When it’s big, or even a little weird, Maryland Sound Inc. will take your call.
For four-plus decades, 2014 Parnelli Awards Audio Innovator Bob Goldstein, owner of Maryland Sound, has been called out on the more challenging gigs from presidential inaugurals to things for the government that all involved prefer we don’t know about.
One thing we can tell you about is this year’s city of Miami Beach’s 100th Anniversary celebration that went down boisterously. Billed as a “100-hour party,” Maryland Sound provided the sound for the ever-changing entertainment on a huge main stage that featured artists ranging from Andrea Bocelli with full orchestra to a transgender fashion show.
“The actual event was at the Lummus Park, and Nussli Group and EventStar built an enormous stage on the beach facing north,” Goldstein says. “They also had VIP suites along the ocean. It was a very large area to fill with sound.” He adds that the events got “pretty wild” and attracted an interesting collection of folks, as anything connected to South Beach is destined to do.
“We were constantly changing the venue every night, and put in 19-hour days for a week to pull it off,” he said. “Events started at 1 p.m. and went late. In the case of Flo Rida, who wouldn’t get off the stage, it went until 2:30 a.m.”
There was an exhibition tennis match, an antique car show, the naturalization of 500 immigrants, a mass wedding for 100 same-sex couples, and retired Italian recording artist/astrophysicist Fiorella Terenzi controlling the Hubble space telescope relayed on a big video screen to music. Then there was an eclectic lineup of music artists that included Barry Gibb and Gloria Estefan along with many local acts. “That was the interesting thing about this — you could not set one mic up and forget it. Everything was in constant motion.” Goldstein had 12 of his people working this event.
A longtime client of JBL, this event marked the first time MSI used its new VTX 25-IIs “and it was spectacular,” Goldstein says. The event required more than 100 of them plus 36 V20s and 70 double-18 subs (JBL VTX S28 and 4800A).
A personal highlight for Goldstein was when Barry Gibb’s band backed up Estefan. “Gloria has not lost anything, and we worked with her for many, many years,” he testified. “She is as good or even better than she ever was, and the audio mix was spectacular. We used a Studer Vista 5 SR, and between that and the VTX25-IIs, we all said it was the best sound we’ve ever heard — it was dynamic and punchy. Even Emilio [Estefan, Gloria’s producer/partner] commented that the sound was impeccably beautiful.”
The main FOH engineer was Ryan Beck with Clair Bros. Randy Lane mixing for Barry Gibb. “And I have to also give credit to Chris “Cookie” Hoff who was the system tech and helped set all this up.”
Miami’s ACT Productions put it all together, headed by Don Lockerbie. The City of Miami and Hard Rock Café were the sponsors. Everlast Production did the lights and videos.
“It was spectacular weather all week, until the day of load out, when it rained so hard what should have taken eight hours took 24,” Goldstein said — but he wasn’t complaining.
A few weeks later, Maryland Sound was also called out on another big, high profile event: Earth Day celebration in Washington D.C. at the foot of the Washington Monument. For this, nearly 300,000 people turned out for Mary J. Blige, Usher, My Morning Jacket and No Doubt, among other acts. The team brought out pretty much all the same gear as the Miami event, with some extra consoles to accommodate band preferences. Goldstein noted that the challenge with events like this is covering a really big piece of real estate. They used six delays for Miami and nine for Earth Day.
As with many DC gigs, MSI had to deal with the complexities that come with the need for security, but Goldstein credits event coordinator Jon Baden of AEG and audio coordinator Greg Wnuk of MSI for doing some excellent planning. Matt Snyder was the onsite project manager and Ryan Beck was the crew chief. “That’s a lot of chiefs, but that’s what this gig needed, and they all did their jobs perfectly.”
