Trevor Waite

Trevor Waite is a seasoned live sound engineer whose career has spanned decades, stages, and some of the most iconic names in music. He got his start in college, working with a student-run staging, lighting, and sound company that serviced campus events, touring acts, and local production houses. That hands-on experience, paired with his role as head audio engineer at a local club—where he had the chance to mix monitors for Ted Nugent—cemented his passion for audio as a lifelong career.

After college, Trevor hit the ground running, sending out résumés and eventually landing at Eighth Day Sound, where his work would take him around the world with artists like Prince, Earth, Wind & Fire, Eminem, Harry Belafonte, and many more. His path to working with The Who began when Eighth Day provided the PA for a festival that ultimately convinced the band to come on board with the company.

Initially brought in as a monitor tech supporting Bob Pridden and Simon Higgs, Trevor made an early impression during a festival gig where Simon was seeing the rig for the first time. When Alan Rogan encountered an issue with Pete Townshend’s amps picking up radio interference, Trevor found the root of the problem and solved it on the spot—earning Alan’s attention. Later, when The Who officially joined Eighth Day’s roster, Alan specifically requested Trevor.

From 2007 to 2017, Trevor served first as monitor tech, and eventually stepped up as Pete Townshend’s monitor engineer after Bob Pridden retired from touring. With Townshend remaining on wedges while the rest of the band transitioned to in-ears, the role required precision, experience, and close collaboration with multiple engineers—something Trevor handled with trademark professionalism.

Throughout his career, Trevor Waite has built a reputation for rock-solid technical expertise, calm under pressure, and a deep respect for the craft of live sound. Waite now works for DiGiCo.

I had been touring for a few years by then, and didn’t get star struck easily, but working for these legends did get me a little giddy. The crew, right up to Bill Curbishley (band management) treated us new audio crew like family from the start. Many of them have become and remain good friends. It took very little time to not only fit in, but become part of an already well oiled machine. That would be Roy Lamb, our amazing production manager, keeping that ball rolling for decades. Absolutely amazing to tour with band and crew from day one.

Bob Pridden and Pete Townshend worked together in the studio a lot when not touring, so when Bob was out with them, there was a lot of outboard gear, as well as a Midas H4000 for the band and a Midas H3000 for Pete and Roger. Later, the band console went to DiGiCo, and Roger was mixed on that as he had transitioned to in-ears, and Bob mixed Pete on an XL3, which I inherited for one tour before I was given the nod to move to a second DiGiCo. Slowly, I was able to get most of the outboard gear replaced by effects/comps/gates built into the console. 

To be honest, if all tours treated crew like The Who, I would probably still be touring. There were a few that did, but far too many treated crew like an expense, not a person. 

By the time I joined, the band were working hard on keeping stage volume down to help Roger be able to hear over the din. We even went as far as using sound baffles around Pete’s amps to help direct the sound away from Roger. Although Pete had 4 wedges and a rear fill, they all had different things in them, so if he couldn’t hear a particular part, he would move slightly instead of making things louder. Brilliant solutions that allowed both of them to continue touring.

We had started out on L’acoustics, then d&b and finally Adamson for FOH. For me, all of them were great at rejection at the back, making my life behind them easier. Wedges were d&b M2s and JH Audio in ears

Other than successfully making the move for Pete over to digital consoles, it was always Pete who was the innovator. 

Pete already had an extremely good pair of hearing aids that he had Bluetooth control over to change certain settings for when on stage and off. With these, and separating instruments and playback to different speakers, the levels remained fairly consistent during my time as monitor engineer. There were a few venues that he said he didn’t feel like the sound was coming from the stage, so we worked together to bring overall levels up a few dB until he felt the sound was coming from where he wanted them to, then back to zero for the next venue. We didn’t want to get stuck in that always make it louder loop that never works. 

 TECH BREAKDOWNS & WAR STORIES

 
Luckily, very few show stoppers due to system malfunctions. Jones Beach comes to mind. The PA went very quiet all of a sudden, and we stopped the show for quite a long time (or so it seemed). Later found out a battery backup at FOH failed, shutting down the PA processor. It was patched around and the show went on, but did feel like an eternity at the time.

Adu Dabi. We did the race there, and it was brutally hot. I was the only tech (before I became PT’s monitor engineer) trying to wire up the stage in a much shorter amount of time than I was usually given. The band was getting cross that I wasn’t ready for sound check. I got a right bollocking for that, so I left Abu Dabi pretty well defeated.

Was every other gig with The Who.
 

Long before my time, Roger kept yelling at Bob that he couldn’t hear himself. No wonder, with Pete on one side, John Entwistle on the other, and Keith Moon behind him! This continued for years before Bob just grabbed a front fill and turned it to face Roger…thus inventing monitors.

Bob also forced the industry to change how sound engineers should work. Back then, you mixed from the side of the stage. Bob said if I am mixing for them (pointing to the audience), I should be out there. This eventually led to FOH position and multicore snakes to make that happen. 

And I’m sure there were a ton of genius ideas from Bob and Pete when they were in the studios. 

One word: family.

Roy Lamb – just a genius of a production manager who could solve any problem thrown at him
Simon Higgs – simply the best monitor engineer I’ve ever worked with, and a great friend and mentor. 

Tanya Ross – production assistant who really knew how to deal with people. She and I, and most times Simon Higgs as well, would go out on days off to find cultural things instead of heading to the bar with the rest of the crew. 

Everybody, really. Still keep in touch with the video crew via Facebook, as well as the lighting guys.
 
What was the crew culture like—tight unit? Chaos? A family?

Definitely a family. No matter what department one was in, all were treated the same.

With Bob Pridden, pushed the industry into a FOH position as well as monitors. Also, they were early users of playback during live shows for some of the stuff Pete came up with in the studio.

Every time a snake gets run, or a wedge gets placed on stage, I think of Bob Pridden.

It’s very polite on stage these days. No world records being broken.

REFLECTIONS

Just having the chance to work with an amazing band that had amazing management that hired amazing techs. 

Enjoy this one, it only gets better…every day. 

I always thought, and still do, that Simon Higgs intentionally flew under the radar intentionally, not wanting the publicity. His accomplishments not only on The Who, but every band he’s mixed for that I ran into, confirm he really is the best engineer

What do you want people to remember about what it took to make those shows happen?

Nothing, really. While it takes a hard working team a ton of effort to make the show look like there was no effort at all, that’s exactly the point. Punters should come and see and hear the band without having to think about the how, just absorb the results and buy more tickets!

Final thoughts—what did it feel like to stand behind the board at a Who show in full swing?

I was always singing along…with my TB mic off, of course. Rubbish voice. Couldn’t help myself, though. Every song took me somewhere before I ever had the opportunity to work with them. My heyday with them was The Who It’s Hard. Athena was my favourite at the time. Years later, they played it and I was brought back to my teenage years immediately. Only regret was that Pete refused to play Happy Jack.