| Just saw Portishead in London, best sound I've ever heard
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Portishead at the Alexandra Palace as part of ATP. Seriously, the sound was exceptional... every note, tone, word, harmonic, fundamental, ghost note etc on every instrument and vocal was completely audible and true to the record in a roughly 20,000+ room which was hardly designed with acoustics in mind. I even left without any ringing in my ears. The band were incredible as well, possibly the best performance I've ever seen or at least right up there (and I've never been a particular fan before), but I think it's largely owed to one thing... The very simple act of keeping the volume down. I even took a phone call quite easily, and I was pretty near the front. It's ridiculous how most sound techs think it's necessary to rinse a sound system for every watt it has and deafen their audience in order to make a night good. I mean surely there are only so many sound waves that'll fit in a human ear before others start getting left out?!
From now on I'm going to ask every sound tech for every gig for the rest of my life: "Mate, if we can ask just one single request, it's that you make us sound GOOD not LOUD, even if the other bands want to be loud". Valuable lesson learnt. I've always though this, but it was very refreshing to see a big act proving this to be true.
Was anyone else there?
Cheers,
Dan | 
