Last Saturday I connected up with "The Alternative Bhangra Artist" Raj Kaul once again as we made our way south to Leicester for the Riverside Festival 2024, organised by Eava FM.
These festivals can be a bit 'wild west' at times with a lot depending on the people working on the sound. As it happens the team at Riverside Festival were brilliant, really positive and really happy to help. they actually got us sounding so sweet and I think it might be the tightest we've sounded at a festival. So huge credit where it's due.
When we arrived at the stage, the impression we had was that we were on first, so we were unpacking in a hurry. Raj and I tend to try and come prepared, music, requirements, etc all ready to roll, but it's still quite stressful thinking you're late and need to be ready asap. I was half way through tuning my guitar when someone asked us to come off stage.. Oh! Okay, no problem. I finished tuning up on the floor next to the stage, grateful I had a minute to get that sorted.
Something that I've wanted to mention for a little while was that I have a new amp! For YEARS I've rocked my maybe thirty year old Marshall Valvestate, which is an unbelievable amp with a gorgeous tone at any volume. My understanding is that it combines the best of Valve amp technology and marries it to Solid State amp technology so you have a more direct, toneful sound, without needing the volume that Valve amps require. It's a wonderful amp and I've loved using it.
The only issue with it is the weight! It's around 24kg which, if you're lugging that around a field in the hot summer, trying to look cool, isn't your best friend. It's a heavy amp with a huge whopping magnet in it. Having lugged this about between us last year to all the festivals Raj and I performed at, I thought I'd do us both a favour and get a new amp. Exciting stuff!
I spent months researching various amps, their pros and cons and time and time again, I was drawn back to either Marshall or Blackstar. Blackstar prices were incredible for a brand with such a good reputation. I know I didn't need one of their home practice amps with the digital sound effects. Rather, I wanted the Marshall Valvestate but a more portable version.
After much umming and aahing, I found the Blackstar Debut R50. It weighs 9kg, which is a wonderous joy, considering how loud it is. It provides exactly what I was after - a clean channel and a gain channel - just like the Valvestate; With EQ, reverb and gain options, as well as Blackstars ISF tuner, you can really dial in some nice tones. The amp is designed to allow guitarists to make good use of their pedals and doesn't try and emulate effects at all, which is perfect for me. Generally speaking, I only use a few pedals but tend to prefer the overdrive channel with a lower/medium amount of gain.
The only real drawback that I can see to this amp is the fact that the line out port on the rear sends the entire signal that way and cancels the sound from the amp itself.
For me this is an issue because I often use my amp as a monitor on stage, so, perhaps where the volume is more towards the vocals or a backing track and I can't quite hear myself, I know I can gravitate towards my amp and at least hear myself that way. It means that my preference for this amp is to use it with a mic in front of it, rather than using the line out option. That way, the mic picks up the amp's audio and sends it to the stage speakers, while the amp itself is still sounding off for me to hear.
This was how we set it up at the Riverside Festival and I thought it sounded incredible. The amp delivers such a great, thick, sharp tone, it was a joy to play through. The setup with the mic in front of it worked perfectly too.
Here's a quick snippet of how we sounded:
It felt good, I thought Raj and I were tight as we tend to be these days, after a million years of playing together! I thought the crowd were responsive and seemed to enjoy what we were doing. I could see a few people at the front giving it loads with their dancing - brilliant to see!
Overall, I loved it, just a happy, positive, easy to work with festival group where I felt I could just turn up and play with no dramas; people who clearly love all types of music and all types of artists too, which is so refreshing to see. Hopefully we get to work with this team and organisation again in the near future.
Raj and I have loads more gigs lined up this summer, so there will be lots more opportunity to stretch this amp a little bit and put it through it's paces! Also, I'm looking at customising the grillecloth, because... why not?! I've seen a place online that can print custom grillecloths, so just need to figure out a design, get it ordered and then find somewhere that can take the amp apart to fit it... It'll get done!
But over all, Riverside Festival, we loved you, thanks for having us!