For David Morgan’s “On a Personal Note, Part 1,” see FRONT of HOUSE, April 2019, page 38 —ed.
Soon after the 2017 James Taylor tour ended, I received difficult news about a touring comrade’s serious health condition, which would prevent him from continuing as system engineer/Clair crew chief for our audio department. All personal issues of sadness and loyalty aside, it became necessary to consider who could possibly take the place of my longtime friend and system engineer. However, it seems many of my contemporaries at Clair Global have now retired from the road, one way or another. The task of compiling even short a list of names from my own personnel database became a surprisingly difficult one.
Throughout my live audio career, I have been an extremely hands-on FOH engineer. I’m not a meddlesome micro-manager, but I simply enjoy participating in the “work” aspect of the gig as much as the “mixing” part. I love the variety of physical demands that go with the job. I am both stimulated and intrigued by the mental challenges of producing the best possible audio in what is often a less than optimal environment. Working closely with others as part of a team has also been important to me. That way of thinking was imprinted into my consciousness since my earliest days in organized sports and as a member of several bands.
I eventually did reach out to one or two people who I thought could have been compatible road personalities but quickly determined that schedules would not line up for the 2018 season. Then, just before Christmas 2017, I received a call from tour manager Marty Hom about mixing a private show in Cabo San Lucas with Christine McVie and Mick Fleetwood as the band’s principals. The inclusion of Billy Gibbons and Steve Miller as special guests on the bill made this performance an irresistible prospect.
A Serendipitous One-Off
Prior to traveling to Mexico for the show, two rehearsal days were scheduled in Los Angeles with a third day in Cabo. It seemed too good to be true and I eagerly (and gratefully) signed on for this project. I had never worked for either Christine McVie or Mick Fleetwood, yet I worked on past Stevie Nicks tours with the production manager and most of the backline techs. But I had no knowledge about the two audio guys from Clair Global I’d be working with.
On our load-in/tech day at the Mates rehearsal facility, it was my good fortune to meet monitor engineer Myles Hale and Clair system tech Thomas Morris. The next few days of working and interacting together were extremely enjoyable on both a professional and a personal level. The private event was a high-energy success and resulted in positive reviews from the client, the producers, management and the performers. I was impressed with how Myles handled his monitor mixing duties with obvious technical expertise, yet always exhibiting a calm, but decisive bedside manner. He has some serious monitor chops.
I was similarly impressed with how Thomas Morris handled being “the sound company guy” through all phases of this moderately chaotic one-off project. His grasp of the necessary system requirements, skill at all forms of communication and the organizational talent he displayed during pre-production were formidable. On the job, Thomas successfully straddled both mixing positions while taking care of Myles and myself during our time in Los Angeles and Cabo — a feat he accomplished with amazing agility and endless energy.
After the completion of project, Myles, Thomas and I each expressed a sincere hope to team up on another outing in the future. As luck would have it, not long after we went back home from that McVie/Fleetwood experience, I was offered the FOH mixing position for the upcoming 2018/2019 Fleetwood Mac tour. I was aware that Myles and Thomas had previously been on the road with the Stevie Nicks tour and Clair Global informed me that both guys would be moving over to the Fleetwood Mac audio crew.
This exciting project was scheduled to start in August 2018. In the intervening months before Fleetwood Mac rehearsals, I had committed to mixing James Taylor’s 2018 tour dates during the spring and early summer. My initial question to Clair Global, the audio contactor for both tours, concerned filling the position of system engineer/crew chief that was vacant due to Andy Sottile’s illness. Clair’s Greg Hall and I agreed that the same person should assume that role for both James Taylor and Fleetwood Mac.
My next question was whether that person could be Thomas Morris. I didn’t know anything about his experience at FOH, but I appreciated and respected his positive work habits. I had also observed in his work persona an unmistakable dedication to the overall success of the production — that special big picture awareness. Those qualities represented an excellent start in my quest to find a new FOH audio partner. In fact, I saw in Thomas many work-related attributes that eerily reminded me of myself at the ripe old age of 27. Although he came from a very different background, I believed I had found a rather like-minded — albeit 40-something years younger — individual in Thomas Morris.
Greg Hall informed me that most of Thomas’ work experience at Clair had been as a stage tech, but Greg expressed full confidence in his ability to adapt to the different job demands and skill requirements for working at the other end of the snake. Of primary importance to me was the indisputable fact that Thomas brings an impressive storehouse of specific knowledge about the digital gear that Clair commonly puts out on its tours. He has definitely absorbed everything he had been taught at school, at the Clair shop and on the road. He exhibits a strong sense of confidence in himself and his company’s gear. I truly believed a harmonious partnership would be derived from including Thomas in the JT gang at FOH. Greg Hall and Leon Hopkins, Clair director of touring personnel, offered Thomas the system engineer/crew chief position on James Taylor and he immediately accepted.
Big Shoes to Fill
Thomas was aware he had big shoes to fill on the James Taylor crew and he jumped straight into his new position with incredible enthusiasm and energy. I was particularly impressed with the way Thomas dove right into the EASE Focus coverage prediction software employed by Clair Global for array creation in their touring systems.
Thomas Morris and Greg Oshiro at Clair Global would converse regularly about the various spaces we have played or buildings we would soon encounter. Greg and the Clair Global engineering staff have assembled a vast database of important physical parameters and coverage details from performance venues all around the world. Observations and updates from the road crews serve to confirm the validity of the accumulated data. Road personnel are requested to report any structural elements or venue dimensions that may differ from the modeling data.
That first month of the 2018 James Taylor tour was our break-in period for the audio crew in many ways. Rachel Adkins had returned as monitor engineer but along with Andy Sottile, we would also be missing long-time monitor tech Chris Fulton. Along with system engineer Thomas Morris, both monitor/stage tech Kenny Hottenstein, and P.A. tech Mark Potzler were all new to the James Taylor audio team. However, it didn’t take very long for the various personalities to mesh and for our individual daily roles and responsibilities to become clearly defined. Each workday we all got better, faster and happier.
It did, however, take me a while to sensibly abdicate many of my formerly assumed responsibilities to a more energetic and impassioned Thomas Morris. Still, he soon completely took over the Pro Tools recording and archiving duties. I also encouraged him to work directly with musical director Jimmy Johnson when any recorded tracks were requested. I am extremely grateful to have been relieved of those particularly time consuming tasks. In fact, I actually admired the nonstop energy and youthful zeal with which Thomas went about each of his daily tasks. We hung and took down stage right P.A. together every day. Well… I mostly ran the motors, and that experience greatly accelerated our process of adapting to each other’s habits and idiosyncrasies.
One traditional part of my job that I retain exclusively is the actual tuning of the system. At the start of each day, Thomas operates the Focus software on one of the Clair laptop computer and creates the theoretical arrays. We then discuss the various attributes of the created arrays and compare the prediction to observed reality within the coverage areas. Once the P.A. is hung, Thomas uses a template file in the main Windows computer that runs the Lake system control software to test the individual system components with pink noise. He then hands that computer off to me.
Every FOH mixer has their own plan for tuning. Many use sophisticated measurement tools with multiple measurement mic setups. I don’t use anything but music to tune and align a system. As I walk the building, I use the tools available in the Lake software to manipulate the timing, power allocation and equalization both within and among the separate elements of the system. I often don’t look what the numbers or curves are displaying until a particular adjustment sounds “right” to me. The aim is to create a balanced whole — a well-behaved system that sounds the very nearly same everywhere in the building and presents a coherent time reference that correctly focuses the listener’s experience in each seat. I do freely admit this tuning process is based on very subjective judgments and emotionally based decisions about the properties that combine to produce good sound.
I am not sure when Thomas began to trust my process as he observed the performance of this “black art” method of sound system tuning. Although I’m always happy to explain what I am doing (or what I think I am doing), I am never really sure if anyone else hears what I hear. Thomas grew up in the era of SMAART and SIM. I am sure he thought I was a walking anachronism who was denying the inevitability of progress. But the James Taylor shows were a great success in 2018 and the performance of the audio system was incredibly consistent each night. And thus, trust was born.
That initial trust has grown on both sides of the relationship as our time on the road progressed through two long tours. Thomas Morris is an incredibly gifted communicator and group leader. Every day, I have observed him flawlessly interacting with the talent, management, production and the individual crewmembers on the tour. He has adapted to the demands of position with amazing ease. His many areas of expertise have allowed me to concentrate more on audio and far less on administration and housekeeping. It was a happy accident that Thomas and I were included on that Cabo San Lucas gig, but we’ve been working together ever since on both James Taylor and Fleetwood Mac tours.
One door closes and another door opens… Safe travels!
David Morgan is mixing FOH for Fleetwood Mac’s world tour and was last seen basking on a beach in southern France.
