EAW's Martyn "Ferrit" Rowe is providing us with live reports as an EAW UMX.96 digital console makes its inaugural tour with Foreigner and FOH Engineer Don Dodge. Check back in daily for the latest from Ferrit on how it's going.

Senaca Niagara Casino Hotel, Niagara Falls
August 3, 2007

Wake up at about 9:00 am and scramble into the hotel for a quick shower and a spot of breakfast. My hotel room is on the 23rd floor and the view of the Falls is stunning. After I tear my eyes away, I notice a stage far below me in the corner of the parking lot and realize that it's going to be our new temporary home for today.

After setting up the UMX96, I spent about an hour going over the feature-set with various interested parties. I think someone is spreading the word because we even got some people from local sound companies who “heard” that the new EAW console was here and just popped along to have a quick look.

Today’s sound system, supplied by the Seneca Niagara Hotel and manned by their able crew, is an EAW730 rig with SB1000 subwoofers. After a quick system tune Don and his back line crew step through their paces and today’s rendition from the crew band appears to be a blues standard.

The support band finishes up, the intro tape roles and Foreigner storms the stage. It’s during “Cold as Ice” I realize that these aren’t songs- they're anthems, and the 16,000 member audience are not only singing every word but are hanging on every guitar lick and keyboard solo. This puts immense pressure on the house engineer (that would be Don, pictured at right) to faithfully and accurately reproduce this for the audience - you cannot miss a single bit.

The layout of the UMX96, with a fader for every channel, means no hunting through pages to find what you want, everything is right under your fingertips. Another load-out and we're off to Atlantic City.