volume 2 issue 12 2009 - Mobile Production Pro

the shootout, but also it stood upto the strain of touring with equalsuccess. Murch told us that thebreakdown rate was less than onepercent.In addition to the Bad Boys andstrobes in the structure, each leghad a truss section that contained3 Lycian truss spots. When theoperators strapped in for the show,the truss flew up in a diagonalattitude and tucked neatly into theleg of the roof never to be noticedagain. It was a very sleek designfeature.Mirch was specific about bringingtwo matters of concern to thestory; his ardent respect for bothWillie Williams and LightingDirector Ethan Weber. “Willie’svision, that I was introduced to in2008, and what we all achievedin Barcelona was truly amazing.Willie really drove it beautifully.I had never worked with EthanWeber, but I can now say that heis one of the best moving lightprogrammer/operators I have everseen on a show. He really hit itright from the very beginning, andit only got better from there.”One cannot talk about U2 withoutto mentioning FOH AudioDirector Joe O’Herlihy. He joinedthe band on September 25, 1978.When mPm discussed this tourwith him he was typically low key.“When you have a show this bigand you’re playing in nothing butstadiums, you’re going to haveyour challenges. Every room hasits sweet spot. In all but a few caseswe were able to hit it if I may beso rude as to say so.”O’Herlihy went on to explain thatthe amount of headroom builtinto the system was a big benefit tosome of the more difficult to mixrooms such as Atlanta’s GeorgiaDome. “Preventing the room fromreacting badly is half the battlein difficult situations,” he told us.“But you have to run your showas it is, after all, it’s a rock ‘n’ rollshow, and you have to have theenergy that goes along with theconcept. You will find that with thesystem we’ve created with the 360°touring event is that we have asubstantial amount of headroom,which is a saving grace in allof this. We also have a systemthat is distributed magnificentlyregarding the area that we are ableto specifically direct sound into.That means that we don’t everhave to have the system runningat it capacity in any way, shapeor form to deliver the quality ofaudio first and foremost to getup into the nether reaches of thestadium.”Because the show was designedto play to all sides and the stagestructure had 4 distinct sides,the system was hung facing 4equally distinct directions by alloutward appearances. However,at a closer look, the rigging waspositioned to spread the systemout to offer outstanding coveragethroughout the room. However,the show didn’t play in the roundin the classic sense. As was saidearlier, the stage played end-on.That meant that the SPL (SoundPressure Level) had to be greateron the line arrays making the longthrow. O’Herlihy said the parallelline array configuration was partof what made that possible.When asked if there we anystadiums that beat him in his questfor the highest possible qualitysound, O’Herlihy was graciouslynon-specific saying that there werea few places that gave him moretrouble than others. However, hedid add that the design of newerstadiums don’t seem to take intoaccount that in addition to the8 or 10 football games there areactually going to be concertsplayed in the venues as well. Theresult is a copper box loaded upwith thousands of square feet ofreflective surface that kills a goodmix.The one visual aspect of this showthat most assuredly had peoplewalking away talking was thevideo presentation. It is also themost difficult to describe. Indeedwhen asked to describe it beforethe show Jake Berry simply said,“It’s too hard to explain, you’ll seeit.” Because of the 360º nature oft tour to ever go outmobile production monthly 29