Touring Season Preview

Well the 2009 Touring Season is beginning to shape up quite nicely.   I'm gearing up for another jaunt to Austin, Texas for the annual South by Southwest Festival (SXSW), this time with my good friends, The Decemberists.  I'm excited to be mixing In-Ear-Monitors with them again - there's a new record, The Hazards of Love, that drops March 24th and this tour will showcase the album in it's entirety.   The band will perform the album for the first time in Austin, headlining the NPR Music Showcase at Stubb's and kicking off this year's festival.  Joining the band on stage will be Shara Worden of  My Brightest Diamond and Lavender Diamond's Becky Stark, two great performers that have been on previous Decemberists tours with their respective bands.  It will be a delight to work with them again.  The Stubbs concert will be webcasted live and broadcast on NPR stations.

Rich Hipp, our Front of House Engineer, and I have been working on the pre-production, fleshing out the technical bones behind the tour.  We've decided to take out 2 Digidesign Profile consoles.   We'll also be carrying a production package to complement our stage setup.  We're using Horne Audio in Portland, OR for all of our audio production needs.   The band is still on the Sensaphonics 2X-S series In Ears matched with Sennheiser G2 Evolution wireless transmitters/receivers, a good combo that has kept us all happy for the last 2 years.  Hopefully the digital console can step up to the plate [sonically] - fingers crossed.

After SXSW we hit the pavement in North America for a short, 3 week tour ending at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee and also includes a stop at NY's Radio City Music Hall.

I'm also working with the band, Vampire Weekend, doing a couple of one-offs in March.   I'll be flying to Mexico a couple of times in between Decemberists rehearsals and SXSW.  I'm looking forward to hanging w/ my buddy Myk Guanci, who doubles as Tour Manager and Front of House Engineer for the band.   The band will be playing in Monterrey, Guadalajara and Mexico City - you can find more info on their website.

There's some other tours on the deck, waiting for confirmation,  and once those are signed in blood I'll send out more updates.   This could be a very exciting touring season indeed!