It seems a fitting way to begin a new year. More than five years ago, as the very first issue of FOH was just starting to take form, I met and spent the day hanging with John Cooper at the Forum in Los Angeles where he was getting ready for his first L.A. show with Bruce Springsteen. The re-sult of that afternoon was the very first FOH Interview ever.
That show sported a huge JBL VerTec rig courtesy of Audio Analysts who have been the sound providers for The Boss since 1991. This latest swing — the Magic Tour — has the same foundation, just bigger, with more than 120 boxes in the air for arenas, and still, that is sometimes not enough. When I met up with John at the show in Philly (during AES in October — the trip from NYC and back was an adventure, including getting lost in Camden, N.J., trying to get back to the city. But that’s a story for another time…), he told me that it was loud inside, and that it wasn’t about the P.A. Knowing that stage volume is always a concern with Bruce’s three-guitar attack, I asked about it. “The guitars are loud,” he says, “but that is not the issue. It’s the crowd. Sometimes they are so loud that I have a hard time getting the band up above the crowd.”
This is the first E Street Band tour in a while, but there was an acoustic jaunt and The Seeger Sessions shows. The last time we talked was the sta-dium leg of The Rising tour.
At the time we got together, the tour was just starting. Philly was in the first week of official shows that you could buy tickets for, and some details were still being tweaked. For example, the original staging had a lighting truss positioned directly in front of the line array, where the spot operators were stationed. Besides inspiring pity for the lampies who were directly in the line of fire, it made for a challenge at the front of house position. That positioning was set to change on the next tour stop. On any tour of this size, you make adjustments as you go. Here’s a look at how Coop is doing it this time around.
FOH: OK, let’s start with the particulars and a little review. Tell us about the tour and how long you have been with Springsteen.
John Cooper: It’s hard to believe that I’ve been mixing Bruce now for more than six years. Rehearsals for this tour started in September in Asbury Park, N.J., at Convention Hall, On the beach! The first hard-ticket show was in Hartford, Conn. — although we did some charity shows in Asbury Park and The Meadowlands.
What else have you been doing to stay busy since then?
Frankly, I try to stay home as much as possible and spend time with my sons. But when I have to, I will venture out. I mixed Dashboard Confes-sional on a couple of tours in 2004; I mixed Patti Scialfa (Bruce’s wife). I did a lot of fill-ins and one-offs, and last summer, I spent a couple of weeks with STYX. Then it was on to system engineering responsibilities with Projekt Revolution working with Pooch. That backed right into the Magic tour.
During that time, Bruce also did two other major tours of the U.S. and Europe. In 2005, it was Devils & Dust (a solo acoustic show that still man-aged to be more than 30 inputs) and last year’s The Seeger Sessions tour with an 18-piece band. So I stay as busy as I want to be.
What kind of system are you driving this time around?
The Magic tour is once again an amazing Audio Analysts rig with packing and infrastructure that is very flexible to use and easy to move around. The P.A. is 64 JBL VerTec 4889s and 32 4880s for mains and sides, with eight JBL 4887s as front fill. Another 48 JBL 4887s are spread across four columns around the back of the arena. The show seats in 360 degrees with the stage at the end of the arena, and all shows are sold to capacity. At the front end, we are using all Crown iTech amps with Dolby Lake processors with full Crown IQ control.
You recently made the switch to the Digidesign Venue.
Yes, and I have been very pleased with the change. I’m using a 96-channel Profile with no external hardware whatsoever for the mixing — all plug-ins, which is a first for me. It really is a great way to work. The sound quality is amazing. We also have a ProTools HD4 rig out for multitrack capture of all shows, which we archive and send to the vaults.
Are monitors on Venue as well?
No. We have two monitor positions. Troy Milner mixes stage right, and Monty Carlo mixes stage left. They are using Yamaha PM1Ds on this tour.
Did the experience of the Sessions tour play into your approach here?
Really, not at all. They are worlds apart as far as approach goes. Sessions is all acoustic instruments, and The E Street Band is a rock band in the fullest extent of the term — “Balls to the Wall,” I’m on Fire,” that sort of thing.
Stage volume can be a huge issue with this band. How loud does it get, and what have you done to deal with it?
With the Sessions band, you don’t have the stage volume to contend with, so you are mixing much more subtly than with the dramatic approach required for mixing E Street with its stage volume. It’s quite a battle, and it’s really hard for someone who has not heard it on that stage to under-stand what you’re dealing with up there. Bruce’s guitar is on STUN!! It is a fierce thing to contend with. You have to learn how to work with it, or it will kill you.
What’s with the slippers?
I spend more time at FOH than I do at home. Might as well be comfortable.
Tell us about the TelePrompTer setup on the console. (Brilliant idea, BTW.)
Bruce has always been known for calling “audibles.” There is a set list, but there are lots of changes to the set list. Last year on Sessions, it was really crazy, so I thought that the next time out, I would have our prompter operator Dan Lee drop me a composite feed in monitor world; then, in turn, he would run it out to FOH on a spare RG6 line. (The Profile uses two Quad RG6 runs for 96 channels and respective redundant backups. I have a third Quad RG6 for Video Sync and use a line in it to get out to FOH.) We went out and got one of those seat-back video screens that you put in a car, and I have it mounted on the console so I can follow the prompter and get a little warning when Bruce calls an unexpected tune mid set.
What else should we know about?
I need to mention the guys on the sound crew, I’m very fortunate to have the amazing opportunity to sit in the hot seat and mix this great show. I could not do this without the help of the best sound crew I have ever had the pleasure of touring with. These guys are amazing. All are self-starters, and each is a very good mixing engineer in his own right. They make my job a lot easier by doing the great work they do.
