After six years of working with South West Group it's no surprise that those involved have seen some changes occurring. "This year we were running Sennheiser Evolution 300 Series IEM's with 500 Series radio mics, all with 935 capsules." commented monitor engineer Mike Taylor. "All wired mics were also e935s, and instrument mics were from the Sennheiser Evolution range. I've been doing this gig for many years now and it's encouraging to see the increasing amount of Sennheiser mics being specified year on year. People are finally getting out of the dark ages and actually listening to how mics sound."
Indeed it was noticeable just how many bands across all stages were using Sennheiser, including Seasick Steve, The Raconteurs, The Feeling, Editors, The Hoosiers, Mark Ronson, King Of Leon and many more. One up and coming band playing on the John Peel stage were "Psycho Baby" and lead guitarist Richard Weaver was very happy with his Sennheiser experience: "The sound on stage was amazing. I've never used the e935 before but it sounded amazing."
During the Glastonbury weekend, the John Peel stage was again the one to play, with some of the hottest bands around packing them in, including Hadouken, The Kills, The Cribs, The Futureheads, Biffy Clyro and The Ting Tings, whose FOH engineer Johnny Dodkin said: "It was great seeing the Sennheiser guys on site. Knowing we have their support at these festivals means a lot to myself and the band."
Even although the John Peel tent had virtually doubled in size from last year, the level of talent on show regularly meant that the crowd was bursting at the seams. With so many people eager to see the bands, the pressure was on the crew to turnaround the artists as swiftly as possible. "The back bone of the stage running so smoothly from a tech point of view was the Sennheiser Shout System," commented Mike Taylor. "This was made up of FOH, Mons and Head patch on mics. All patches were on IEMs; this system worked great. We could link everyone in including broadcast radio, broadcast TV, record, and AV. They were able to hear in real time if there was any changes in the patch or anything else unexpected, and with the absence of any shouting, we were one of the calmest and together stages of the festival, with some changeovers taking less than 10 minutes."
"It was a great weekend", said Sennheiser UK's artist relations manager Phil Cummings. "I'd like to thank everyone involved including Mark Saunders from Global Relations, our Sennheiser UK team, Andy Lillywhite, Alan March and Rob Sales, as well as the entire crew working on the three stages we were involved with, especially Alister Pook, Julian Spear, Mark Bott and Mike Taylor.
(Claire Beeson)
