Irish indie rockers Two Door Cinema Club are currently on a festival tour that takes them to three continents in as many weeks. As the band’s sound engineer for several years, Ian Laughton has found ‘a better way to tour’.
‘We’ve just done five in a row here and in Europe and have three more before we depart for Australia, where we do four shows in six days, crossing the country from west to east and then south,’ he says. ‘There’s a quick gig in the Philippines, and then back to Europe for another stint before we’re off once again, this time to the US.
‘Britannia Row provides our control package – a pair of Midas Pro2c consoles and a line system and that’s a job well done but choosing them has proved even more important than usual,’ he continues. ‘I have a basic rack that now goes with me worldwide containing my Massenburg Limiter, TC Electronic M6000 reverb and D2 Delay and, an Avalon 737 compressor – not bad going really for 105kgs. These four tools are my defining rig. For the next three shows Brit Row have given me an identical “B rack”, while my own rack ships out to Australia.
‘Where the advantage comes in is the effect of the tie-up with Clair Global; it has made that whole continent-to-continent process a lot simpler. We get identical desks in Australia from Clair JPJ and when we go to the US later on, Brit Row does the same as in the US. That’s when I realised my life had just become a whole bit easier. And it’s not just me, our tour manager Angus [Jenner] benefits as well. You can have the whole thing billed any way you want, just one single invoice from Brit Row in the UK if that’s what makes sense for you.’
As a final sweetener, Laughton has a former Brit Row crewman on monitors. ‘Steve Donovan is accompanying me on monitors,’ he confirms. ‘He’s been doing [Jack] Garrett for the past few years, and is a very competent technical guy –more so than me – so he is very useful to have around with this type of touring. As I said, life has just got easier for sound engineers.’
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