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BACK TO EUROPE: Part 4
With Suicidal Tendencies
By Chris Kathman
PSW Live Editor
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Part 1 | Part
2 | Part 3
| Ireland,
Scotland, & England
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“Big Al” Mouat and Joe
Thomas
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If you are driving down Sauciehall Steet in Glasgow, it’s
easy to spot the Garage off in the distance - it’s the
building with the front of a semi-truck emerging from it,
high above the heads of the people walking by on the sidewalk.
Inside, I found one of the most logistically together operations
I have ever walked into, courtesy of the legendary “Big”
Al Mouat. Big Al has spent plenty of time on the road, and
as a result has one goal – that the visiting tour manager
and crew have the kind of day that Al would wish for himself,
if he was entering a club somewhere.
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I can tell you that he succeeds brilliantly. Audio? Killer. Security?
Great. Dancing with Finnish girls after the show? Outstanding! Al
and his crew also turned me on to IRN-BRU,
the demented national soda of the Scottish people. It is strong,
orange-ish, and not like anything I have ever tasted.
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L’Acoustics ARCS and subs
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EFX Audio of Bathgate was the local provider, and Joe Thomas
joined me out front, where I was very happy indeed to drive
at a set of L’Acoustic
ARCS and subs. The subs were stacked horizontally, three
a side, with the three deceptively small ARCS, yes, “arc-ing”
across the top of them. The amount of clean, accurate sound
that these boxes emit is really enjoyable. The Garage is a
basic box shaped room and there was not excessive air overhead
- the mix blasted straight at me and the crowd, and made us
both quite happy.
Chris McCarron ran the Logic Systems wedges and sidefills,
and we both used Yamaha
M3000 desks. The way the day went so smoothly, and the
way the system just kicked ass, helped me get to a place that
is hard to describe, but I think many mixers understand.
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Chris McCarron
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It is when the inputs are not fighting you, when everything
starts to flow and the moves you make do nothing but improve
the vibe in the room, every time. I know that Big Mick of
Metallica fame knows about it, he talked about it in his PSW
interview, as well as the unfortunate flip side we have
all experienced, when you just dig yourself further and further
into a hole of hopelessness!
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This was the polar opposite of a night like that. To celebrate,
instead of going back to the hotel and mating with a mystery novel,
I went out and had a few drinks with our crew and some very lovely
young ladies from Finland.
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Drum tech Charly Moniz, on the ferry HHS Stena
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The Garage does the transformation into a disco after the
rock show, and we stuck around and had fun for quite a while.
I knew that being a little drowsy the next day would be a
good thing, as we would be motoring all day, towards distant
London.
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