JET Live Jet’s career has recently gone ballistic. Christopher Holder heads to Adelaide to talk to the engineers who ensure the band’s sound takes off. ’m not quite sure if it’s the compliment that a rock ‘n’ roll system engineer has been waiting all his life to hear or not, but it came the way of Drew Maynard Iduring a Jet gig at Adelaide’s Memorial Drive Tennis Centre in front of 10,000 enthusiastic South Australians. Midway through the show the designated EPA chap tapped Drew on the shoulder with his SPL meter and gave him his assess- ment of the ensuing rock ‘n’ roll mayhem… “And he said he’d never heard anything like it,” said a wide-eyed Drew screaming at me over the PA. “He was amazed… couldn’t believe the quality.” And with that, Drew stood looking at me for a couple of seconds with a mixture of incredulity, delight and what could have been a small amount of wounded pride, I’m not entirely sure. After the show I passed on the ‘good’ news to FOH engineer Johnny Haskett who wasn’t quite so equivocal, stating just a little bit sniffily that he was “nearly arrested” in Switzerland for an EPA-type transgression. Apparently the Swiss bureaucrat pointed to two heavily armed policemen and offered John one last chance to turn down the din or face a night banged up in a Swiss cell. “In fact, last time I was in Italy I spoke to the guy who was baby-sitting the system for that gig and he had been jailed for going 2dB over the limit in the San Siro stadium [in Milan]. They locked him up for three months!” Blimey… now that’s rock ‘n’ roll… none of this slap on the back stuff from ‘the suits’! Anyway, regardless of the street-cred implications of the EPA nod, general consensus would suggest that Jet’s much-anticipated sojourn to the City of Churches sounded excellent. And, after chatting to the sound guys and taking in the system and sound check, the quality can be attributed to a few key factors. First up, Johnston Audio’s Nexo Geo-T is undeniably proving itself to be a very high quality system, and when teamed up with Nexo’s directional subs, it’s a system that’s compact, easy to rig and can offer amazing thump, sizzle and clarity in equal measure. On the back-end, the Geo-T has joined forces with the Lake Contour – a system controller with converters that seem to be the equal of anything in the audiophile market and a real step up in the PA arena. That’s the gear, but naturally the band has the biggest influence on the sound, and it was interesting to hear how Jet’s level-headed approach to keeping the defining principles of its sound constant has meant the band’s never out of its comfort zone despite the fact that in the last 12 months dingy pub gigs have turned into arena shows. I talked to Monitor Engineer Mark Crawley, Front of House Engineer Johnny Haskett, and System Engineer Drew Maynard to learn more. Mark Crawley: It’s been an amazing journey. I’ve done the Big Day Out for a while now and for Jet to go from being one of the first bands on the bill to headlining the bill in one year is amazing. Christopher Holder: How has that extra crowd-pulling power manifest itself from a production point of view? Johnny Haskett: In the 18 months I’ve worked with Jet, this most recent Aus- tralian leg has been the first full production tour we’ve done. Until now we’ve never played more than three gigs in a row with the same PA. Now we’ve got a full crew and the budgets are getting better, we’re finally stamping our mark and generally getting what we want. 30 Jet's Nic Cester gets up close and personal with his Sennheiser e935 vocal mic. FOH Engineer, Johnny Haskett, flattens the desk and prepares to head home after the gig. MC: As John says, this is the first time they’ve taken out a proper production, and the first time I’ve had a fairly free hand to say – this is what I want and this is what I like to use. Before that it was a case of taking what you were given and making it work. CH: Including the US work the two of you have done with Jet? JH: Especially in The States. America is a nightmare because a 3,000- to 4,000-capacity venue is still classed as a ‘club’ over there. Some of the systems are absolutely rotten. You’ve got 4,000 punters paying good money for a ticket and you’ve got something hung in the air that’s not even maintained. You spend all day with a phase checker before you can even push up some faders. CH: And have you been happy with the results of the better spec’ed systems? JH: Totally happy. I’ve used Nexo’s Alpha for a long time, so when we came back to Australia we called Bruce Johnston and used his Alpha system. This time around we’ve had a crack at the Geo-T. The first gig we used it on was in Melbourne a few nights ago and that system has come to Adelaide for this show. In the meantime we used an Alpha rig in Sydney and it was like: ‘Oh right… can we have the Geo-T back please?’! CH: The Geo-T looks quite petite, but it’s obviously got the ‘balls’ you need for a rock ‘n’ roll show like this? JH: It has. In fact, of the modern array-style systems out there it’s one of the few that’s still got a bit of bite. Most of the others (except JBL’s VerTec) are all a bit ‘soft’, you can’t really do rock ‘n’ roll with them – but the Geo-T has got a bit about it. And those cardioid subs are superb for this outdoor environment. I’ll definitely be going for this setup again. For Those About to Rock… FOH engineer, Johnny Haskett, calls the Jet experience ‘blood ‘n’ guts rock ‘n’ roll’ and he’s got a point. A Jet gig Monitor Engineer, Mark Crawley, sees the funny side of things during sound check. doesn’t have too many pretensions about it – nothing too fancy, just high-energy rock delivered with passion and aggression. Want a good vocal lift in the chorus? Then sing louder. About to embark on a guitar solo after the verse? Then kick the mic stand over. Had enough of your water bottle after a few swigs? Then chuck it into the mosh pit. Fancy a smoke mid performance? Light up. All pretty simple really… or so it would seem to the casual observer. Mark Crawley: Jet’s a rock ‘n’ roll band that’s been brought up on the sound of pub gigs and rehearsal rooms, so you need the capability to deliver that kind of feel on stage for them. Now that the stages are bigger and the audiences are a lot bigger I think it’s important to retain that small pub and rehearsal room vibe. Obviously they’re both very loud, enclosed environments and you can never emulate that vibe completely but that’s the aim. CH: So it’s unlikely we’ll see a Jet gig any time soon where the guys are in different postcodes on a stage the size of Omaha? MC: No. They like to keep that rehearsal room feel by sticking quite close. They’re only about eight feet apart from each other regardless of the size of the stage. CH: How does that impact on the monitor mixes you’re setting up for them? MC: Well, for example, Nic [Cester, lead singer/guitarist] has almost none of the band in his wedge because he’s getting it all from the bass and guitar backline, and the drum kit is right behind him. His mix is almost entirely his vocal, some keys, and his acoustic guitar when he picks that up. CH: It seems like the guys know what keeps them tight and they’re trying to stick to what they know? MC: They’re smart operators, no doubt about it. For example, Chris [Cester, the drummer] pointed something out to me the other night. There’s a particular song which builds with just a hi-hat and Cam playing guitar – chugging away. Anyway, Chris could hear that Cam was slipping out of time. So Chris signalled to me to turn up his hi-hat in Cam’s wedge during the song. Which I did and Cam went back in time. I love that. I thought that was ace. He’s telling me what he needed, because he knew. They’re not idiots, they know what they want on stage. CH: And that no-nonsense approach obviously flows into your approach at FOH, John? John Haskell: It’s blood and guts rock ‘n’ roll. It’s not overly effected. I use a couple of Yamaha SPX990s for early reflections on the vocals and drums and on the slower songs I dial in some rich plate off the [Lexicon] PCM80. Apart from that I’ve got the good ol’ TC 2290 for some delay every now and then – a few slap backs. That’s it.