*Exclusive* “Recording The Angel” – Behind The Scenes

The Live Here Now crew agreed to show HOME how they do what they do. Read on for our exclusive glimpse behind the scenes of the current series of Depeche Mode live releases.

Aarhus, Denmark, June 7th, 2006

I’ve arranged to meet Necker, one of the guys responsible for capturing Depeche Mode’s current shows for the Live Here Now releases at tonight’s show in Aarhus, so I make my way to the venue, and start looking for the production office, and call Necker to let him know I’ve arrived. He’s agreed to show me around and tell me a little bit about what they do and how they do it. Should be good… if only we can find one another!

Apparantly the place I decided to wait wasn’t the best choice. “You have to move away from here… Depeche Mode are arriving at these gates in 5 minutes”, a security guard tells me – loud enough that several people standing across the street heard it too. It didn’t have the effect he was hoping for. Not only wasn’t I about to move (“Someone is coming to get me in a few”), but it brought about 15 very curious fans over. I guess they’re not used to dealing with shows of this size here. Oh well…

My phone rings. It’s Necker. “I can’t seem to find you, Peter… are you the guy in the orange-ish t-shirt?”. I was. We had been standing about 10 feet from each other.

As we make our way into the empty stadium I explain a little more about what I was hoping to talk to him about. I am not much of a tech-buff, so I was just hoping to get some of the basics covered. The tour starts at the Front Of House (ie. the mixing desk). “Well, from here you can see the audience mics,” Necker tells me, pointing at what appears to be a large grey furball placed on the scaffolding above one of the large screens situated at the side of the stage. “There’s four of them today, but we can use as many as eight with”.

The mics are highly directional mics, and two of them are pointing at the crowd right in front of the stage, while the other two are pointing more towards the middle. “This gives us a good balance. Sometimes we move the mics during some of the support bands. Just a few inches makes a big difference. The crowd can actually see us going up there.”

Suffering from a slight fear of heights – or rather of falling from them – I am glad I’m not the one having to climb all the way up there.

As we’re making our way behind the stage, Chris Goddard, another Live Here Now tech, joins us. They take me not just backstage, but actually below the stage. Seeing the insides of a stage like this is bizarre. Someone’s put up a hammock underneath the stage, and is taking a nap. I wonder if he’d be able to do that while the show is happening. I am guessing no.

Necker and Chris go to their mobile recording studio. I had envisioned something larger… like a big OB truck or something. “No, we don’t use that on this tour. We did for Erasure though.” Instead, I am looking at three flightcases with two computer monitors on top. “This is the main one,” Chris explains, pointing to one of them, “and that one is a back up”. “We’re being fed 56 digital feeds from the front of house, and then up to eight of our own mics, so each night we record between 60 and 64 tracks. The main [harddrive] is 120 GB, while the back-up is about 500 GB.” “Slightly larger than what I have in my lap-top,” I find myself thinking, and, for some reason, saying.

So how much of the mixing actually happens on the road? “None at all,” explains Necker. “The harddiscs are then sent back to London, where they are mixed in a studio. We have no mixing capabilities here.” This setup is very different to what they used for Erasure, where fans could pick up the CDs as they were leaving the venue. “We could do that with Erasure because it was a much shorter tour. It just wouldn’t be possible for this kind of tour. With Erasure what people got was basically a broadcast mix, done live on the spot. We’d press the first CD while still recording the second. I think the fastest we had those out to fans was about… three minutes.”

“Personally,” Necker says, “I think this setup gives you a slightly better result. With this setup you can run the recording through, and make sure all the levels are set and stuff. The deadlines are still very short, but you get to run them through at least ones. And as the tour progresses, the turn around time will get shorter. As everyone gets into the flow of things, we work alot faster.”

I ask how long it actually takes them to set everything up. “About three hours to set it all up, and about 30 minutes to take it all down again. Just as with the stage, it takes longer to setup than take down. The stage takes about 12 hours to set up, and 2 to take down.”

They’ve been on the road since late April, when Depeche Mode kicked of the third leg of the tour in California. “We did a few test runs before then. You can’t just show up on the day and hope it all works out,” Necker laughs. Asked about whether any of the shows stood out, Necker tells me that they don’t really get to see much of the show. “About two or three songs a night. So I have seen most of it, just not in one go. Mexico City stood out as something special though. Everything just seemed to come together. There were something like 55.000 people each night. I’m also looking forward to Tel Aviv… that one should be quite special.”

Security has begun making the final preparations, as the doors are about to open, and it’s time for me to leave. I thank Necker and Chris for the tour, and make my way out the same way I came in, once again passing the guards, who are now not entirely sure I should be let out this time. Oh well…