Replacing a charismatic front man is never an easy task, and when that means someone with the vocal power and range and total command of the stage as the late Freddie Mercury, it looks impossible. Maybe it was a need to get back onstage or maybe the band just did not want the Broadway show We Will Rock You to be its last hurrah. (We Will Rock You did fairly poorly in a truncated Las Vegas run and closed earlier this year.) Side note: Yeah, the story line for We Will Rock You was silly–a quasi-sci-fi tale of a world without rock music and the rebels trying to revive it that did a passable job of stringing together the hits of Queen. But Mamma Mia! (a similar kind of show featuring the music of ABBA) is at least as silly, the music is not as cool and it remains a hit, running concurrent shows in London, Melbourne, New York and Las Vegas, and selling out seven years after its initial opening. Go figure. Guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor teamed up for the better part of the past year with Bad Company vocalist Paul Rogers for a tour that did good business both in the States and Japan. Tour audio was handled by Clair Brothers under the direction of system engineer/crew chief Bob Weibel, whose biggest hurdle of the day was the carpet on the floor of the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas. "It helps the room sound better, but it's murder to roll cases in. And this is a rolling stage, so they had their hands full. But hey, at least there is no ice," he quipped.
According to Weibel, the tour is a pretty straightforward rock show without a lot of high-tech bells and whistles. "The most notable thing is that we are using six per side of the newer Prism II subs, and we also have the new FF-2 front fills," noted Weibel, explaining that the Prism II was really developed for rap shows and that they were being used on the Queen tour. "They are dual 18s in a bandpass resonant chamber. They are a relatively narrow bandpass. I don't think they even go above 80Hz," he said.
"We're manipulating them with delay somewhat to control that classic phase issue. You can't make that classic center peak and the surrounding nulls go away, but you can moderate it somewhat."
Clair Brothers Crew
HE: James "Trip" Khalaf
MME: Graham Blake (Indy)
SE/CC: Bob Weibel
Stage Engineer: Patrick Murphy
Stage Technician: Ryan Lawless
System Technician: Anthony Rossi
Touring Arena System
44 x CBA i-4 curved array system
36 x CBA i-4b bass supplements
8 x CBA FF-2 Front fill
12 x Prism II sub-lows
Midas XL4 house console
Midas H3000 monitor console
Monitor system: CBA 12am, 12am-II,
2×15 wedges, and HL15 w/Martin bins
side fills
FOH EFx: Summit DCL200, Eventide
H3500 Lexicon 480xl, Yamaha SPX990,
dbx 160xl, Cranesong STC8
Drive system: Clair/Lake I/O system
