The Australian audio giants are celebrating 50 years in style.
If you aren’t immediately familiar with the name Jands, chances are you are more than familiar with their handiwork – especially if you have been to a live gig anytime in the last 50 years.
The quintessential local distributor/PA provider – and the Australian home to powerhouse brands like Shure, Electro-Voice and L-Acoustics, just to name a few – the Sydney based company have been an omnipresence in the Australian live music scene since the early ’70s, when brothers David and Paul Mulholland (along with childhood friend Eric Robinson) began producing custom PA and lighting solutions for Australia’s burgeoning live scene – still in its infancy at the time.
Bear in mind, this was the early ’70s, when the flares were flared, the bands were loud and the battle for adequate sound reinforcement was in full swing. This was also in many ways, the birth of the modern Australian Festival and Live Sound industries as we know them today, and as demand for these large scale outdoor gigs grew to unprecedented heights, so too did the need for higher quality PA rigs and a more sophisticated approach to lighting and stage production.
Locally, it was Jands leading the charge through these early days, implementing and pioneering many of the technologies that would make these shows possible: many of which are still in use today.
From the Fairlight Festival and Sunbury ‘72, to Led Zeppelin’s first (and only) Australian tour, the list of early Jands credits reads like a veritable who’s who of Australian and international rock royalty, with the Jands team cutting their teeth on some of the biggest festivals and musical happenings of the era.
Needless to say, their contributions to mixer, amplifier, cabinet and foldback technologies in these early years cannot be overstated, garnering a reputation for excellence both at home and amongst the international touring fraternity, all of whom had the pleasure of using these early Jands systems whilst visiting our shores.
Over the next half century, Jands would continue to set the bar for Australian live sound, whether in the form of their own locally made mixers and speaker boxes, or through the quality and exceptional standard of the PA systems and premium sound products they continue to bring into the country as distributors.
From Crowded House’s stirring farewell show at the Sydney Opera House, right through to Sound Relief, BDO and a slew of others, chances are if it’s an iconic or meaningful show played on Australian soil it was more than likely played through a Jands system. It can almost be argued that if Mushroom are the sound of Australia on record, then Jands would have to be the live show. Their history and the history of live music in this country are so closely intertwined that they are basically one and the same.
So when they Jands recently clocked up their 50th birthday – a major achievement in any industry – it was perhaps celebrated in a slightly more subdued manner than one would normally expect from a company of their standing.
With the anniversary happening to coincide with the most devastating year in Australian Live music history, Jands instead used the milestone as an opportunity to launch their Live & Local campaign, offering up a seriously generous range of support to help reinvigorate an Australian live music scene decimated by COVID-19 crowd restrictions and travel bans.
The Live & Local initiative looks to reconnect local musicians and live acts with music loving venues and hospitality businesses, providing sponsorship packages for artists to play and providing gear to keep live acts mobile and active through what are some truly unprecedented times.
Through Live & Local, Jands will provide live sound equipment as well as sponsorships for live acts to perform. It’s a win-win, with the flow-on effects of these performances providing work for the Australian hospitality industry, as well as injecting some much needed positive energy back into the local live music scene.
In typical Jands fashion, the quality of the equipment provided in the Live & Local initiative is second to none, with premium brand Electro-Voice providing the goods to get artists up and gigging again (and sounding better than ever).
Their best-in-class EV30M & EV50 portable column speaker options are favourites here at the Mixdown office, and with Jands providing microphones and other performance accessories, you’ll have everything you need to keep active on the live front, come hell or high water.
To apply for the Live & Local sponsorships, artists and venues simply need to submit their details at Live And Local | Jands, and take advantage of what is a timely and extremely generous initiative by one of the biggest names in Australian audio.
Head to Jands to find out more today.
