The Boys Are Back With DiGiCo – Thin Lizzy Do Anything They Want To With The 500th SD8

Despite being a little older - and no doubt wiser - since Lizzy’s infamous hell-raising days, the band still insists on a ‘no compromise’ approach to playing live. So it is just as well DiGiCo’s 500th SD8 console has been there to handle the monitor mix.

Currently Lizzy stalwarts Brian Downey, Scott Gorham and Darren Wharton are joined onstage by Marco Mendoza, former Almighty frontman Ricky Warwick and Def Leppard’s Vivian Campbell. All are very much from the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” school of rock so, for the band’s recent UK and European tour, monitor engineer Phil Shenton used the tried-and-tested formula that has served hard rock well for decades.

“My remit was that the band wants to keep it old school,” says Phil. “No in-ears, it’s six loud wedge mixes, sidefills and an analogue rock ‘n’ roll sound.”

Although an analogue console would seem the most obvious way to achieve this, venue constraints and having support bands to deal with meant that using one at the monitor position wasn’t practical. The DiGiCo SD8, however, was just the thing.

“My good friend Matt Coton of BCS Audio had been lucky enough to win the 500th SD8 at PLASA 2010,” Phil continues. “I’ve always been a fan of DiGiCo consoles, so I gave Matt a call and hired the SD8 for the UK and Europe tour.

“Both the band and I were very impressed with the sound and versatility of the SD8. We’ve been playing a range of venues and its small footprint has meant that I’ve had no space issues, while the interface and software are extremely user friendly and intuitive. It really is a joy to use.”

With the band now heading to the USA and playing a range of summer festival shows, Phil is hoping that he’ll be using a DiGiCo console on these as well.

“I'm looking forward to trying out the SD9 and hope to be using one for the rest of the tour,” he says. “DiGiCo is definitely at the top of my spec list.”