After the U.S. leg for their Double Down Live tour, ZZ Top headed north of the border for a string of shows in Canada, supported by Briere Production Group and gear from Martin Audio.
Briere Production Group's Chris Briere called the tour, with stops at Prince George, Dawson Creek, Penticton, Kamloops, Abbotsford, Everett, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina and Calgary, as "a standard arena run, but we also had a couple of theater dates, so we needed a flexible, compact and powerful system to handle the different types of coverage needed.
"The Martin Audio arrays were typically 16 W8LCs per side plus eight W8LCs per side for side hangs/outfills," Briere added. "This rig was flexible enough to accommodate both single and dual point hangs depending on available points in some venues."
ZZ's big "Brazos Bottom" sound was provided by 30 Martin Audio WSX subs powered by Martin MA 2.8 and 4.2 amplifiers. FOH Engineer Toby Francis drove a Digico SD8 console with Dolby Lakes and Eventide processing, while Monitor Engineer Jacob Mann also used an SD8 with Sennheiser microphones and IEMs.
In preparation for the tour, the Briere Production Group team worked directly with Martin Audio engineers in London to pioneer a cardioid sub design for the WSX. As Briere added, "The result worked exactly as designed and our System Tech, Rico also worked on other sub-pattern stacks & designs throughout the tour." The crew used Martin's Viewpoint software day to day and Display for the first date of the tour.
Asked to comment about the sound, Francis and Mann pointed out that the Martin Audio was a "good, clean sounding box with fast rigging and great coverage."
