This seemed like the best place to put this post "Musical Goodness" covers a lot of ground.
My wife and I went to the Garth Brooks concert here in Arizona, well, us and 78,000 of our closest friends. Being an audio guy I was really interested in how one would set up a sound system where audio quality mattered for a football stadium and 78,000 people. The old school wall of speakers and amps at the front of a stage would just kill the first 1/3rd of the room and starve the back 1/3rd so I was really impressed with what they did. Maybe you roadies and concert buffs have seen lots of setups like this but this was the first where I've seen one where the sound was top notch and evenly distributed.
Here's a pic of the basic layout. Nothing on stage at all. Not one amp or speaker cabinet on the stage.
Everything was suspended.
Then throughout the arena there were suspended speaker columns nearly all around the arena. All instruments and mic's were wireless of course. There were no visible power amps anywhere and even the mixing board and light folks were tiny and unobtrusive.
The result: pretty nice sound. Most of a Garth Brooks show depends on vocals so those have to be dominant and clear or its a bust. They made it happen for 78,000 people. I don't know the mechanics of "how", but the layout was visually simple as pie and clean as a whistle.
THE MOST INTERESTING THING: The drummer and his drum kit. I have never seen anything like Mike Palmer and his setup. Not even Pink Floyd at their most flamboyant had a setup like this guy. My little picture doesn't do it justice and I've got nothing better to show. My best description is a drum kit with at LEAST 4 kick drums and perhaps 6 or more. They were arranged in a super tight cluster that let him play drums in 360 degrees (there was audience behind him and on all sides). It was all chrome. It had big legs. It was the most awesome and confusing thing I've ever seen. He did not play in the "bubble" he is famous for playing in . He had this new layout that was visually the most striking thing on the stage.
Great concert. Lots of great audio things to enjoy. Had a great time.
