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White Stripes Play Blues in Red, White and Black

Nexo's GEO T tangent-array systems are the first choice of front-of-house engineer Matthew Kettle for the current European and Australasian tours by The White Stripes. Recently, the band took London by storm, with the biggest dates of the European tour taking place back-to-back at the legendary Alexandra Palace, from which the BBC made its historic first television broadcasts back in the 50s.

Built in the late 1870s, the Palace is a cavernous glass-domed exhibition hall, with capacity for 8,000 when set up for live concerts. Although they have a draping scheme for the glass roof which dampens a lot of the reflections, the venue still represents a challenge in terms of acoustics.

For the show, Matthew Kettle used almost all of the SSE Audio Group-supplied GEO T inventory, flying left and right arrays of 17x T4805 cabinets, with 3x T2815 downfill boxes. With 8x CD18 subbass units ground-stacked at the front of the stage, the system also used Nexo Alpha EM cabinets for side fill. All amplification was provided by Camco's Vortex 6 amplifiers, and managed by Nexo NX242 TDControllers.

"We hung it nice and high, and ran the GEO T nice and flat," says Kettle, "the sign of a good system is that we didn't have to do very much to compensate for the acoustics of the room."

Having used GEO T since its introduction in 2003, Matthew Kettle praises its sound quality and its practicality. "It's really easy to mix on because it's so transparent, you can hear the detail of what you're doing. I can get great vocals, which sit prominently in the

mix. In practical terms, it's wonderful – small, compact, and easy to fly. Compared to a lot of other line array systems, it's much easier to handle – you can plan the system and get it up in the air very quickly."

Kettle and his rigging team led by Jasen Hattens from SSE use Nexo's GEOSoft2 programme to design the systems. "It's relatively straightforward to make a nice flat curve, and very easy to set up, taking just a few minutes to get the speaker configurations on my laptop."

Playing material from their latest album 'Get Behind Me Satan', Jack White and Meg White are the only performers on stage, but they come with a multitude of instruments, from a grand piano to marimbas. In keeping up with the increasingly crowded stage, Kettle has gone from 16 to 43 inputs on his Midas XL4 FOH console, but is staying true to the analogue aesthetic of the band. "With all their vintage stuff, I can't bring a lot of reverb into what I do, so I keep a really functional mix. We're also recording some of the shows, initially for the White Stripes archive, but who knows, it might eventually turn into something."

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White Stripes Play Blues in Red, White and Black

29th November 2005

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