GUNS N' ROSES: Tour Profile

MixOnline.com has posted an article offering a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the most recent GUNS N' ROSES world tour. An excerpt from the story follows:

Behind the scenes, Toby Francis was the point man at the front-of-house mix position, riding herd over a Showco Prism rig comprising 80 boxes flown per side and 16 subs, all fueled with Crown power and featuring Clair iO crossover management. To properly manage monitoring tasks onstage within a notoriously hot-seat environment known for ruining many a strong man, monitor world was subdivided into two areas of responsibility: Andy Ebert taking charge of the band's needs and John "Elmo" Sheldon given sole charge of [Axl] Rose's personal mix.

Francis had more than a passing acquaintance with GUNS N' ROSES prior to signing on at FOH for the band. His first contact with the group came in 1988 while he was on tour mixing the house P.A. for AEROSMITH and GUNS N' ROSES was occupying a support-act slot.

"'Appetite for Destruction' came out while we were on that tour, and GNR just exploded," Francis recalls. "I got to know the bandmembers, and it was clear they had something that other bands didn't. I would go out and watch their whole show. What I saw and heard then is hard to describe. The music was transcendent; it drew you in, along with the rest of the audience, and took everyone to a different plane. The members may have changed over the years, but that magic is still there."

Today, Francis occupies a spot once artfully directed by the late David Kehrer, who died on Maui in 1997 of complications resulting from hepatitis C. Francis finds it hard to believe that he's now standing in the shoes of an old friend he misses every day, as well as somewhat ironic that he's still working in front of a Prism system every night, a rig he was using nearly 20 years ago with AEROSMITH.

"I've used line arrays mostly for the last six years or so, but the Prism system was the only thing readily available in Europe when I first signed on with this show, so I went with it," he says. "As things have turned out, I'm really enjoying it more than I thought I would. This P.A. has a huge sound, and once you have it dialed in, it's really great for rock 'n' roll. The bottom octaves are as solid as you could ever want in any P.A."

Read the entire article at MixOnline.com.