![]() ![]() "Eventually I started working for regional bands and working in bigger venues. Basically I just did anything and everything I could, including working for free a lot, and working for very little - a lot! I just came up the ranks that way. I went to school for that, got my theory there and then got my hands-on in the clubs and the bars as a stage hand, truck loader, all the things that you do when you're young. It's a more studio and recording industry-based course. ![]() I paid my dues for about five years in Nashville, going to Middle Tennessee State University for a four–year degree programme. After about a year I left and went to Nashville to get serious about audio as my craft. I just started hooking up with friends in bands and when I was 19 I started working with a band called Widespread Panic, at an absolute bottom, basic level - as low as you can get, packing coolers full of beer, selling T-shirts, that kind of thing. As a teenager I was interested in concerts and concert audio and decided it's what I wanted to do. ![]() "I don't have a history as a musician in a band. Humble BeginningsĬhris' vocation as a live sound engineer came about in a slightly unorthodox way. Despite his two–years–plus 24K Magic world tour having finally wound up, Mars is still performing one-off shows and, on the occasion that Chris and I spoke, headlining at the Park Theater in Las Vegas. ![]() Chris Rabold is one of the engineers most called on in this field, having worked with pop superstars including Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Kenney Chesney and, most recently, Bruno Mars. An FOH engineer is still hired to produce the best possible sound, and as the technology involved in live sound has continued to advance, so the skill set needed by the man behind the desk has grown. Whether this has changed the nature of the job is a moot point. And the nature of those shows tends to be very different from the demands of the gritty, sweaty, rock bands of the past, reflecting the emphasis on the glamour and showmanship of the artists involved. How things have changed! Now, because top sound engineers inevitably reflect the contemporary music industry, the artists they work for seem most often to be drawn from the ranks of the pop nomenklatura - artists who not only clock up millions of downloads but also lead the way in ticket sales for their live shows. Not too many years ago the CV of one of the world's leading front–of–house mix engineers would have read like a slice of rock history, sprinkled with the names of the giant bands of the day - the Foo Fighters, the AC/DCs and the Slipknots of this world. Chris Rabold has gone from selling T-shirts out of a van to mixing Bruno Mars' epic two-year 24K Magic tour. ![]()
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