Some photos from the past few months. Toured Europe with La Dispute, the US with Ryn Weaver on her first headline tour this summer plus multiple festival runs, the US with Modestep and started working at my favorite venue in the country - Union Transfer - as a tech.
Spring 2015 - Title Fight, La Dispute, Ryn Weaver, Atreyu
This spring was split between four artists, four tours and some one-offs. It’s definitely been really cool and rewarding working with new and old friends, working with really diverse styles of music, and working shows and festivals as diverse as Coachella with Ryn Weaver to some intimate seated shows in the haunted top floor of Metro, Chicago and the Chapel at the Detroit Masonic Temple. All photos by me in poorly lit conditions on my iPhone.
Title Fight at Glasshouse, Pomona, CA (sold out)
Title Fight at Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA (sold out)
La Dispute at Webster Hall, New York, NY (sold out)
La Dispute at the Chapel of the Detroit Masonic Temple, Detroit, MI
La Dispute at the Top Note Theater at Metro, Chicago (this place has some history involving ghosts, Smashing Pumpkins, Guns N Roses and heaps more)
Fans of punk band Title Fight packed the room for their main stage performance at SXSW and it got pretty crazy (in the best kind of way). While the band is known for their hardcore past, their new album Hyperview takes a new turn. It was pretty cool to see old fans as well as new ones rocking out to their set in Austin.
Next Friday, March 6th we begin our headlining and coheadlining tours of the U.S. with Power Trip, Merchandise, La Dispute and The Hotelier. Philadelphia, NYC, and Boston are already sold out, and others are very close. Hope to see you there!
All dates and ticket info at http://titlefight.tumblr.com/tour-dates
My name is Dave Williams. I am a FOH engineer, mixer, audio engineer and tour manager. I am an Australian currently living in Philadelphia and I've had the pleasure of working with artists including La Dispute, Title Fight, Ryn Weaver, Deer Tick, Balance & Composure, O'Brother, Young Guns, Break Even and Touché Amoré.
I am fortunate over the last four years to have traveled the world reaching from Singapore to Russia and mixed at major rock festivals such as Coachella, Reading & Leeds and FYF Festivals.
The posts below details some of my life and travels I've been privileged enough to experience in my creative profession. All photos by me, except the one of me by Niall Coffey.
This fall I managed to cover a lot of ground. It started off with two short runs with La Dispute and a big run with British band Young Guns.
La Dispute had a London show with old friends Touché Amoré, then we played Reading and Leeds festivals which were awesome, then flew the next to to Los Angeles to play FYF fest - side note, it's a strange feeling waking up in London to be in LA hours later arriving at the festival site an hour and a half before you play - and capping it off with a show at the El Rey in Los Angeles with Balance and Composure. Next up were Riot Fest dates in Chicago and Denver with some off day shows with The Menzingers. All in all, a solid small run of great festivals and shows with friends.
This fall was my first time working with Young Guns as they supported fellow Brit's You Me At Six on a full US tour. Those guys are a lot of fun to hang out with and it was a great way to cap off the year.
Between October and November last year I got the chance to tour across parts of Canada that I hadn’t before. Thank you to Deer Tick, The Reason and Thee Attacks for having me. Here are some photos I took on my Olympus EP2 and iPhone 5.
Rocky Mountains, Banff National Park, AB
Deer Tick's transport - Banff National Park, AB
Rocky Mountains - Banff National Park, AB
Deer Tick and crew - Banff National Park, AB
Rocky Mountains - Banff National Park, AB
Hamilton, ON
Trans-Canada Highway, Saskatchewan
Thee Attacks soundchecking - Brandt Center, Regina, SK
La Dispute / Pianos Become the Teeth, Australia 2013
I’ve been pretty lazy this year with posting, but this was my fourth tour of the year. The first was an incredible one with Hot Water Music, La Dispute and The Menzingers and was an honour to be out on tour supporting (well La Dispute was, I never really get the correct way to state my part in a tour in a concise manner under the assumption people know I’m not playing but also without saying “hey I’m running sound for the band supporting”… or whatever, but now I’ve written even more) a band that I’ve grown up loving, and has shaped so much of the music I listen to through their influence on other artists… ANYWAY, then there was the Title Fight tour I posted about, and then one with some metals bands called Born of Osiris, Upon a Burning Body, Feed Her to the Sharks and A Breach of Silence which was a huge challenge essentially tour managing four bands and running sound for two I didn’t get any time to take photos or really remember much outside of the wake up, drive, venue, sleep routine.
And now magically we arrive here, and I’m going to call this last tour of Aus with La Dispute and Pianos Become the Teeth not only my favourite of the year, but one of my favourites ever (though the Title Fight tour this year was also incredible). Anyway, I’m bad at speak English, but here are some of the highlights –
Biggest headlining show ever, selling out The Metro in Sydney. The whole show was incredible, and is definitely in my top 5 LD shows ever
Playing a show in Hobart – finally – and with none other than our mates in Luca Brasi
Shows, just in general were awesome too, and it was great getting chills from Pianos every night again!
Swimming in the stormy sea near the lighthouse in Byron Bay
Jumping off cliffs into cold water in Perth
Huxley
Snowball fight at the top of Mt. Wellington, Tas
Mawds came along for the tour which was awesome, because he’s one of the best dudes ever and I miss touring with him from the Break Even days
Also on a real nerdy note, in the endless quest for great live sound, I swapped a ton of mics around this tour. Again, we’re only using one mic stand on stage (for Jordan) so the stage looks super clean, but additions include Neumann TLM102’s on guitar cabs to pair with 57’s, Audix mics are now on snare and toms making them sound a lot bigger than the Shure and Sennheiser combo’s I had, and Jordan is now on a Sennheiser e935. Pics below – super happy everything is looking clean and sounding the best it has!
Pianos Become the Roo
Friends, Perth
Boy band promo
The Doctor
Jumping off a cliff into the Swan River, Perth, WA
romaincrisis
areudirty
jacobvanloon
stormborns
dededos
gummygunk
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