Sydney-based six-piece Winston Surfshirt recently played a one-off headline Enmore Theatre show with audio by Adam Kaye and lighting designed by Calum Young.
Adam has worked for the band for five years saying they let him interpret their sound how he feels it should sound.
“It is really important to have the vocals on top, but equally as important to have the trombone and horn section up there as well,” he said. “Winston gives me a general idea of how he wants it to sound, but it’s great to have the freedom to be creative with the mix.”
Adam used The Enmore’s L-Acoustics V-DOSC PA with six ground stack top boxes and four flow from the roof. There were also eight SB18 subs. However, if he could choose, he would opt for a d&b KSL – 12 a side flown and a mix of J-INFRA and V-SUB.
For control, Adam used a DiGiCo SD series console running Waves plugin on Waves SuperRack.
“I love DiGiCo mixing consoles as they are easy to navigate and sound great,” he added. “Waves just add extra sparkle and control. I’m using plugins such as F6 Floating-Band Dynamic EQ and Primary Source Expander.
“I use lots of effects on the vocals and trombone; lots of delay throws and I like to mix Winston very dynamically, pushing different instruments to create moments and keep it interesting.”
Over Winston’s vocals, Adam uses a Shure KSM9, on the trombone he likes a Sennheiser MD 421 and the on the flugelhorn a Beyer M88. For extra horns, he goes with the old trusty Shure SM57 and everything else is DIs.
Adam Hignett mixes monitors on a DiGiCo SD11 with the entire band on IEMs. There is a sub for Jack and side fills for extra feel on stage.
Adam says the biggest challenge at this gig is that the PA has a ton of headroom and it can be easy to go a little crazy.
“Keeping everything under control and balanced is always a challenge, but that’s the fun part,” he remarked. “Overall I felt it went really well. A few songs in and I was really happy with how it all came together. Winston is one of my favourite artists to mix and I had a great time! It looked and sounded great.”
The band is also super flexible when it comes to lighting their show according to LD Calum Young.
“It’s generally up to me what happens in regards to the lighting,” he commented. “For this show, I really wanted layers! I wanted to get away from a flat stage look and get the band off the ground. And get as much depth out of the stage as possible.
“Winston Surfshirt is a big “look” type of act, it’s not a strobey, flashy act. I wanted to achieve something that had flexibility while still giving me the ability to get those big looks and scenes.”
Intense Lighting Hire supplied a floor package of eight Ayrton MagicBlades, eight Claypaky Scenius, four Nitec LED Blinders, six Chauvet R2X Washes, two Look Solutions Unique hazers and an MA Lighting MA2 light for control.
“I busk these guys mostly,” added Calum. “Each song has a page, with fixed faders from my busk page and any specifics for that song on the 101 through 105 buttons (bridge looks or intro specials mostly). Most of the colours and effects I busk on the fly. I’ve gone down the path of putting together a large, tight cue list with these guys and it just doesn’t work for me as their music is all about vibe and I’ve found letting the lights vibe works best for me.”
Calum has a couple of favourite lighting moments in the show saying that both are new songs and total bangers.
“The whole design for the show originally came out of the effects I wanted to get in these two songs,” he added. Complicated has a really fun three-pixel snap and rotate look with the MagicBlades that I tap along with the snares. It was really satisfying to program and really fun to operate.
“There’s Only One has a big disco vibe to it so a lot of the song is based around some fast rotating gobos on the rear cyc swapping with tight gobos out of the Scenius fixtures. Again, it’s a manual tap along and has that tactile thing!”
Photos: Jordan Munns
