LONDON — George Michael kicked off the six-week-long final leg of his "25 Live" tour in San Diego in mid-June, marking his first live performance in North America in 17 years. The concerts are the third and final leg of an almost two-year tour, celebrating Michael's 25 years in show business. The tour has seen the former Wham! singer play to 1.3 million fans at 80 shows in 12 European countries, and included two nights at New York's Madison Square Garden. The entire tour, which began in 2006, featured a stage full of Sennheiser and Neumann microphones, including the singer's wireless handheld of choice, a Sennheiser SKM 5200 fitted with a Neumann KK 104 S capsule.
As Michael's monitor mixer and audio consultant, Andy "Baggy" Robinson, noted, before departing the tour for paternity leave, "Combining the Neumann capsule with the Sennheiser wireless system has thrust the legendary Neumann sound to the top of the wireless domain, and opened up new dimensions in sound for sophisticated live-performance engineering. For me, the Neumann KK 104 has a warm, smooth and clean response that requires virtually no EQ. Despite a loud backline, I can always place George's vocal exactly where I want it in the mix."
For the North American leg, Steve May took Baggy's place overseeing Michael's personal monitor mix. Simon Hall mixed monitors for the band, which included drums, percussion, a bass player, sax/keyboard player and three guitarists on the top tier of the elaborate stage set. The two keyboard players and six backing vocalists — also on Sennheiser SKM 5200 wireless handhelds with Neumann KK 104 S capsules — joined the star of the show on the bottom tier.
At front-of-house, veteran mixer Gary Bradshaw adds, "George is very happy with the vocal mic, and we're all very happy with it as well. At Madison Square Garden, for example, we had a thrust into the audience, so he was way out in front of the PA all night, and it was fine. It was loud and it didn't feed back.”
The 25 Live tour additionally used 18 channels of evolution ew 300 G2 personal wireless monitors with multiple receiver packs. Full-range ew 572 G2 wireless guitar systems were used on two of the guitar players, and additional wireless packs were used with e 904 clip-on mics on the congas when they moved downstage for parts of the show.
The complement of Neumann wired microphones included U 87s on drum overheads, KM 184 on hi-hat, and TLM 170 Rs on saxophone. "There was an inner stereo pair of the KM 184s and an outer stereo pair of the U 87s on percussion," added Bradshaw. "There was nothing close-miked, and it worked really well. The percussion player was happy with it. Coverage in his ears was really good." Additional evolution wired microphones included an e 901 on kick drum and e 904s on toms.
Unusually, the set design ruled that both monitor engineers had to work backstage, and to overcome the inherent challenges of the large-scale video wall, Sennheiser's unique Vulcan IEM launch system was utilized. Vulcan is the brainchild of Dave Hawker, Sennheiser UK's technical director, and is a unique dual-amplifier configuration to enable large multi-channel IEM systems to operate faultlessly in RF-hostile live touring environments.
According to Baggy, "Working with Sennheiser on the previous 80-plus shows on the 25 Live tour has provided us with an exceptional level of support. Where the standard of the wireless microphones, wireless monitoring and wired microphones has been of the highest level, it's the support that really makes a huge difference. Being able to make a phone call from anywhere in the world and getting relevant advice is invaluable."
Following the final North American date on Aug. 3, Michael returned to the U.K. where he will play his last live shows at London's Earl Court at the end of August. The shows have been dubbed “The Final 2,” a reference to the last Wham! gigs, which were named “The Final.”
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