(Editor’s note) After hearing Keith May rave about the Tori Amos concerts that he saw, I made arrangements to visit the tour’s Los Angeles stop, at a lovely old theatre, the Wiltern. When SSE Hire’s Mike Rose came out to the barricade to escort me in, he looked somewhat familiar. Then, when I saw him standing next to Mark Hawley at FOH, I said “I know you guys!” They had travelled together with an English band that I had hosted at San Francisco’s Warfield Theatre, when I was FOH systems tech there, a decade ago.

Mike and Mark are quite a team. They punch the mix out into the room like troupers, Tori’s show is not a drawing room recital! There is a very two-fisted approach to the audio. The room is filled with a surprisingly three-dimensional piano sound, and super-strong vocal.

I described it to audio friends afterwards as the mix being up to the point of resonating, then reined in minus that crucial five per cent, so that it is stable throughout the show. Achieving this kind of balance takes a lot of experience, to walk that close to the line and not go over it. It is also a powerful gift to the fans, and the kind of presentation (combined with an excellent set and lighting) that reminds one of why people go to concerts in the first place.

Mark uses a stereo pair of 414’s on the piano, augmented with a third one positioned just over the bass strings. In the afternoon, while Tori soundchecked, I stood with Mike in the aisle near the top of the venue, and when she would come down on her left hand, the impact was amazingly intense. Mike confirmed that he and Mark are very happy with how the Nexo cabinets function to make that possible.

At the end of the night, I had the pleasure of meeting John Penn of SSE Hire, and talking about arcane topics like doghouses and mults and meter bridges. SSE is concerned with the details of touring packaging, they know how crisis situations can erupt, for example at a festival, when you need to get past the mults and re-patch your actual XLR’s in the back of a desk. SSE makes a doghouse that enables you to do that quickly, without fighting unwieldy doors and masses of cables.

I’d like to thank Jim Sides of Nexo USA, for making it possible for Keith and I to meet these gentlemen. I had very little knowledge of Tori’s music prior to the show, I could not have asked for a better introduction. Mark and Marcel work with her at a level of sincerity and understanding that very few engineers ever spend long enough with a given artist to develop. Quite illuminating, guys, thanks again!

- Chris Kathman

Mark Hawley (FOH), Marcel van Limbeek (monitors), Michael Rose (FOH systems tech) and Andy Yates (monitor tech) explain why how they work together, to actualize Tori Amos’ sonic vision, using Nexo speakers and SSE Hire equipment, on her solo tour.

I caught up with Hawley, van Limbeek, Rose and Yates at the Paramount Theater, a beautifully restored theater in the heart of downtown Oakland.

Mark Hawley

Hawley & van Limbeek have been working with Amos since 1995 and have recorded and mixed three of her studio albums. In spite of the fact that “Strange Little Girl”, her new album, features a full band, Amos opted to do a solo tour to support the album.