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| David Gilmour (Photo: Jill Furmanovsky) |
If you’re an avid visitor to our site, you’ll know that our focus is typically on the musicians and artists who perform across the Bay Area, but rarely do we focus on the touring crew members who make our favorite artists look and sound as good as they do. Earlier this week, I had a chance to speak with a living legend in the live sound audio space who happens to be on tour supporting Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour and his Luck and Strange tour. The tour is only hitting 4 cities around the world, and I was able to catch-up with Colin Norfield on the first night of David’s Hollywood Bowl residency. As you’ll read below, Colin’s been doing live sound for a LONG time and is part of another legendary team at Britannia Row Productions. Britannia Row is a pro sound production and equipment rental company based in the UK, and had their own start in association with Pink Floyd back in the mid ‘70s. The band purchased a building at 35 Britannia Row to convert into a recording studio and warehouse for their equipment when not on tour. Between touring breaks, the band encouraged the crew to rent out their equipment to other bands and the seeds for Britannia Row Productions were sewn.
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| Colin Norfield (Photo: Britannia Row Productions) |
Colin Norfield is a front of house (FOH) audio engineer and the main person responsible for how an artist sounds to the audience. Everything that comes out of the main speakers at the venue are mixed by the FOH engineer – so that feedback you heard at that last club show? Or maybe monitors. You can blame the FOH! Were the vocals too low in a mix? Too high? Audio levels, EQ, effects, etc. are all run through the FOH. So, if the band is just OK, a good FOH engineer can make them sound great! Colin’s one of the best and we had a chance to speak with him about the David Gilmour tour and a bit about how he got paired up with Pink Floyd!
Read on!
SFBayAreaConcerts.com: Colin, you're kind of a legend!
Colin Norfield: Am I?
SFBAC: I don't know, you've been doing this for a long time.
Colin Norfield: I have been doing this for a long time. A few years.
SFBAC: Well, I saw an interview on YouTube and I think The Temptations was maybe your first live gig?
Colin Norfield: Yeah, 1971.
SFBAC: 1971 and then, so from The Temptations, you eventually got hooked up with the Floyd?
Colin Norfield: No... I did the Temptation stuff. I was a bass player in a band originally, and we used Orange amplifiers. And the guy who owns Orange is a good friend. He said, ‘You got a couple of weeks?’ And this is in 1971… I said, 'Yeah'. He said, ‘I'm putting a little P.A. together because there's an English agent who brought some American bands across from the States to do the German Air Force bases in Germany.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I'll do it.’ So, I did The Temptations, The Four Tops, Richie Havens, Wilson Pickett, and it just went on and on and on. With Floyd, the first thing that I did was in '94, with the Division Bell tour. But I did Toto for nine years, lots, lots of good bands.
SFBAC: Who stands out?
Colin Norfield: Floyd. Always.
SFBAC: You're not just saying that?
Colin Norfield: No, no. It makes you think. I enjoy the challenge. There's lots of space. You know? And I love it. This is my dream really. It's the best thing ever, the pinnacle of anyone's career. Whatever goes on, I can always say, been there, done it.
SFBAC: So, speaking of the Division Bell. I was at the Veterans Stadium show in Philadelphia in ‘94 for all three nights. And at that show, if you remember, there was quad sound around the stadium. I'm assuming this is a typical left-right stereo performance tonight, but as an audio engineer, how does your mindset shift going from more of a spatial audio, versus just left and right?
Colin Norfield: The good thing, that he [David Gilmour] does, what Pink Floyd did, was effects. Nothing is timed. There's no timing because you can't, it’s almost impossible to make it to a timeline, because your sound is in the middle, for me, it [the sweet spot] might sound great, but then for someone up there [up in the lawn seats/upper deck], it won't be. It's all effects, like this [referencing the background recorded sounds playing before the show starts], roaming around the room. You don't have this, no timing issues, you know? So, you’ve just got things like this [ambient sounds], or the odd lawnmower going across, or a helicopter going across, it's all atmospheric.
SFBAC: Is there a good story for how you got hooked up with the Division Bell tour?
Colin Norfield: I did a thing through Britannia Row who asked me if I could do a gig at Cowdray Park. It was an estate down in Sussex, England. It was for a hospice for Mike Rutherford. It was Genesis. It was Eric Clapton, the remaining members of Queen and Pink Floyd, and I had two weeks of rehearsals. I had two desks. I had three drum kits, on one board sub grouped, into my main board which I remember I worked on a lot, gates and that sort of stuff. And then I just had all the other channels on the other board. The only band that bought their own engineer was a guy called Andy Jackson, who was doing Pink Floyd's Division Bell album. And they brought him along. He said I had it all dialed in. And he didn't have to do anything. And so next year, Floyd was going out (on tour), and I got the job mixing FOH with him. My job was mixing the drums, I had 56 channels, 2 double bass drum kits, percussion and bass guitar.
SFBAC: So let me ask about this show... Going from indoors at Intuit Dome, just a couple nights ago, to outdoors here at the Hollywood Bowl. As an engineer, can you describe the differences in your approach to each?
Colin Norfield: Yeah, you've got the acoustics to deal with indoors... Which, you know, I've been doing it 51 or... 53 years or something. I've been doing it a long time, it's second nature for me, it's built in. You know? It's my job. I don’t spend much time listening to music. I never listen to music at home. But I enjoy mixing. I’m not really interested in the rest of the equipment. I don't understand it. All this digital stuff is a way to be more creative, I guess. I don’t really understand any of it. I like mixing and creating, the artistic side of it.
SFBAC: So, when you start out on a night, do you import settings from the previous night? Or do you start from scratch each night?
Colin Norfield: We start with the last show, at the Intuit, but then I EQ it for this situation, and then I get the house or my tech to turn it up. Whatever I do, I try and get the house to compensate. If it's Terence my tech, if we're doing indoors, he'll have the control over the system. So, I get him to adjust it to just make up the slack that I'm taking out of it. I'm pretty ruthless with graphic EQ. But it's my reference, you know? I don't use a computer to look at how a room should sound. It’s how I feel it.
SFBAC: How much do you adjust from song to song throughout a set?
Colin Norfield: I've got snapshots of what I've programmed before, but I use it more as an analog board as opposed to a digital board. The only thing, I keep is the gain structure, and the EQs the same. I'll open up a bit of the bass high pass a little bit for a couple songs, and then I close it up again, or bring it back again. I don't have bass guitar in the subs much, a little bit maybe. I run the sub off an AUX. I don't run it as a full range system, so the subs, are off an AUX so I can be more artistic with it. You can turn them up and down as you need them, and bring them in with a certain song, and they're programed for that, so they'll come up or down per song choice. It seems to work.
SFBAC: How many mics are up there?
Colin Norfield: I think our monitor engineer’s got 120 channels because he’s got all the in-ears and all that sort of stuff as well. It’s a pretty busy show. I'm probably running about 98-99 channels, there’s quite a lot going on. But it's fun to mix.
SFBAC: I've worked in a studio before where we had 24-48 tracks, right? So, we were mixing it down and bouncing down. Have you ever worked in a studio or have you solely been focused on live sound?
Colin Norfield: No, I've never worked in a studio! I'd like to, it's the easy life, it's great for them, because they can just wind it back and do it again! [laughter] Keep playing around with it until it's right. Whereas I get three or four minutes a song, it's done! There's no winding back. You've got 100 channels or whatever it is, channels coming at you, all at once, and you've got to mix it in 2 hours. That's it.
SFBAC: Have you made any changes to the way you’re mixing since the tour kicked off?
Colin Norfield: I worked on the song that came off the last album, "A Boat Lies Waiting", which is a song about Rick Wright. All the vocals on the tour we did before, we had Cosby and Nash also on the tour doing this song. But now we haven't got them, and so I've spent a lot of time getting the mix right. It’s all sung live.
SFBAC: So, the effects aren’t timed to come in, or triggered?
Colin Norfield: No, we've got a guy on the stage who runs some tracks, but again, it's not timed, it's just this kind of thing. [atmospheric]
SFBAC: So, for David himself, do you do anything special with either his vocals or his guitars?
Colin Norfield: On some of the tracks, I use a harmonizer on his vocals, which is what he has on the album. So, I do that. But I use old fashioned stuff, I've got the DiGiCo Q8 desk. But all the effects are outboard, I’ve got a TC Electronics D2 delay, I've got two SPX 990's, from the past, for two reasons. One, they sound good, and two is, I can go anywhere in the world and pick one of them off the rack somewhere, in a sound company, because no one uses them. I just take it. Terence went to the warehouse and pulled one off the rack and it still had the settings in it from the last tour, eight years ago! So, no one uses them!
SFBAC: Is there an artist that you haven't worked for that you want to?
Colin Norfield: No
SFBAC: You've checked all the boxes?
Colin Norfield: Yeah, you know? I worked with Toto for nine years and that was phenomenal. Great music, great bunch of musicians. Great bunch of guys, very funny. And we had a great time. Steve Lukather, David Paich, Mike Porcaro, Simon Philips, they were a scream. They were great.
I've even got Frank Sinatra on my CV.
SFBAC: When was that?
Colin Norfield: Before he died, obviously!
SFBAC: When and where, I guess is my question!
Colin Norfield: We did a European tour and some interesting places, like just outside the Cathedral in Cologne, and racetracks and such. Interesting, it was just two and a half weeks. It was nice! Yeah, he would come in a limo. Go on stage, do the show and get a limo and go, no one ever saw him!
SFBAC: Do you have a favorite venue?
Colin Norfield: Nah, they're all ok. I'm very jaded in my views. I enjoy mixing. That's what I enjoy doing. All the electronics, I'll leave to the young kids, they understand it. I don't even understand it. But again, I don't want to! I'm not one of these... I'm not trying to make a name for myself. I guess I've already made that over the years. And I'm not being arrogant when I say it. I just don't... When I first started, it was a desk, it was a crossover, unity gain, all the way through and come out the other end at zero. Now, if I want it to be louder, I can't, there's only so far you can go with a desk. And if I want it louder, I'll say to Terence, or another assistant, can you give me more this... blah, blah, blah. Can you give me more of this? I don't understand it.
SFBAC: Colin, this has been a thrill for me and thank you so much for making the time before the show! Hope the rest of the tour is great and enjoy some time off!
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| Kevin Keating & Colin Norfield @ the Hollywood Bowl (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
For reference, the full audio team supporting the David Gilmour Luck and Strange tour consists of:
- FOH Engineer - Colin Norfield
- Monitor Engineer - Dee Miller
- FOH Tech - Terence Hulkes
- Monitor Tech - Paul Gardiner
- RF Technician - Fergus Mount
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