Lettuce Cooks Up the Funk in Concert

New York, NY (May 11, 2026)—Lettuce is on the road supporting its ninth studio album, Cook, and the group’s loyal fans have been packing theaters and getting swamped by the band’s brand of funk. More than 33 years into a career that began at Boston’s Berklee School of Music, the six-man group still jams, solos and segues with the best of them, bringing excitement and a sense of impish fun to whatever’s being played, regardless of whether it’s a rubbery original or a deep-cut cover.

The band typically tours the world throughout the year with a schedule that ranges from theaters to festivals to even the occasional cruise, but two constants through it all are FOH engineer/tour manager Kris Campbell and monitor engineer Jon Isenhower. While they’re ready to make whatever mixing gear they have on-hand sing, for the band’s bus-based U.S. runs,Lettuce carries control gear and mics from Nashville’s Spectrum Sound, along with its own backline.

For those U.S. tour legs, both mix positions typically center around Allen & Heath Avantis desks—a choice inherited from previous engineers. “My predecessors had this dialed in and I’d never worked with one, but that doesn’t matter to me so long as it passes audio,” quips Campbell. “I’ve gotten to learn it fairly well, and it’s been a great board—very user-friendly and a stable workhorse on tour.”

While the number of inputs off the stage has been floating around 48 on U.S. tour legs, Campbell is determined to slim it down. “My first tour with Lettuce, three-and-a-half years ago, was ‘board of the day’ across Europe,” he recalls. “They were at 56 inputs and we had to get it down to 32—and we did! Then back in the U.S., I started getting the Avantis and the count went back up to 48 with audience mics and doing different things, but I want them to get used to being at 32 and making it work. It’s been fun, getting it there while keeping it consistent. The guys are getting everything that they need; they’re not missing anything.”

While Campbell makes use of the Avantis’ onboard effects, running a room, a hall, a slap, a tap and a plate, there’s also an outboard effect in the form of a Universal Audio Del-Verb reverb and delay pedal lifted from the setup of saxophonist Ryan “Zoid” Zoidis: “I used to have an Echoplex out here; now Ryan’s doing dubby stuff with it on stage, so I’ve taken his pedal and popped in.”

Prior to working with Lettuce, Campbell spent 20 years mixing and tour managing Chick Corea, so he’s used to making the most of a different P.A. at every stop. “That Meyer Panther rig is very impressive; that’s probably my favorite because it’s like driving a race car,” he grins, “but typically, I don’t really care what the P.A. is. I’m not a guy who comes in and goes, ‘Oh, that system?’ I love the challenge of ‘Okay, let’s make it sound good tonight.’”

Helping provide consistency every night is a mic package largely based around Shure staples, like a Beta91 in the kick (down from two, to save on channels) and on the conga, a Beta 57 on the snare, Beta 52 on the Leslie, and 58s on vocals, reined in by D’Addario Infared Mic Mutes. A pair of Audio-Technica 4050s are used as side address drum overheads (“I like to call it ‘the modified Glyn Johns technique,’” says Isenhower) to capture the kit and its unusual Istanbul Clap Stack—a warped pile of three cymbals that together reproduce the handclap sound of an old Roland TR-808.

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Over at stageside, Isenhower has been mixing on an Avantis, sending mixes to a broad selection of in-ear monitors, as the band variously wears models from FIR Audio, Shure and KZ Earphones; he himself sports 64 Audio IEMs. While Isenhower mixes their monitors, he also oversees multiple redundant recording setups, and, as the band streams its shows live a few times a year, he tackles broadcast mixes when needed, too.

The audience never hears some of the show’s most crucial audio, however. “The guys communicate a lot,” says Isenhower, “and they arrange live on stage through talkbacks. They’ll go, ‘Oh man, this is the same key as this other song; let’s get through the bridge and then we’ll switch,’ and then everyone looks up and agrees. If you’re watching the show, you’ll see them do all these crazy changes that seem so tight and rehearsed, and it’s because if someone gets an idea, generally everyone wants to go in that direction. It’s a lot of fun—some of my favorite engineering I get to do.”

The result is that Isenhower is on his toes following the band throughout the show: “I’m not a ‘set it and forget it’ person; I do a lot of gain knob mixing…. This is a new and exciting adventure every day—I did a three-week run with Lettuce last year where they did not play a single song twice, so that’s about 14 shows, two-and- a-half hours a night!”

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It’s because of the band’s endless variety that additional audio gear shows up nightly at the FOH mix position: audience recording rigs belonging to old-school tapers. “There’s a couple guys that’ll come by and ask for a board feed,” says Campbell. “After doing this for three years, you see the same people coming around; some of the tapers are really into it, spending the money for Schoeps mics and stuff. The band’s cool with it, so I’m cool with it.

“With this band, the set list changes every night. They write it about an hour—if I’m lucky—before the show. It’s a real fun band to mix though, because you’re on your feet the whole time; you can’t just sit back, throw up the faders and put your feet up on the console. I guess you could, but why? I choose to be interactive, and it’s a blast.”