Surround Comes to Live Stadium Shows
When it comes to stadium touring, the Grateful Dead pretty much wrote the book on the subject, having done more stadium shows than any band in history. So to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Grateful Dead (the band formed in 1965), the four original founding members (Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh and Bob Weir) decided to launch an end-of-an-era “Fare Thee Well” mini-tour.
Joined by Trey Anastasio on guitar, Jeff Chimenti on keys and Bruce Hornsby on piano, the band performed two shows at its home turf at Levi’s Stadium in the San Francisco Bay Area on June 27 and 28 and three shows at Chicago’s Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears.
The Chicago performances were July 3, 4 and 5, 2015, on nearly 20 years to the day of the last Grateful Dead concert, which took place at the same venue and marked the original members’ last-ever performance together, hence the “Fare Thee Well” tour name.
Martinez, CA-based Pro Media/UltraSound was selected as the sound provider, which is hardly surprising, given the band’s decades-long association with live Grateful Dead shows and the company’s long standing reputation for excellence and innovation.
System design was by accomplished by Pro Media/UltraSound VP of touring and rental Derek Featherstone, who has also been the band’s FOH engineer since 2005. Additional equipment support for the five shows came from Blackhawk Audio, Rainbow Production Services, Show Systems and Solotech.
Used at all the shows was Meyer Sound’s LEO linear large-scale sound reinforcement system driving a quadraphonic surround setup.
Breaking New Ground
The Grateful Dead have traditionally been very interested in breaking new ground in terms of advancing audio technologies, with the famous/infamous “The Wall” system of the 1970’s being the most often-cited example.
“Mickey’s desire was to make sure that the 50 years of the Grateful Dead gave the audience something different — and terrific,” says Elizabeth Cohen, a noted acoustician (and former AES president), who worked as a consultant with the band and sound company on the project.
“Many years ago, Jerry Garcia said that people go to Grateful Dead shows expecting something very special musically to happen, and for these ‘Fare Thee Well’ events, it certainly did,” Cohen adds. “It was a special event that was designed to deliver something very special to the audience.
Besides the surround aspects of the shows, where rear channels were hung from the stadium delay towers to create a 360-degree sound experience for fans on the field level — expanding the frequency range of the system was another goal.
The Meyer Sound LEO system, with its accompanying 1100-LFC low-frequency control element, delivered an immersive and intimate-sounding fan experience in the large football stadiums. Using the Meyer Sound system to transmit ultra-low frequencies in surround sound, drummer/percussionist Hart probed how the brain perceived audible and below-audible rhythms.
“In the ‘Drums and Space’ musical segments, we were using a low-frequency drone, and ethnomusicological research has shown that drones have been used since time immemorial to induce trance states, while the musical elements can dance and sparkle above the drone,” Cohen explains.
“The goal was to have distortion-free audio, not only in the audible spectrum, but also in the infrasound spectrum — like 18, 19, 20 Hz — and also do that in a distortion-free way that would uplift and transport people, with quality and integrity — all in a safe way. Cohen also added this caveat: “When you work with infrasound, you have to be very respectful and careful, because you are dealing with people and what the human body can tolerate. There’s a fine line between where the vibrations could be ‘contraindicated’, as physicians say.”
Besides drums and conventional percussion, a key element in creating sub-bass tones is Mickey Hart’s “The Beam,” an 8-foot aluminum beam strung with 13 low piano strings that can be struck, strummed, or pounded with various implements. A moveable pickup block designed by Tom Paddock of Sound Research captures a wide variety of tonal variations and frequencies ranging from extremely low to high tones.
“John Meyer’s 1100-LFC loudspeakers empower the rhythmic voice and enable percussionists to manifest new ideas,” says Hart. “They are sonic tools for reliably transmitting vibrations that affect neurologic function in a special way we are only beginning to understand, enabling us to explore healing properties embedded in low-frequency sound — a dream come true for us all.”
The System
The Meyer Sound system comprised four front arrays of 17 LEO-M and three MICA line array loudspeakers each, with dual side columns each with 14 1100-LFC low-frequency control elements and a center column of 22 700-HP subwoofers in an end-fire pattern. Side and offstage coverage was supplied by 32 LYON and 32 MILO line array loudspeakers, with an additional 30 MICA loudspeakers providing behind-stage coverage.
Filling in the far ends of the stadiums were four delay towers with a total of 56 MILO loudspeakers and eight 700-HP subwoofers. Two additional towers of eight LYON loudspeakers each faced the stage for quad surround effects, with six CQ-1 and four LYON loudspeakers providing front fill. A Galileo Callisto loudspeaker management system handled drive and optimization and 16 MJF-212A stage monitors provided onstage foldback.
Following the Levi’s Stadium shows, the Grateful Dead continued its tour at Soldier Field in Chicago over the July 4th weekend, using a nearly identical LEO system for three shows.
“The LEO and 1100-LFC system can handle everything we put into it,” says Featherstone. “We are also very impressed with the quality control of the Meyer Sound self-powered equipment. Being able to acquire 650 loudspeakers from several different vendors located in multiple states, assemble the large system on site, and have it work seamlessly, is no small feat.”
Matt Haasch, audio crew chief for Pro Media / Ultrasound adds: “I was impressed with how well the LEO system handled the physical acoustics of a big stadium. Coverage was smooth and practically seamless, with precise imaging for all seating areas.
Meyer Sound and The Grateful Dead
The Levi’s Stadium shows were a landmark occasion, with more than the 60,000 devoted Deadheads in attendance each evening. It was also a milestone in the band’s decades-long association with Meyer Sound CEO John Meyer, a relationship spawned from a shared passion for audio experimentation and audience experience. The Grateful Dead’s original sound engineer, Owsley “Bear” Stanley, first tapped Meyer to create acoustic solutions for the legendary “Wall of Sound” system in the 1970’s.
John Meyer’s work with the Grateful Dead extends to the mid-1970s when the band’s concerts were heard through McCune Sound Service’s JM-10 systems designed by Meyer. The relationship continued through the band’s last tour with Jerry Garcia in 1995, supported by Meyer Sound MSL-10 loudspeakers. Meyer Sound systems have been a staple for tours of reunion and spin-off bands during the interim, including the 2005 and 2009 tours equipped with a Meyer Sound MILO system when the core members were known as The Dead. In 2011, the band’s Bob Weir installed a Meyer Sound Constellation acoustic system in his Tamalpais Research Institut
