Alistair Houghton meets ANDY DOCKERTY, MD of Adlib Audio

ANDY Dockerty has a mission – to tell the world that the world of live music is about more than just the people on stage.

While all the attention is on the artists under the spotlights, the real stars of the show are often behind the scenes – those who set up those spotlights, or built the speaker systems, or mix the sound.

Dockerty founded Adlib Audio 26 years ago, and today the company supplies sound and light services to acts touring around the UK and Europe. It has worked with stars from Bob Dylan to David Bowie and worked at last weekend’s Glastonbury Festival, while it also builds and installs speakers and audio systems at venues around the country.

The self-deprecating Dockerty says Adlib is a hobby grown into a business. But just as Dockerty has moved from sound engineer to manager, building the business up to a £4m turnover, the industry has changed with the times and is more professional than ever.

Now Dockerty wants to bring new talent into the industry, and is working with local schools and colleges to tell young people that they don’t have to go on stage to enter the music industry.

“Everyone focuses on the performer,” he says. “But in reality there’s eight other jobs for every one performer.”

Talking about rock’n’roll’s backstage staff may conjure up images of hard-drinking roadies, but today sound and light engineering is a high-tech business.

“We’re trying to get away from that whole 1970s roadie mentality,” he says.

“Some teachers still see it as it used to be. They’ll say to us ‘would you like us to send you the kids who are maybe not doing as well as they should be?’

“No. We want the ones who know physics, who are eager and who enjoy their music. This is a technical industry.

“Our guys at Glastonbury have to work 18 hour days. They cannot afford to be drinking or nicking golf carts. It’s a much more professional industry than it’s given credit for.”

As he talks about the work Adlib crews do, it’s easy to see why Dockerty views it as such a high-tech job.

The team will measure venues using lasers before working out precisely where each speaker should sit to ensure the best possible sound quality throughout the venue.

Adlib staff have to take into account factors ranging from the height of the venue to how long it will take sound waves to travel to the back of the hall – and therefore whether speakers should be set to emit sounds at different times, milliseconds apart, to make the music sound perfect no matter where you stand in the hall.

“It’s about systems and technology probably much more than sound engineering,” he says. “If the speakers don’t go up right in the first place, it doesn’t matter how great the sound engineer is. That’s why it’s so important that people who come into the industry are into physics.”

Dockerty trained as an electrician before he started Adlib in 1984 with funding from the Government’s Enterprise Allowance Scheme.

He had already started doing PA work at weekends and, through friends of his who had been in bands locally, had already picked up some pieces of audio equipment. So when he lost his job as an electrician, he piled that equipment into a Transit van and become a sound engineer.

He secured residencies at Liverpool clubs and began growing his business.

In 1993 it took on Dave Fletcher as designer and began growing speaker sales, its AV department, which organises sound and lighting for corporate events and awards ceremonies, was founded in 2003.

Adlib started offering lighting services as a bolt-on to its core audio work. But as its expertise has grown, so has its client base – and now lighting is a department in its own right, working with acts such as Blondie.

One of the most significant events in Adlib’s history was winning a contract to work with David Bowie in 2003, showing it could compete with the biggest players in the industry. The company had to invest £380,000 in new equipment to win the deal.

“We probably earned about £120,000,” says Dockerty. “But we understood what it meant and what it was worth to us. It was worth taking the punt. It was a big jump for us.”

Dockerty, who lives in Woolton with his wife and two daughters, credits Adlib’s success to his team, including long-serving staff such as designer Dave Fletcher and directors Mark Roberts and Dave Kay.

Today he focuses on growing the company and supporting its 55 staff, though he does occasionally return to the mixing desk.

When we spoke, Dockerty had just returned from working for Sharleen Spiteri, who supported Sir Paul McCartney at Glasgow’s Hampden Park. Dockerty, who has worked on every tour by Spiteri and her band Texas since 1993, had to learn how to use a new digital mixing desk for the gig.

Dockerty is proudly an analogue man, rather than a digital one, insisting he would rather work on much larger older mixing desks than more compact digital ones. He even refuses to buy an MP3 player, saying the audio quality of digital files is too poor.

Adlib’s founder clearly enjoys showing people around Adlib’s South Liverpool premises. His office upstairs has the air of a trendy loft conversion, with its high and opaque roof – though it boasts homely touches including paintings by his children and an aerial view of Goodison Park.

But below is a hive of activity with flight cases, speakers and lighting rigs passing in and out bound for venues across the UK and beyond.

An Adlib team, for example, is currently touring Europe with Bob Dylan, while we walked past flight cases recently returned from a Crowded House tour.

“It’s a big train set,” he smiled.

He wanders through the warehouse and into Adlib’s manufacturing room, patting the boxes and showing off the cabinets and speakers Adlib has built. He is particularly proud of Adlib’s “cigarette box”, which does the work of a 15-inch speaker but can fit in a 12-inch space.

Adlib speakers have been installed at venues throughout the country, while others tour the world.

Adlib has just installed sound systems at four Academy venues - in Sheffield, Leeds,Bournemouth and Birmingham.

The Birmingham audio, for example, cost £440,000.

The company is now investing more than £700,000 in new sound systems to help it win more business with US acts. It is also investing more than £200,000 in a joint project with audio company Coda, helping the German company to redesign its speakers so they are easier for road crews to use.

It is also working to win more contracts to install sound systems in new or renovated buildings – particularly in schools.

“The UK is a massively over-saturated market,” he said. “There are a lot of people like myself who are hobbyists who have ended up doing it as a business.

“There may be one or two companies in the current climate that will take a fall. But that’s where our diversity will work for us.”

Despite his love of live music, Dockerty does not go to gigs for pleasure, and does not listen to live music at home.

“I love mixing live bands,” he says. “I love the live environment – I still get the same buzz as I did when I was 16. But the concept of going to a show doesn’t interest me.

“I break music down into its component parts. I don’t hear a song. I hear a vocal, keyboards, a bass drum, a hi-hat.

“My wife loves music, adores it. She has it on all the time. I try to avoid it.”