After selling more than 50 million albums, multiple Grammy Award Winning Linkin Park returned to Europe this July and August with selected headlining dates and festival appearances. Linkin Park carried their own board group, stage set and monitor package consisting of ten Adamson M15 wedges and four SX18 for their on stage side fills delivered by SSE (UK). European Adamson Y-Axis partners Livesound B AG (Switzerland) and Satis&Fy AG Werne (Germany) teamed up to support Linkin Park’s non-festival dates in Switzerland and Germany.
Livesound B AG provided complete audio package for the single indoor show of the tour in Zurich, Livesound’s system engineer Sven Gerber did the initial Hallenstadion Shooter simulation, and worked closely with Linkin Park’s systems engineer Chris “Cookie” Hoff on alignment and tuning of the system. The system was carefully executed to achieve the full Linkin Park effect with the constraints of the Swiss SPL regulations which state maximum 99dB(A) LEQ over 60 minutes. The design featured flown L and R hangs of 12 Y18’s, and six T-21 Subs per side on the ground. A total of 16 Y10’s were flown as side PA, and 8 SpekTrix were used as near fills. Power and processing consisted entirely of Lab.gruppen and XTA. FOH Engineer Kenneth “Pooch” Van Druten’s exceptional mixing skills delivered yet another powerful show despite the strict regulations.
Livesound then added racks and stacks to the Satis&Fy inventory to support the two following outdoor shows in Germany, where Satis & Fy provided full sound and lighting production.
Adamson Europe GmbH’s Jochen Sommer supported Satis&fy’s project director Kim Lindner and head of audio Lucien Götz with the design and simulation of the system and also filled the role of systems engineer. At Canstatter Wasen fairgrounds in Stuttgart, the flown mains setup included 16 Y18’s and 8 T21 Subs per side, six stacks of two T-21 Subs on the ground added serious bottom end, the side PA grew to Y18 hangs with an additional four Y10 enclosures as underhangs, a center cluster of eight Y10’s was added, four sets of three Spektrix boxes were positioned directly under the main and the side hangs, and lastly four spektrix were spread out as lipfills on stage. The PA was controlled by eight XTA DP448’s with two more units running as spares for main L/R, one DP446, and two DP226, all were remote controlled using XTA AudioCore. Power was delivered by 93 fP and fP+ Lab.Gruppen amplifier units.
In Graefenheinichen, Germany, the unique ‘Ferropolis’ venue, a former brown coal strip mining area currently serves as an open air venue for shows and events. As the backdrop, it features gargantuan excavation machines from the not so distant past interestingly named “Mad Max”, “Medusa” and “Mosquito” to mention a few. To put it in perspective, the large outdoor stage erected for a rock concert for 25,000 people, looked as an ant in the presence of Tarantulas.
The show at the unique and impressive Ferropolis featured a modified design due to the wide audience area. No centre cluster was used and the main arrays were shortened by four Y18 units each. The surplus Y18 elements replaced the Y10s in the Side arrays thus providing four hangs of 12 Y18s each. After the Ferropolis show, LPs FOH engineer Kenneth “Pooch” Van Druten thanked all the Adamson support given to Linkin Park over the years: “It was undeniable today – the PA really sounded awesome. Kudos to Satis&Fy and LiveSound, again a great experience with Adamson partners. Special thanks for letting Jochen (Sommer) and Dave (Dohrmann) come to help, always appreciated.”
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