One Over The Eight?

Sound Issues At The Octagon Chapel: Quinn Oulton trio

John Ivory's building, opened as the New Meeting House in 1756.  The master carpenter, Freeman of the City, who had previously built the Methodist Hall up on Chapelfield Road, adjacent to The Champion pub, (for reference), clearly took great care to shape a building where a speaker would be able to address a large congregation with minimal vocal effort. 

Preparations underway to bring down the old chapel

Acoustically, it is an almost perfect building, as proven by the self-indulgent couple who 'whispered' through out their time at the disastrous Quinn Oulton gig on Thursday night. Thankfully, they left after being glared at, then shushed by a distracted audience member, who'd finally had enough of their ignorance. Unfortunately, this wasn't the end of the sound problems that beset Oulton's blyth attempts to play on despite obvious technical issues with the sound system.

 A very successful show by Sofia Grant, was coming to a close as I arrived. Knowing the way noise carries  given the layout of the building, I waited until stage break-down was in hand and Quinn Oulton's band were setting up.  They took a little while to put everything together, mainly due to an expansive drum kit and the need for the right wires and cables to be plugged into the right electronic items. Then, with most of the audience already in for the half past nine start, the sound check was required. Which is where things began to unravel pretty fast.

In what sounded like a radio sketch written and performed by Peter Cook (off-stage as the sound engineer), with Oulton some how keeping his cool in the face of off hand comments, vague and random asides from the sound desk, hidden away beside the entrance lobby to our left. The comments from behind in turn, blamed the victim (Oulton) for causing various problems, answered back reasonable questions with glib comments ranging from, "I have turned it down about a million percent." (one technically  precise and unhelpful reply to a simple question from Oulton), huffing and puffing, to abdication of any thoughts of collaborative engagement "Well, I'll have to just re-set it all and you'll have to start all over again." in an obstructive manner Kevin and / or Perry would have done well to emulate, as recalcitrant teenagers.  At one point, the sound engineer managed to drag himself out to the stage to have a brief dekko at some of the gear before disappearing to the desk off-stage again. Suffice to say, this was near impossible for Quinn Oulton to manage calmly, but somehow, he did. At another point, the drummer, clearly wound up, and the bassist, who had been quietly standing attentively, walked off the stage to settle his nerves. The trio had prime space in front of the huge church organ, which had been installed successfully in 1802 and restored at various times over the centuries, without any of this new fangled electronic nonsense.

Quinn Oulton works diligently on regardless

Eventually, I did not check the time of when, the set began, somewhat surprisingly. After playing through the first number, the mild-mannered Oulton asked about the sound quality for his patient audience, including the continuing chatterboxes, standing at the back of the few rows of wooden stalls.

"The drums are drowning everything out!" was the sharp and totally correct retort from the male chatterbox. Others in the seats concurred. 

The keyboard had to be turned up, but when Oulton instructed, in response to a further mix issue, "Turn everything up." my heart sank. Surely, something more subtle than that was needed? Time was getting on. 

"I turned the drums down about a minute ago!" came a defensive call from behind the sound desk. If he had, the impact had been un-noticeable.  The drums were far too loud and played with too heavy a hand for the setting and the mix. Not only was the sound mix unbearable, Oulton was using his ear monitors to gauge the mix, but this had no bearing to the lived experience of his reducing audience.  The sax mic, a miniature device the size of a Rice Krispy, had been playing up yesterday apparently, as well.

The final straw for me was the non-existence of sound from said sax. I had to leave for my own sanity. Outside, while the audience struggled with the band playing on, the sound engineer was chatting with the bar staff on the steps of the chapel, having seemingly washed his hands of the whole arrangement. It was all very disappointing. I hoped things might improve behind the closed doors, but I wasn't so hopeful that they might.       

Two tips for anyone playing the Octagon Unitarian Chapel:

1. Listen to the sound mix without monitors before using that equipment to fine tune everything.

2. Do not amplify the drums in any way. WTF was that about in a primarily wooden building with all those hard edges and a small audience?

Spencer Ide

16th October, 2025