Reunited with bassist Tony Levin, guitarist David Rhodes, drummer Manu Kaché and keyboardist David Sancious, Peter Gabriel is currently on a 13-city tour of North America before taking a break from live performance.
Marking the 25th anniversary of his renowned multiplatinum album, So, the Back To Front tour delivers the album in its entirety after an acoustic first set and electronic second set of Gabriel’s other hits.
The FOH system provided by Firehouse Productions features left and right hangs of 14 L-Acoustics K1 elements and six Kara boxes below for down fill, as well as adjacent hangs of eight K1-SB subs. Out fill is provided by an additional ten K1 and six Kara flown per side, paired with eight Arcs and six dV-Dosc below for front and lip fill.
The tour is also carrying 20 SB28 subs set up in an LCR configuration – six per side stacked under the mains with two spaced blocks of four in the centre – all in cardioid mode. The entire loudspeaker system is powered and controlled by 48 LA8 amplified controllers housed in eight LA-Raks per side. All amps are fed AES/EBU feeds as well as analogue audio for redundancy.
‘I’ve been using K1 since 2008 and have not come across a better system for large-scale shows,’ says Firehouse Productions System Tech Jamie Pollock, who has also taken a similar rig out on tours with Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Jane’s Addiction and Bob Dylan. ‘The system performs consistently on a day-to-day basis and always provides an accurate translation of the mix throughout the venue.
‘The most important part of my day is spent using SoundVision to map out each space and create a prediction of the ideal system for the environment,’ he continues. ‘The software is extremely accurate at modeling what the final result will be and there’s never a question of coverage because, when deployed properly, the system does exactly what SoundVision says it will.
‘On software, I’ve also really been enjoying the release of LA Network Manager 2; the operation is a lot smoother and I like the new layout. It’s just another tool I rely on that goes hand-in-hand with making the K1 system deliver the way it should.’
