HW: Hastings - brief response

[Jonathan Jarrett]

On Sat, Jul 20, 2002 at 08:41:51PM +0400, Alisa typed out:
> You all are saying about the sound. But the sound is not the band playing.
> And if the sound wasn't good enough it doesn't mean the playing is bad. It's
> just the sound. It's the mistake of sound engineer.
> Sound is very important part of concert but not everything.
>
> >From what I've read it would be a very interesting show for me. So I will
> definitely try to find a recording.

        The sound is important though, mostly because if it's wrong you
can't *hear* the band playing. I've been to too many HW gigs where Huw was
guesting and you could see his hands moving, and no noise reached you. And
eventually he would start throwing his hands up and giving up because he
could tell from the monitors that he wasn't audible either. It's a damper
on a concert experience. I don't go to HW to guess what notes they're
playing; if the sound is mud (Croydon Fairfield Halls 98) or all stuffed
into the mid-range and fizzing (Shepherd's Bush 96) or just some musicians
are inaudible (any gig I saw with Huw before Canterbury, and indeed last
Christmas Party for much of it), there's nothing HW can do right or wrong
to help my gig experience, because the soundman is stopping it reaching
me.

        This is why it annoys me that they post-produced _Yule Ritual_ so
much, because where we were right behind the sound booth on the night, it
was crystal *perfect* and the recording has spoilt the ice-cool smokiness
of it all. Not by much, but by enough to take the shine off. And live we
could hear Jerry of course. Grr. Anyway. Yours,
                                                Jon (still behind)

ObCD: DarXtar - _Tombola_
--
        Jonathan Jarrett                Birkbeck College, London
                 jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk
        --------------------------------------------------------
  "The large print giveth and the small print taketh away." (Tom Waits)