faust
Fact.....This band does exist....
What are Faust up to at this time well they opened their new studio in the town of Scheer in Southern Germany. to celebrate this they held a festival in the grounds nearby with invited guests and musicians. This picture is of the studio in a widescreen, more pictures to follow and news of the festival.
Faust Studio Scheer
The Nosferatu Tour.........
Working with this band for the first time at the Flux Music Festival in Edinburgh in 1996 was one of the most memorable shows for me. The integration of the senses in sight, sound and later smell was amazing. The subtle sound one second and unbelievable power the next would leave one staggering and reeling from the power of the music that this act can create. The first show was total joy and left me wanting more, ending so quickly seemingly having no time to do everything that I wanted to achieve, after nearly two hours of them on stage. This was a band that stretched the imagination and my skill at engineering. This calibre of act are few and far between. No song ever the same, no rigid formula, just a winding theme throughout, loosely followed with each musician having mutual respect for the others, allowing room for each to create but coming together as a massive force.
As you can read I was captivated and after some tentative contacts to Germany managed to mix for the band on the next four day tourette in the UK. I learnt more of the act and whilst I flew, they drove, much to everyone's amusement, as the dates were England, Ireland, Scotland and back for a final date in the "Garage" London which turned out to be a typically Faustian experience, of which the die hard fans will speak of forever more, there were those who were there and those who regret not going but suffice to say that the faust reputation sweeps before them. Since then I have done more of their work first in England, then the States and now I guess the rest. On this last UK tour in October 2000 we lost 50% of the venues through the stories that precede faust on their travels.
The history of the band exist on several other websites so if you want more background information then go to our up link page and follow those. What follows is a write up on the UK October 2000 tour.
Booked and supported by Glenn Povey of Second Wave Promotions, (thank you Glenn), the tour was several months in the planning, due to it being ground breaking in several ways for faust. The tour was to be run as a total in-house production from Juice with Tour management (and I say that in the loosest term) from myself, (John Silk), the tour was to be an experimental experience. Several years earlier faust had released an album of music written to the 1920's horror classic "Nosferatu" and although it had been played a couple of times in Germany it had not been toured and so while performing in Russia (St Petersburg) and Finland (Helsinki) earlier in 2000 the ground plans were laid. To make it financially viable I quickly realised that the tour would have to be run over consecutive days rather than the more leisurely pace of a couple of days on and then a rest day that the band normally do. This coupled with ground transport and hotel costs meant that we would also have to use a tour coach which was also a first for the band. Finally to give us the consistency that was required to do a brilliant job we toured production services in the way of projection equipment, lighting, sound and personal, something else that the band had not done before.
The lead up to the tour was hectic and busy, as it should be, but we had everything in place and by the time the band arrived at the different airports around London, drivers and vehicles were in place to pick up and bring them back to the central point of Daventry where Juice is based. Che and Rossi had arrived the night before, being too efficient and too fast but were booked into the hotel at around 2am tired, fed and happy. The next day saw us on a Double Deck sleeper coach and a 13 tonne truck for London and the Royal Festival Halls (RFH) more on that gig, go to Johns Soap Box for more information.
The Last tour for Faust "Concrete".......
This tour was organised and run by Faust themselves with the help of John and Magali at Juice a promotion company was formed to promote the artiste in venues around the UK. the venues were duly booked and the lead up to the tour was eventful and a great learning curve for all concerned. The star of this show was to be a Cement mixer hire from our local HSS store which required miking up for the show along with the usual array of unusual instruments. No visits to the local scrap yard this time as everything was carried with the band on the trip over from Durmengten. Again a tour coach was used and everything that was required except for fresh produce was carried with us to make the tour as easy and economic as possible. John Silk was mixing on a Midas XL3 and we had Magali on one of our SM24's with Arnaud Chamey on lights. The tour went very well technically and although the turnout audience wise was not as many as we had wished for we had a successful tour with a great production to the highest standards.
More to follow page under construction