I recently returned from Malta and my second time on this island. I would wax lyrical on it’s beauty and fantastic sights, but to be honest the incredibly mediocre restaurant (the nearest with a free table to the hotel) and the fairly dismal stage in a car park by a football ground, made up most of my experiences on this trip. However that is to denigrate what for me is one of the great joys of international touring.
This trip was a chance to work again with the rather chaotic Mario, the enthusiastic Maltese promoter and the charming local sound company owner Roland. The first time we had played Malta he had proudly announced that this was the largest number of sub cabinets ever assembled on the Island. I am not sure if that was true but it was a fun show. This time he seemed put out that we questioned if there were fewer cabinets this time. No, this was the same number of subs but we had more cabinets in the line array! He was pleased we had also brought extra sub cabinets of our own, so all in all a much bigger event than last time.
We have, indeed, toured this year again with an extra 8 D&B Infra cabinets. These 3 x 21″ monster subs have added that extra low end at most of our festivals this summer. The impact of the extra few frequencies on the low end, the way they help underpin the band’s sound have really helped boost some of the more modest locally supplied systems.
The day was hot but all ran reasonably smoothly from my point of view. The evening cooled down resulting in worrying amounts of condensation but everything worked and by 4 am we were done, truck loaded, and on the way back to the hotel for 4 hours sleep before leaving for the flight home.
My overall feelings – nice to be in the sun, great to get an afternoon off by the hotel pool on show day, good to reacquaint with some great Maltese people, glad to have done a good show without too many issues and now back in the UK and rain…
