Mono

Mono (UK band)

Mono was a British electronic music duo which had a hit in the late 1990s with their song "Life in Mono". The group's music is often described as trip hop, based on its similarities to contemporary electronic music acts including Sneaker Pimps and Portishead...

's 1998 tour, promoting the album Formica Blues

Formica Blues

Formica Blues is an album from UK band Mono. It was first released in the UK in 1997. Four singles were released from the album, of which the lead single, "Life in Mono", was the most successful....

, was the only tour undertaken by the UK band, which formed in 1996 and broke up in the years following the tour.

The inclusion of the single "Life in Mono

Life in Mono (song)

"Life in Mono" is a song by UK band Mono, which consisted of singer Siobhan de Maré and musician Martin Virgo. It was released on the band's first EP in 1996 which contained various remixes, most notably two by the Propellerheads...

" in the soundtrack to the 1998 film Great Expectations

Great Expectations (1998 film)

Great Expectations is a 1998 contemporary film adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel of the same name, directed by Alfonso Cuarón and starring Ethan Hawke, Gwyneth Paltrow, Robert De Niro, Anne Bancroft and Chris Cooper. It is known for having moved the setting of the original novel from 1861...

 may have been responsible for an influx of radio requests for the song following the film's release. At the same time, however, Mono remained virtually unknown in their home country; the tour's destinations balanced out accordingly, with a dedicated U.S. leg but no dates in the UK at all. This was to be followed afterwards by additional U.S. concerts, with the band scheduled to join the 1998 Lilith Fair

Lilith Fair

Lilith Fair was a concert tour and travelling music festival, founded by Canadian musician Sarah McLachlan, Nettwerk Music Group's Dan Fraser and Terry McBride, and New York talent agent Marty Diamond. It took place during the summers of 1997 to 1999, and was revived in the summer of 2010. It...

 lineup during part of the U.S. leg of the traveling music festival

Music festival

A music festival is a festival oriented towards music that is sometimes presented with a theme such as musical genre, nationality or locality of musicians, or holiday. They are commonly held outdoors, and are often inclusive of other attractions such as food and merchandise vending machines,...

.

In order to recreate the sounds of the Formica Blues songs in live performances, ADAT

ADAT

Alesis Digital Audio Tape or ADAT is a magnetic tape format used for the simultaneous digital recording of eight analog audio or digital audio tracks at once, onto a Super VHS tape that is used by consumer VCRs.- History :...

 recordings were used alongside the musicians: guitarist, bassist, and drummer, plus band keyboardist, programmer, and producer Martin Virgo on keyboards and samplers. In particular, the drum parts were a combination of pre-recorded tracks and the live drummer.

Tour dates

The itinerary of the tour, as announced on 11 March 1998 on the band's official website, follows (with an amendment from other sources):

Date	City	Country	Venue
1 April 1998	Chicago, Illinois	United States United States The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...	Double Door Double Door Double Door is a concert hall and nightclub located at 1572 N. Milwaukee Avenue, in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood. The venue was first opened on June 12, 1994, and is co-owned by Andy Barrett, Sean Mulroney and Joe Shanahan...
3 April 1998	San Francisco, California San Francisco, California San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...		Bimbo's
4 April 1998	Seattle, Washington Seattle, Washington Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...		ARO Space
5 April 1998	San Jose, California San Jose, California San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...		Cactus Club Cactus Club The Cactus Club was a nightclub in the South of First Area of Downtown San Jose, California. The concept of The Cactus Club was created by Sean Galvin and Mike Trippett. It was Producer/Promoter Ric Hines who made the opening of the Cactus Club possible with his business experience and...
8 April 1998	Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, California Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...		El Rey Theatre El Rey Theatre El Rey Theatre is currently a live music venue in the Miracle Mile area of the Mid-Wilshire region in Los Angeles, California. "El Rey" means "The King" in Spanish....
10 April 1998	Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...		Cotton Club
11 April 1998	Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....		9:30 Club 9:30 Club Foo Fighters Promise to come back to D.C. and play the 9:30 ClubNightclub 9:30 is a nightclub and concert venue in Washington, D.C. Originally located at 930 F Street, NW, Washington, D.C., in the 1970s it was called the "Atlantis Club", and hosted primarily rock, New Wave, and punk bands...
13 April 1998	Boston, Massachusetts		Paradise Rock Club
14 April 1998	New York City, New York		Shine
17 April 1998	Toronto, Ontario	Canada Canada Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...	Lee's Palace Lee's Palace Lee's Palace is a concert hall located on the south side of Bloor Street West east of Lippincott Avenue in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The facility consists of a converted motion picture theatre and can accommodate several hundred guests.- Founding :...
23 April 1998	Paris Paris Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...	France France The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...	Divan du Monde
24 April 1998	Brussels Brussels Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...	Belgium Belgium Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...	Ancienne Belgique Ancienne Belgique The Ancienne Belgique is a concert hall for contemporary music in Brussels, Belgium. Located in the historic heart of Brussels, it is one the leading concert venues in Belgium, hosting a wide variety of international and local acts.-The venue:...
25 April 1998	Amsterdam Amsterdam Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...	Netherlands Netherlands The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...	Melkweg Melkweg The Melkweg is a popular music venue and cultural center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It is located on the Lijnbaansgracht, near the Leidseplein, a prime nightlife center of Amsterdam. It is housed in a former warehouse and is divided into a number of spaces of varying sizes...
27 April 1998	Cologne Cologne Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...	Germany Germany Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...	Prime Club
28 April 1998	Hamburg Hamburg -History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...		Logo
1 May 1998	Copenhagen Copenhagen Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...	Denmark Denmark Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...	Hyperstate @ Forum Forum Copenhagen Forum Copenhagen in Frederiksberg in Central Copenhagen, Denmark, is a large, rentable faire building, which hosts a large variety of concerts, markets and exhibitions, among other things. The venue can hold 10,000 people....
2 May 1998	Oslo Oslo Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...	Norway Norway Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...	Hyperstate @ Spektrum Oslo Spektrum Oslo Spektrum is an indoor multi-purpose arena in east central Oslo, Norway. It opened in December 1990. It is currently owned and operated by Norges Varemesse , who also own and operate the Norges Varemesse conference center in Lillestrøm which is Norway's largest conference center...
4 May 1998	Stockholm Stockholm Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...	Sweden Sweden Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....	Studion
5 May 1998	Lund Lund -Main sights:During the 12th and 13th centuries, when the town was the seat of the archbishop, many churches and monasteries were built. At its peak, Lund had 27 churches, but most of them were demolished as result of the Reformation in 1536. Several medieval buildings remain, including Lund...		Palladium
8 May 1998	Athens Athens Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...	Greece Greece Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....	Net
9 May 1998

Shows

Concert reviews mention video projections

Video projector

A video projector is an image projector that receives a video signal and projects the corresponding image on a projection screen using a lens system. All video projectors use a very bright light to project the image, and most modern ones can correct any curves, blurriness, and other...

 being used, playing "pseudo-psychedelic background pictures" on "two 1-metre by 1-metre screens", flanked by "faux-Corinthian

Corinthian order

The Corinthian order is one of the three principal classical orders of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric and Ionic. When classical architecture was revived during the Renaissance, two more orders were added to the canon, the Tuscan order and the Composite order...

 half-columns" that supported the projectors. The set ran 40–45 minutes, with up to two encores

Encore (concert)

An encore is an additional performance added to the end of a concert, from the French "encore", which means "again", "some more"; multiple encores are not uncommon. Encores originated spontaneously, when audiences would continue to applaud and demand additional performance from the artist after the...

 (reprising songs from the main set). Opening act

Opening act

An opening act or warm-up act is an entertainer or entertainment act that performs at a concert before the featured entertainer...

s were sometimes present: The Devlins

The Devlins

The Devlins are an alternative rock band originating from Dublin, Ireland. Their most recognized songs are Waiting, featured in remix form on the 2002 Six Feet Under soundtrack, but originally from their 1997 release Waiting; and World Outside, which was included in the 2004 drama Closer and also...

 opened in San Francisco, while no band opened in Toronto. Attendance varied: the Toronto show was reportedly nearly sold out, while the Amsterdam show was reportedly underattended (beaten out by a simultaneous Björn Again

Björn Again

Björn Again is a tribute show to the Swedish pop group ABBA founded in 1988 in Australia, but now involving multiple touring troupes performing under the Björn Again name...

 concert in the adjacent hall). "Life in Mono" was the main focus, being used in a "sing-along session" at the Toronto concert, as well as being played again during one of the encores.

Reviewers complained about poor sound quality (including an inaudible guitarist) and singer Siobhan de Maré's speaking voice (including a "Cockney

Cockney

The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End...

 patter", and overly enthusiastic shouting described as more appropriate for arena rock

Arena rock

Arena rock is a term used to describe rock music that utilised large arena venues, particularly sports venues, for concerts or series of concerts linked in tours...

). At the San Francisco show, audience members were reported walking out after "Life in Mono" had been played. The band members recalled more enthusiastic experiences, describing in a chat transcript audience members jumping onstage and dancing at the Seattle show.

Setlist

This setlist is from the April 25 Amsterdam concert. Nine out of ten songs from Formica Blues are played, leaving out "Hello Cleveland!", the only instrumental.

1. "Silicone"
   • sample
2. "The Blind Man"
3. "Disney Town"
4. "The Outsider"
   • sample
5. "Slimcea Girl"
6. "Life in Mono"
7. "Penguin Freud"
   • sample
8. "High Life"
9. "Playboys"

Encore:

1. "Life in Mono"
2. "High Life"

(However, the second encore was not played at this particular concert.)

Personnel

• Siobhan de Maré: vocals
• Martin Virgo: keyboards/programming
• James Thorp: electric/acoustic guitar
• Magnus Boggs: bass guitar
• "Mikey (from Bristol)": drums

Electronic equipment used consisted of a Fender Rhodes

Rhodes piano

The Rhodes piano is an electro-mechanical piano, invented by Harold Rhodes during the fifties and later manufactured in a number of models, first in collaboration with Fender and after 1965 by CBS....

 electric piano, a Roland

Roland Corporation

is a Japanese manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, electronic equipment and software. It was founded by Ikutaro Kakehashi in Osaka on April 18, 1972, with ¥33 million in capital. In 2005 Roland's headquarters relocated to Hamamatsu in Shizuoka Prefecture. Today it has factories in Japan,...

 A-33 MIDI controller

MIDI controller

MIDI controller is used in two senses.*In one sense, a controller is hardware or software which generates and transmits MIDI data to MIDI-enabled devices....

, and two digital samplers

Sampler (musical instrument)

A sampler is an electronic musical instrument similar in some respects to a synthesizer but, instead of generating sounds, it uses recordings of sounds that are loaded or recorded into it by the user and then played back by means of a keyboard, sequencer or other triggering device to perform or...

: a Roland S-760, and an Akai S3000.

Other promotion

The band played a handful of other promotional performances: a "Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

 event" in New York City on March 26, The RuPaul

RuPaul

RuPaul Andre Charles , best known as simply RuPaul, is an American actor, drag queen, model, author, and singer-songwriter, who first became widely known in the 1990s when he appeared in a wide variety of television programs, films, and musical albums. Previously, he was a fixture on the Atlanta...

 Show on April 6, Loveline

Loveline

Loveline is a syndicated radio call-in program in North America, offering medical and relationship advice to listeners, often with the assistance of guests, typically actors and musicians. Its flagship station is KROQ-FM in Los Angeles....

 on April 7, KCRW

KCRW

KCRW is a public radio station broadcasting from the campus of Santa Monica College in Santa Monica, California, carrying a mix of National Public Radio news, talk radio and freeform music format. The general manager of KCRW is Jennifer Ferro...

's Morning Becomes Eclectic

Morning Becomes Eclectic

Morning Becomes Eclectic is a three-hour adult album alternative radio program first aired in 1977 and broadcast live every weekday from KCRW in Santa Monica, California. The show's name is a play on the Eugene O'Neill trilogy of plays, Mourning Becomes Electra.The show is hosted by Jason Bentley,...

 on April 9, Late Night with Conan O'Brien

Late Night with Conan O'Brien

Late Night with Conan O'Brien is an American late-night talk show hosted by Conan O'Brien that aired 2,725 episodes on NBC between 1993 and 2009. The show featured varied comedic material, celebrity interviews, and musical and comedy performances. Late Night aired weeknights at 12:37 am...

on April 14, and Modern Rock Live on April 19.