthony spent time working on the songs where this was the case to ensure he had a good balance between his ear mix and wedge levels. The percussion player Paul was solely on IEMs as a lot of his parts are very intricate so he required the isolation that IEMs provide him to be able to hear what he was doing clearly.
“With a band as established as Crowded House, I felt it was important to support whatever decisions they made personally as to how they wanted to monitor their stage sound,” stated Anthony. “Most of the members have decades of experience and are used to performing with certain stage monitoring, so it’s not my job to change what they do, just make it as comfortable and pleasurable for them as I can.
One of the biggest challenges when mixing both IEMs and wedges is ensuring you have a solid gain structure that works throughout the whole monitoring system. This can be tricky with lots of acoustic instruments, lots of open mics and a mix of wedges and IEMs. Initial set-up is crucial to make sure you have balance throughout the whole console. Correct input sensitivity on your IEM transmitters and amps for floor monitors was a crucial step in the initial set-up. There’s nothing worse than having some mixes with input faders close to unity and then IEM mixes with input faders at -45dB etc. You can dig yourself a hole quick if you don’t have this sorted from the start!”
Another challenge for Anthony was his approach to how the show was to be mixed. A lot of artists he currently works for like heavily compressed and gated drums, heavily compressed and EQ’d vocals and lots of reverbs and effects for their IEM mixes.
“As monitor engineers, we sometimes find ourselves trying to “fix” on stage sounds to make it more pleasant for the artist,” he added. “It is the complete opposite for Crowded House. The band are such amazing musicians they essentially take care of their own sounds and dynamics. The approach I had to take was very open, natural and clean mixing from the input source. Minimal compression and gating, any EQ was subtractive but also subtle. Our stage techs do such an amazing job to make everything sound incredible, it’s just my job to reinforce that for the band, not reinvent it.”
Anthony describes mixing monitors for Crowded House as a 100% eyes up show and if there is a change, it needs to happen fast! Not that other artists don’t require that, but these guys, in particular, need him watching them all the time. Their gestures for level changes are subtle, so he can’t be buried with his head down on the desk.
“I set up my show and desk to be very linear,” he elaborated. “Everything one to one, I don’t like to hide or bury things in layers. Custom layers can be a massive tool in some applications, but I feel it’s not always the case with monitors. If there’s a problem on stage with an input, you’re generally the first person that’s asked to help solve it. I can’t go looking for a buzz on the bongo 7 line that is buried on another layer with other inputs I might not necessarily be using.
“The same can be said with snapshots. It is a fully snapshotted show, but I ensured I kept my scope only to what I needed. If there has to be a change, I need to be able to do it quickly. The show is very dynamic, we can find out in the intro of the set if there are going to be guest singers, or midway through the start of a song Neil may decide he wants to play a different one. So, you have to be on top of things and not bogged down in editing snapshots.”
The team he has around him is very important to Mathew and Ryan Falis, head of audio and monitors tech, he says is one of the best in the country and is world-class. Having someone like him there to support is more crucial and beneficial than any piece of hardware can offer.
“The whole JPJ team were great,” said Mathew. “Bo, Susan and Luke, we couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you.”
Another challenge has been the changing show environments as they went from rehearsing in a town hall in regional NSW to sold-out Sidney Myer Music Bowl. Each venue presents its own challenges and Anthony says it’s been a pleasure working with the band’s FOH engineer, Kerry Furlong, to solve these daily issues.
“He has worked with the band for over a decade, he has been a great mentor and colleague and makes sure things are working for both of us,” he said. “With so many open mics on stage accompanied with wedges, you can run into problems quickly between the front of house and monitors. This has not been the case on this tour. We are a great team and have worked hard to make sure that the front of house and stage monitoring sound work well together.”
Anthony describes this tour as a career highlight as Crowded House is iconic and a household name and he believes it was an honour to be put forward to work with them.
“It’s been a great challenge and forced me to try a new approach to things,” added Anthony. “Each band member is also an established and respected artist and producer outside of Crowded House, so the calibre of musicians we have been working with is world-class. Their ears are so finely tuned – Neil could hear 2dB of compression on his vocal through an M2 in a small and noisy town hall we were rehearsing in! I love it and it keeps you on your toes. They have all been so welcoming and what initially could have been very daunting, has been the complete opposite. The whole band and crew have been an absolute pleasure to work with. A few mentors and colleagues of mine have worked in this role right back when the band originally formed. I remember being a monitor tech for Ben Shapiro back in the mid-2000s and him telling me, “that’s how we would we do it for Crowded House”, so that’s the standard I have always worked towards. So, I’m just thankful I have been allowed to fill that role and hope I have made them proud. I’m so thankful for the opportunity and am looking forward to more shows with them in the future.”
