The tour kicked off at the Barbican in York – not everybody’s idea of the perfect venue – and culminated at the Brighton Dome, where expectations were high and the mood was good.
Both Wood and Hague found the room very much to their liking.
“I have to say the job they did on refurbishing the Dome was wonderful,” says Wood. “It’s the first time I’ve been back in here since the early 80s with Sister Sledge, when I seem to recall it being fairly horrible.
“Now it’s one of the best sounding rooms I’ve had the pleasure of mixing in even though it is round.
“When you come into a venue like this with a PA that has fixed dispersion in both planes you’re going to struggle to keep it off the balcony and the unsold seat areas,” adds Hague. “And that’s exactly why Aspect works so well in here.
“I’m a great believer in horses for courses, and in these theatre-style venues I know that all I have to do is point and shoot into the specific areas where I want to throw audio. Aspect is extremely adaptable in that respect and in these venues it really works. With all the flexibility that Aspect offers I can have the PA sounding pretty much any way the engineers want.
“We’re getting a lot of praise for the bottom end on this tour. But you don’t have to put a lot of gear in here; I’ve done the room before, for Robert Cray we had only one sub, four low packs and four high packs a side and it was plenty. We’ve done very big rooms with only two Aspect high packs a side, the tight vertical dispersion allowing you to squirt sound under the balcony. The sheer output of these boxes gives great dynamic system performance – and you don’t realize how loud it is, because it’s so clean.”
Wood is also a fan of the TSW-218 subs. “With the low/low mid energy in the system being a little strong for my taste I had the bass boxes turned pretty low and then used the subs to give the real low end some space,” he says. “I found that the kick and bass guitar sounded much cleaner by doing this.”
With no wedges on stage Wood is glad of the chance to let the PA do its job. “When ZPZ first started back in 2006 there were 24 2×15 wedges on stage complete with side and drum fills,” he explains. “Altogether it was around 106db A-weighted at FOH with the PA off. Turning the PA on didn’t really make it any louder, so the move to in-ear monitors in 2007 was a fantastic step up to sonic excellence.”
He admits that it’s a major challenge to get so many instruments and voices to sound clear and articulate all at the same time, but the passion is evident: “What’s not to like about mixing the best band in the known universe? The stunning musicianship of Dweezil and the band and the enormous wealth of Frank’s material make for a heady musical confection that’s hard not to love. Aspect really does project vocals very well and with something as wordy as Frank’s music you need all the help you can get. It’s very open in the midrange.
“My approach is judicious use of compression and to try to create space around it. Virtually every Frank Zappa tune is complex and I spend a lot of time before going out on tour learning the tunes we’re going to play and what takes the lead role at any particular time. I then make show notes and try to stick to them until I’m completely familiar with how the tune should sound. I also record the show every day, and then Dweezil and I will go over it to fine tune arrangements.
“ESS did a terrific job on this tour,” he concludes. “Andy and monitor tech Andy were both top notch and I would happily tour with them again. We had a good time. When we tour with ZPZ it’s a hard slog – we do two and a half hour shows and have very few days off – but we do it because we love it, and it’s always fun bringing Frank’s music to existing fans and also a new generation of kids who want something more than the dreadful tedium of current pop music.”