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Paramore and L-Acoustics take to the Streets for The Final Riot!
Although Nashville has long been best known as a country music Mecca, fast-rising pop-punk bands like Paramore are certainly diversifying the image of Music City USA. Recently coming off the road with its final tour in support of the band's second album, Riot!, the group's engineers were unanimous in their praise of Rat Sound's L-Acoustics loudspeaker rig, which the band had been carrying for the first time.
Greg Mahler served as the FOH/system tech for the six-week North American tour, which utilized a PA comprised of a dozen V-DOSC plus three dV-DOSC down-fills hung per side. Three additional dV-DOSC were flown on the downstage lighting truss for center-fill.
With most of the venues on this particular trek being outdoor amphitheaters, six-box KUDO arrays were also flown on either side of the stage to address the far left and right seating areas. "We also occasionally used KUDO for ground-stack and in situations where weight was an issue," notes Mahler. "I could fly more boxes of KUDO than V-DOSC and still be underweight in some of the small sheds."
Although Paramore relies on in-ear monitors, a total of ten L-Acoustics 115XT HiQ wedges were positioned on stage for the support bands, as were a pair of ARCS cabinets for side-fill.
"The whole L-Acoustics rig performed amazingly throughout the entire tour," says Mahler. "The outdoor venues were my favorite for V-DOSC because very little EQ work was necessary; they sounded great from the start. Indoor venues required some room sounds to be tuned out, obviously, but the system still sounded amazing with minimal EQ.
"Ronnie [Gardner, FOH engineer] loved the rig and prefers to never use another system again. Unfortunately, not everyone is so lucky to have V-DOSC with them. He gets pretty bummed when we do a festival and can't use Rat's PA."
Mahler describes V-DOSC as being particularly well-suited for Paramore's sound. "Unlike a metal or true punk rock band, their guitar sounds are clean and big, and their drums are the same. The singer is very talented and this is all obvious when you have an excellent rig like V-DOSC to back the band. With other systems, the sound can become harsh and ‘offensive', especially in the guitar tones.
"But L-Acoustics has an amazing product line, both large- and small-scale. I'm very impressed with their time spent to perfect a product that is unmatched in many ways. Very few engineers have ever refused to use a V-DOSC system, and that's a pretty big statement in itself!"
Formed four years ago in Franklin, Tennessee, Paramore is fronted by the fiery Hayley Williams and backed up by the talented Farro brothers and Jeremy Davis.
In picture: Ronnie Gardner and Greg Mahler at Paramore's FOH mix position on The Final Riot! Tour.
13th October 2008
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