Front of House Engineer Paul ‘Woody’ Anniston is also a self-proclaimed old-school rock-and-roll indie producer, having worked with bands such as Children Collide. He has mixed for The Living End for over 17 years, as well as numerous rap bands, although he’s not quite sure how that niche came about!
“I’ve been lucky over the years, I’m still working, and I haven’t had to get a real job as a result!” he said. “I don’t know how it happened, but I turned into the rapper guy, you know, like I did 360 about six or seven years ago. I get given UK rappers that come over for Handsome, where I tour manage and do front of house and then locally, I do a rapper called Chillinit and another group called OneFour.”
Woody’s initial contact with The Living End was through his then-wife, who was their previous manager. He filled in mixing FOH for one show at Splendour in the Grass, and the tour manager insisted he take on the role permanently.
“We get along well,” commented Woody. “They’re great people, but all three of them are wonderful, compassionate, caring, and they care about their art, which I really appreciate. Every show, whether it’s a corporate or public gig, they take everything seriously. They care about how tight they are. Chris is a freak; he’s an absolute guitar genius, so I feel privileged to work with him and call them my friend as well.”
The Living End has been touring the country promoting ‘I Only Trust Rock n Roll’, their first album in 8 years. The trio blasts through two massive sets: the first ripping through select tracks from their explosive new LP, plus the whole swag of hits. The second set will take fans back to where it all started, with the band playing their iconic self-titled debut album in full.
Woody mixed three of the shows, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney, because he was on another tour. The Sydney show, held outside on the steps of the Sydney Opera House, was packed with people of all ages.
JPJ Audio supplied the audio and crew, rolling out an L-Acoustics K2, K1 and Kara PA system. Woody is not particularly fussy about PA choice; he uses whatever he’s given. However, if he could pick, it would be a d&b audiotechnik KSL/GSL.
“With the d&b system, I love the top end on that,” he explained. “I feel like I’m in the studio. I feel like I’m listening to a pair of monitors, and I love it. And I love the cancellation of the cardio pattern that kills everything on stage. It’s brilliant, it’s genius physics.”
The main challenge mixing the band on the Opera House steps was keeping an eye on volume. However, Woody says the SOH crew were super helpful in assisting him. Not being able to hear the delay stacks behind him was a problem, but that’s with a lot of gigs these days.
Woody mixed on a DiGiCo Quantum 338, his current console of choice, which he favours for the new Mustard Processing channel strips and the overall generic setup.
“The only thing with DiGiCo is that it lacks the outboard effects,” he added. “So, I’ll bring a C2 bus compressor, and when I can, I’ll use the UAD live stuff over the Dante so I can get better-sounding reverbs and delays. But with The Living End, we’ve spent so long working on the actual tones, mic placement, and all that kind of stuff that it shouldn’t be about plugins. It’s all about the source signal.”
Instrument and microphone placement are very exact; they use their own gear that is carefully measured, so the mic placement is exactly as it was the day before. However, the humidity and the venue still make every gig a bit different.
“I’ve tried to convince Chris to go on to a modelling kind of UAD pedal / Kemper type thing, but that’s just not his jam,” said Woody. “He wants his Wizard amps, so we’ve got like four mics on four different cabs: one for backup, one for him at the front and then the Vox and the Wizard at the back are ones like a dirty, crunchy kind of sound, and one’s got more sort of sparkle, like a Vox sparkle.
“We communicate in soundcheck about how to get the best that we can out of it and minimise those challenges so that all I’m doing is riding faders based on the musicality of it, rather than the technicality of it.”
Microphones are mainly Shure SM57s with Sennheiser MD 421 on the bass. On the drums, there’s a Shure SM57 for the snares, and a couple of Neumanns on the hi-hats, ride and overheads.
“With the tom mics, I’ve just got some Sennheiser e904 because I find them to be just pretty much what they are,” remarked Woody. “When the tom hits the tom, it sounds like a tom. It’s not trying to do anything special; it’s just a workhorse.”
The band’s usual monitor engineer is Kez Kesby, but he was on tour with Jimmy Barnes, and so Mick Aarons stepped in.
There are no monitors on stage; everyone uses Sennheiser IEMs with custom JH moulds.
“Sometimes we try to do it on monitors, but it’s not doable because they get ear fatigue, and it just ends up being terrible because it’s so loud and raucous,” said Woody. “So, we’ve been using the IEMs for maybe 10 years, maybe more now. Scott was on monitors for a while, but it was so loud it was just crazy.”
The night was an overwhelming success, with the band cementing their reputation as one of Australia’s best live acts.
