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XTA and Concert Sound Baptise Lenny Kravitz Tour
Hot on the heals of his latest album, Baptism, Lenny Kravitz has played a series of 21 one-night only dates across North America and recently concluded more than a two month stint that saw him traveling across Europe and the United Kingdom. Kravitz, a multiple Grammy Award Winner, completely astounded the crowds as he performed classics such as American Woman and Are you gonna go my way, in his own inimitable style.
Laurie Quigley, FOH Engineer for the tour, specified a huge JBL VerTec system for some of the larger shows, which included up to 60 VT4889s in four hangs together with 12 VT4880 dual subs per side which, were all powered by an array of Crown MA-5002VZ amps. UK based Concert Sound were bought on board for the European and UK legs of the tour to provide racks and stacks while California Sound Image toured desks, outboard, stage monitors and system processing.
For the London dates, at the Apollo Hammersmith and Brixton Academy, the rig was downsized, to what might appear meagre proportions in comparison to the bigger shows, with 12 VT4889s and 12 VT4880s per side with the addition of several VT4887s as front fill. “The VerTec performed very well,” said Concert Sound system tech, Gareth Lewis. “It sounds amazing. What Laurie and Ted did with it every day was fantastic.”
Lewis worked closely with the bands own System Tech, Ted Bible, in a slightly unusual way: “There was eight XTA 226s running the system but they also processed it through a load of their own BSS Omnidrives. They used the BSS’ to split and tune it properly and they used the EQs in them as well,” he explained. The main mix would ultimately come from Quigley’s Midas XL4, through the BSS equipment, supplied by Sound Image, out through a Midas XL88 Matrix Mixer and finally to the racks, stacks and XTAs from Concert Sound.
Kravitz and his band of 10, which comprised drums, keyboards, three brass, guitar, bass and three backing vocalists, bought the classic sound of the albums to life as the capacity crowds lapped up every minute of the long awaited shows. On stage monitors ran through a DiGiCo D5 Live while wedges were of Sound Image own design in the shape of their G2s, which again ran through a collection of BSS Omnidrives.
After a total of 10 weeks on the European and UK dates, the band has crossed back over the Atlantic for a well earned rest.
23rd September 2005
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