Upston grew up in a musical family – his grandmother’s piano stood in their lounge and his father had been a pianist in jazz band The Rhythmics in the 1960s (Upston came to dread his own lessons on the instrument). In his teens, Upston was the student called upon to set up the music equipment for school discos. When he started attending concerts, he used his cassette player to make rudimentary open-air recordings. This led to a raft of tapes documenting acts such as Elton John, Dire Straits, David Bowie, U2, and Simon and Garfunkel.
Upston has also recorded many overseas acts during his time at RNZ, including Jimmy Barnes, Ryan Adams, Calexico, Suzanne Vega, and Paul Kelly.
Upston believes the biggest band he’s had in the current tiny studio rooms at RNZ was the 13-piece Lemon Bucket Orchestra. He says six-piece funk act Collision was equally challenging since they had their full set-up and two camera operators filming them.