There are many reasons why a person might get into live audio – from being a music buff wanting to rub shoulders with the stars up on stage to being a technical mastermind in pursuit of sonic perfection. However, for Eddie Mulrainey, his journey into the industry was all about discovering how live music can affect people in a positive way. “As soon as I got my first taste of working in live music and saw the incredible effect it can have on people, I was desperate to be a part of that world,” he told TPiMEA, recalling his early life and entry into the industry.
Living in Dubai from the age of 12 when his father moved the family to the UAE to pursue his diving business, Mulrainey was never going to go down the academic route and even spent a short period working on a barge in Bahrain before quickly realising that was not a life for him. “I think I lasted around six weeks before I was begging to come back,” he laughed.
A self-confessed “music-daft teenager”, Mulrainey soon found his way into the live sound industry, working for DJ and friend Pete Martin, setting up sound systems in bars and clubs around Dubai. “That was my first foray into music and seeing how people reacted to it taught me how it can affect people in a positive way,” he recalled. “From that point, I wanted to run away and join the circus.”
Now 25 years on from the formation of 3DB, Mulrainey sat down with TPiMEA to look back on his journey from celebrated audio engineer to respected company owner and a true stalwart of the Middle East’s live events industry.
How did you get your start in the industry?
The work with Pete Martin got my foot in the door, then around 1993 another friend – Mike Snape, who would later go on to be my business partner – got a job in the warehouse at DLC, which had just opened in Dubai. DLC was working with Britannia Row as their audio company with Mick Staplehurst running the operation, and I went to work in their warehouse with Mick.
On my first day in warehouse, Mick set up a biggest mixing desk I’d seen in my life, put a Tears for Fears CD on and left me to play with the console for as long as I wanted. Once I’d finished messing around, he asked if I’d had enough before telling me that would be the last time I’d touch a desk for the next few months. He then started teaching me all the basics, from wiring a 13-amp plug to mains connectors and soldering XLRs. All I wanted to do as a kid was get my hands on the desk and he knew that I had to get it out of my system before he could give me that solid grounding. Mick was my mentor – an absolute legend.
What led to you going out on tour?
Brit Row pulled out of Dubai after around a year, and since Mick had spent such a lot of time on bringing me up to speed, they invited me to work in their warehouse in London. I was only 16 at the time, so they had to get my parents’ permission, and my Dad agreed to it on the condition that I could stay at someone’s house. So, Brit Row paid for my first flight back to the UK and I ended up living with [Brit Row Co-Founder] Bryan Grant!
I started working in the warehouse in London and I think I managed to annoy everyone enough being a bit cocky that it didn’t take long for them to want to get rid of me and send me out on tour. I went out on a few gigs for Cliff Richard with JJ [Monitor Engineer, John James] and Colin Norfield [FOH Engineer], and did a lot of the big one-offs like VE-Day. At the time Brit Row were working with Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, Depeche Mode, The Cure – every band you could mention. I’ll be forever grateful to Mike Lowe and Bryan Grant for that giving me the opportunity.
How did your relationship with Wigwam start?
After five years or so, I met Ray Furze [FOH Engineer for James], who I believe is among the very best engineers on the planet. Ray and I hit it off really well and he said he wanted to introduce me to Wigwam. I was reluctant at first because of everything that Brit Row had done for me, but Ray explained that Bryan Grant and [Wigwam founder] Chris Hill were good mates, and it wouldn’t be a problem.
Fast-forward a year and Ray was doing FOH for M People when the Monitor Engineer position became available, so he put me up for the job and I took to it like a duck to water. I then ended up working on a lot of other tours supplied by Wigwam, including The Charlatans, Spice Girls, Mel C, and The Beautiful South.
What led you to move back to Dubai?
I was on tour with The Charlatans, and I’d come back to Dubai every Christmas to see my parents. On one of those trips back I ended up meeting a girl – who would later become my wife – and the more I got to know her, the more I wanted to be with her in Dubai.
The only problem was career-wise, I’d freelanced for a few companies in Dubai before, but I needed more to stay here. Mike Snape and I had this idea of starting up on our own, so, I got in touch with Chris Hill and asked him if he’d be willing to help me get some d&b kit for our new venture. Thankfully he was happy to help, so we got the kit and sent it to Dubai, and that was the start of 3DB.
What were the early days of the company like?
We launched 3DB in 2001, and at the time we didn’t have many aspirations for it apart from being able to take a basic income to pay our rent and living expenses. We never imagined that it would turn into anything like what it is today.
I was still touring, and Mike was still freelancing for a while, but we’d always invest money back into the company as we earned it. As business started to pick up and we got more rock ’n’ roll gigs, we needed a large-format console, so we took the plunge and bought a couple of 48-channel Midas desks and a Soundcraft console with some outboard gear. We also had some clients asking us to do lighting as well as audio, so we invested in a Robe rig to facilitate that.
We also needed more d&b and once again Chris Hill was a massive help, allowing us to use the stock he had sitting in the Wigwam warehouse and pay a percentage of profits on the kit. The initial agreement was for us to take the kit for six months, but demand reached such a level here in Dubai that it never ended up going back. We supplied a lot of Wigwam’s acts and clients in this part of the world, almost acting as an extension of Wigwam in the UK, which really helped our growth and also helped Wigwam maintain their clients globally.
Was there a turning point when the potential of the Dubai market became clear?
In the early 2000s we couldn’t have imagined the extent to which Dubai would develop. We wanted to do the biggest rock ’n’ roll shows and long term we had our sights set on other locations where they were happening more often. We spent a year from 2007 to 2008 building an Australia branch, which ultimately proved to be unsuccessful, and it was around that time that we decided to focus on Dubai and the Middle East market.
At that point we set up our staging scenic department in Dubai, which gave us a full 360° offering. Jason Booth came to Dubai to run the department, and although he left for a few years at one point, he’s now back with us. Our scenic department was an important addition because it meant we could control the quality at every stage from start to finish, which gave corporate clients peace of mind.
By the time we’d decided to get serious in Dubai, there were plenty of much bigger companies already investing heavily in the region, and while that brought a lot of competition, it also raised the overall level of the industry – and we wanted to be a part of that increase in quality. It wasn’t a natural thing for Mike and I because we were just a couple of engineers who started a company, but by 2008 we were ready to push and it’s been a story of steady growth from there.
What have been some of the landmark moments in your career?
There have been plenty of landmark moments, but the past couple of years have brought some projects that I am particularly proud of. One that immediately springs to mind is Coldplay in Abu Dhabi – that was a massive show not just for us delivering the audio but for the whole landscape of the Middle East, showing what is possible in the region. Of course, we’ve had big, impressive shows in the UAE before, but to get a stadium looking and sounding like the Coldplay team did consistently over four nights is something that has never been seen in this part of the world before. I’m so proud of being part of the team that delivered those shows.
I’m also extremely proud of the development we’ve been a part of in Saudi Arabia. We played a part in the country’s first nightclub with MDLBEAST. I remember standing alongside the likes of Michael Jobson, Quentin Greyling and Johnny Gaskill on opening night and the hairs on the back of my neck standing up seeing people’s reaction to something they’d never experienced before. It’s moments like that when it feels like we’re making a difference and doing really important work. And that goes back to what got me into the industry in the first place – being able to experience those feelings and help others experience them.
Balad Beast was another amazing show. By rights it shouldn’t be possible to put on a festival in a place like that among the fragile buildings, but we were part of the team that did it and it was done well and responsibly, without putting the buildings at risk. Learning every year on these projects and continuing to offer improvement is something I’m extremely proud of. MDLBEAST and Saudi Arabia in general are constantly breaking records and pushing boundaries, and that is helping our industry to take huge strides.
On a more personal level, one of my favourite moments was mixing FOH for Portishead at Glastonbury. That was absolutely amazing; to see a massive crowd of people all experiencing the same moment was beautiful. If I would have had an off night behind the desk it could have ruined the experience, so the pressure was on, but when it connects and you’re able to help give people that amazing experience, there’s no better feeling.
Have you seen a change in how tours come through the region?
This region has all the ingredients to become a proper touring area and we’re starting to see it happen more and more. In previous years we were lucky to get a one-off from a band on their way to Australia or South Africa, but now with Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Jeddah, Riyadh, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman all online, there are many options.
Guns N’ Roses’ recent Middle East leg of their tour was a perfect example of how it can be done properly. They played in Bahrain and then went via road to Riyadh, then over to Abu Dhabi.
It’s not just massive bands but also up-and-coming artists that are helping to boost the live music industry here. The likes of Live Nation are collaborating with venues and other promoters to facilitate this. It’s something that we’ve been crying out for, and the right people are now in the right places to make it happen.
India is also starting to become a major part of that touring ecosystem as we’ve seen with the likes of Ed Sheeran and Coldplay. We were very happy to send the d&b GSL system used on Coldplay’s Abu Dhabi run to India for the band’s shows there. I went over for the Ahmedabad show with 145,000 people in the stadium, and it was an incredible experience.
Tell us about your recent lighting and video investments…
While we’ll always be an audio company at our heart, we’ve now evolved into much more than that and pride ourselves on being able to offer a full 360° service. In light of this we recently decided to uplift our lighting inventory, and after taking recommendations and speaking to the team at NMK Electronics, we decided that CHAUVET Professional would tick all the boxes for us. We’re very rider-driven with our investments and CHAUVET is always heavily favoured nowadays – and I can’t see that changing any time soon.
All our fixtures are IP rated, which is so important with the conditions we face in this part of the world. We’ve even invested in developing our own range of IP-rated wash lights, which we designed to our own specifications. For video, we went for Absen, also through NMK.
The other thing we’ve invested in is pre-rig truss, and we’re now looking at making pre-rig LED carts as well with multiple panels already pre-connected, again saving time on the ins and outs. As venues get busier, load-in days are becoming less common, and this is a solution that allows us to do a lot more in the warehouse, saving time on site.
Some clients want a 360° supply and some don’t, and we’re happy to provide everything or work with the right partners on the right projects. We’ve already seen results from this approach with Saadiyat Nights, where we supplied the lighting and the video and Clair Global supplied the audio.
How much importance do you place on building the UAE’s live events community?
Dubai is my home and I’m passionate about building the community here. Every year we aim to bring in two apprentices and give them a chance to learn in a similar way to how I did when I was a kid. We’ve got a couple of young guys with us at the moment who are both out there learning their trade and enjoying themselves in the process.
We also sponsor two athletes who are both based in Dubai – John Mitchell, who is an Irish MMA fighter, and Jamie Day, a racing driver who is currently signed with Aston Martin racing GT4.
The industry here is growing and while we often see people out and about on many of the big projects, it’s rare that we get time to catch up properly away from the pressure of being on the clock. With that in mind, we had a brainstorming session, and our Sales Director, Jamie Watkins, came up with the idea of having a community golf day, which proved to be a massive success and will certainly be returning.
What are your hopes for the future?
The region has come a long way from those small gigs we were doing in the early 2000s, and I’d love to see it continue to evolve in terms of live touring. From 3DB’s point of view, we want to have presence in every country in the region. We’ve already got the UAE, Saudi and Bahrain and the next steps could be Qatar, India, then Jordan and Egypt.
We’re investing constantly and we will continue to invest to deliver the same high standard wherever we operate. It’s vital that we maintain that level of professionalism that we have come to be known for, and we continue to invest in local talent.
Photos: 3DB, Anna Lee Media, MDLBEAST
