L-Acoustics and DiGiCo help Judas Priest say goodbye in Singapore
Published: ASIA
SINGAPORE: For four decades, British rockers Judas Priest have been taking their heavy metal anthems to the world, with the exception of South East Asia. Touching down in Singapore for the final date of their Asian Epitaph tour, the UK heavy metal artists belied their years on a Monday night. The management of the veteran rockers had drawn up a tour rider which ensured that their favoured equipment would be set up for them when they arrived into the Republic following Japanese dates climaxing with a performance at the Budokan.
As such CSP Productions was delegated with the task of providing the lighting, sound and staging for the concert. The long serving production company host the lion’s share of concerts for international artists touching down in the Lion State. Luckily for them, the staging was already intact following a Jazz festival that had been staged beforehand. Shure microphones were exclusively used, including UR4D wireless systems and PSM900 in-ear monitors and a host of models on percussion including Beta 91 and 98 models. Meyer MJF-212A monitors were disguised onstage with covers decorated with chains, as stipulated in the tour rider.
An L-Acoustics loudspeaker system was deployed, consisting of an eight per-side L-R V-Dosc system supplemented by 14 SB218 subwoofers. In addition, three dV-Dosc speakers were suspended on the lighting rig for centre-fills, whilst stage-fills consisted of two SB218s and three Arcs II cabinets per-side. Front of house engineer Martin Walker didn’t enjoy the heat on the night following the chilly temperatures of Japan. ‘Luckily the heat and humidity had no effect in the equipment, but I personally don’t like it,’ he explained.
Nevertheless, Mr Walker ensured that the DiGiCo SD7 console arrived at the park from Japan for the concert. ‘There’s an overall input count of around 55 inputs, comprised of 24 for drums, the usual guitar and bass inputs, some keyboard and some playback. With a fair amount of playback intros, a show intro, as well as multiple song intros, there are also a couple of songs played to track, too. But the track is mainly sound effects as Judas Priest are still very much a live band. There's no guitars, bass drums or vocals on the tracks.’
Not a fan of plugins, Mr Walker carries a rack of outboard equipment for many of the specific effects that Judas Priest require, including two TC Electronic D-Two delays, two Yamaha SPX990s, a Yamaha SPX2000, a Behringer Bassfex unit, a dbx 120 and an Eventide Eclipse. Having made the analogue to digital switch in 2008, Mr Walker was glowing with praise for the DiGiCo console.
‘DiGiCo, to me right now, are the most natural sounding digital consoles out there. As analogue consoles take a long slow retirement out of our industry, you have to find a replacement for them. For me, personally, I feel DiGiCo make that replacement honourably. I get great support from DiGiCo, from the smallest problem to the biggest issue they’re able to solve it over the phone, which I think is amazing in itself. Another reason why I love DiGiCo so much is they have a certain British family quality, with a little English eccentricity about them whilst still remaining totally professional and dedicated to their confidence in their product – a rare thing nowadays.'
Singer Rob Halford has compressed his vocal range with age but shows no signs of wear and tear. Mr Walker has sensitively adjusted the mix for this, successfully breathing new life into vocals that might otherwise have depreciated with advancing years. The picturesque setting of Fort Canning Park is a natural amphitheatre surrounded by trees, providing an acoustic barrier to noise pollution spilling beyond into the central business district.