There aren’t more than a handful or so of bands that can pull off a stadium tour, and when you take 1960’s supergroups such as The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and The Grateful Dead from the roster, the list gets even smaller. Yet with his current tour, The Big Revival, Kenny Chesney takes on a grueling 57-stop outing with 18 of those being stadium dates, including such vaulted venues as Soldier Field, the Rose Bowl, Lambeau Field and the San Francisco Bay Area’s new Levi’s Stadium (among others). The tour kicked off March 25 and 26 with two sold-out nights at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena and concludes on August 28 and 29 with two shows at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, MA.
That’s a lot of work, a lot of travel and a lot of dedicated fans to support the tour. The sound company is Nashville-based Morris Light and Sound, who according to president David Haskell, has been working with Chesney for more than 20 years — an impressive accomplishment in these days where relationships tend to be fickle and transitory.
Nexo, Redux
In keeping with the needs of any particular venue — and this tour plays a wide variety of facilities — the P.A. is a massive, all-Nexo rig. The decision to go Nexo this time out was not particularly difficult according to systems engineer John Mills, who has worked with Chesney for nearly five years.
“We used the Nexo system on the previous Chesney tour, but this year we made some serious upgrades to our system, adding a lot of boxes, switched the delay towers to Nexo product, added the new Nexo downfill cabinets and went with the 270-degree hangs,” says Mills, who consulted with Haskell on Morris Light and Sound’s decision to purchase its original Nexo STM (Scale Through Modularity) rig some years ago. “I went with Dave Haskell over to France to hear it. The clarity was incredible and the horsepower destroyed the other contenders.” Describing his role as system engineer, Mills jokingly adds, “I do the dirty side of making it louder.”
And when doing stadium shows, horsepower — and plenty of it — is an essential ingredient. On The Big Revival tour, the Nexo mains for a stadium show are 24 Nexo STM M46’s with 24 B112 LF boxes next to each and two or three M28 downfill boxes. The side hang is 15 STM M46/B112’s and three M28 downfills and further around the stage are the 270-degree hangs each with 12 STM M28’s.
Low frequencies are well covered. The flown S118 subs are hung as a front firing/back-firing pairs — the Nexo version of a cardioid, like a double-18 but where one is reversed. These are 12 deep, with 24 drivers per side. On the ground are eight per side, double stacked RS18’s, which are double-18 subwoofers, also arranged in a cardioid array. Each of these arrays are pointed outward by 30 degrees, to create a null along the center of the runway extension where Kenny performs. Front fills are PS10R2 boxes.
Previous to using the Nexo rig, each of the two stadium delay towers required 16 boxes/side. The current configuration is 12 Nexo M28’s on each tower, which according to Mills, “output just as much with fewer cabinets.” He’s also a fan of the Nexo flying system, which is fast, secure and accurate. “The Nexo hardware is great — all the angles can be set by one person behind the array.”
The Drive Train
Another new item this time out is the Solid State Logic L500 Live console, with FOH engineer Chris Rabold at the helm. From the house console, the feed goes into a Lake system with two LM44’s at FOH — one for the delay towers and the other being the input system for a DiGiCo SD11. That console is employed as what Mills calls a “way-overkill console switcher” for the opening act, that’s also used to handle the emcee mic, video playbacks and general production and routing tasks. From there, the house feeds run via a fiber network up to the front of stage to two LM44’s, each with eight outputs to feed the different zones of the P.A. The ground subs have a feed from the Lake, with the array shading and timing handled within the Nexo amplifiers.
“I use Smaart 7 for room analyzing,” says Mills. “My job is not to tune the system but to deploy it correctly. I spend a lot of time modeling it and making sure the models are perfect and exactly what Chris is looking for at the end of the day. From there, he’ll do the main EQ and time align the aux hangs and from there, my team takes over. This year, Chris and I each have identical Smaart rigs, but he can look at the measurements any way he wants. The room mics are four Lectrosonics Venue wireless with iSEMcom mics, and we have a couple wired mics as well — Chris is running an Earthworks M30 and I have an iSEMcom 7150.”
The FOH View
The Big Revival trek marks front of house engineer Chris Rabold’s second tour with Chesney. “I was mixing Lady Gaga and [Chesney production manager] Ed Wannebo heard the show and liked it. She later injured herself and I was off the road for two weeks. I then got a call asking if I could be on a plane the next day, because Kenny had a stadium show in four days,” Rabold recalls. “That’s how I started with Kenny. This time around, we had plenty of lead time and two months of rehearsals, so it was a complete polar opposite experience.”
Rabold’s path to audio began with an interest in music. “I could bang around on a guitar enough to get in trouble, but I decided the console would be my instrument, and I’ve never looked back,” he notes. A year later, he found himself out with Widespread Panic, not in audio, but as a “young buck” on the crew. Deciding he wanted to get serious about audio, he moved to Nashville and then entered the audio program at Middle Tennessee State University, and took any mixing gig (paid or not) he could find — bars, frat parties and regional stuff.
“A few years later, Widespread Panic called me back and I did production and front of house and stayed there doing non-stop touring and one-offs for 11 years,” says Rabold. “I then got a last-minute call to see if I could do Lady Gaga rehearsals, which then included her Monster Ball tour. Later, when her production manager Jason Danter was working on a Beyoncé tour, he called me. So I went from jam and rock bands, and from the Greek Theater to Soldier Field and was in the pop world. Then I did The Fray and another Gaga tour and then on to Kenny Chesney.”
The FOH Gear
“This was my first time out with the SSL Live console, but I had a lot of prep time with it. I like a lot of different desks, but it’s hard not to be interested when the name SSL is on a live board. I had some demos in the States, and last year, when I was in the U.K., I spent some time at their headquarters in Oxfordshire. But it’s been great — really phenomenal,” says Rabold.
In a day when plug-ins seem to rule supreme, one thing that bucks the current trend is the large selection of physical outboard gear in Rabold’s FOH racks. “I’ve never really let it go,” he says of his preference for rack outboard gear. “I think I did one tour that was strictly in-the-box, which was also great, and I would do it again tomorrow. But at the end of the day, I like having certain pieces with me that I’m familiar with. On some of them, I’ve tried the plug-in emulations, and they come close, but it’s just not the same. So if I have a tour that can afford me the luxury of carrying it, I’ll do it.”
And there is a good selection of gear on Rabold’s must-have list. “The API 2500 [discrete stereo bus compressor] is one that — if I get a call tomorrow — will go with me, every time. It’s the bread and butter. I also always have some Distressors around — I can’t seem to shake those. And since 2012, I’ve used Sonic Farm’s Creamliner, which gives me some real tube saturation — not emulation — and has become an indispensable part of my sound. Also on the list is the Tube-Tech CL1-B tube compressor, which I use on everyone’s vocals, as well as a real 1176 on the bass — it’s hard to beat that sound. The Crane Song HEDD is always with me — it’s the greatest for stereo bus thickening from a digital desk and I use it on the drum bus.”
There are also a few less-familiar pieces such as a UBK Clariphonic EQ.
“The UBK Clariphonic EQ does high-frequency coloration, and I use that on instrument buses — guitar and keys — to lift them above the mix. It’s kind of like a non-fatiguing brightener, but not as heavy handed as an exciter.”
Another stalwart is one item that is not in the P.A. chain at all. “At the other end is the Waves Maxx BCL — kind of like my security blanket. I’ll always have an L2 plug-in or hardware version on my record outputs that go to broadcast or, more importantly, anytime the artist or musical director wants a recording. This makes it competitively loud compared to any other mixes they hear on their laptop.”
Back to the Mix
“We don’t really sound check every day, except maybe in stadiums. I’m not really a fan of sound checking every day. If you know your mix is good and you know the P.A. is good, it’s all going to translate. People can sometimes get in trouble when sound checking in empty rooms and make adjustments based on that that they really shouldn’t do.”
Rabold keeps his average show levels around 102 dBa, but admits it can get louder in stadium environments. But making it all easier is the fairly low on-stage volume levels. “Kenny is on in-ears, and all of the amps are in iso boxes. When I began the tour, they were all in sealed cases, with the lids closed. I can’t stand that sound, so we still keep them in there, but the lids are now open. You can still hear them, but they are all offstage, so the level is lessened. In terms of backline, about the only stage sounds are the live drums and a smattering of a few wedges.”
Working with the Nexo rig did require a period of adjustment. “It is a very uniquely voiced rig,” Rabold explains. “The voicing is a little different, but once I was used to it, the system and I came to a happy medium and we’ve been in a good place. Part of its ability to throw comes from its high-end extension. Musically, a lot of systems will roll off in the high frequencies. Nexo makes a very concerted effort to extend that to where you really do get a lot of information above 12 kHz. You might be used to losing a lot of that — even at not-so-great distances, but with the Nexo, it’s all there.”
And SPL’s have never been a problem, says Rabold. “There’s plenty of headroom, and I can really get some gas out of it. It’s absolutely clean — distortion-free. Some of my favorite P.A.’s can be really fatiguing after a while and your ears can hurt. But I can do those same SPL’s with this system and never feel it at the end of a show. And when we go into stadiums — which is really what this tour is mostly based around — that system can throw for a mile, which is incredibly important.”
He adds that there are no issues when it comes to LF punch. “The system is storming in that department. Neither the flown nor ground subs rarely need to go above -10. There’s headroom for days.”
Getting The Sound
“One thing I love about this tour is that every person on that stage is into tone as much as I am,” Rabold notes. “Before the tour I lobbied for — and got — a whole week during rehearsals where I could go over mic selections, placements and positions with the players, record them, and we could sit in my little makeshift control room and go over things together. Part of that was so the players and their respective techs could know what we’re doing and why, so we would all be on the same page. I never previously had that opportunity on any other tour. It’s a very ‘recording studio’ approach, and it worked out great.”
Mics, and More Mics
Rabold definitely is focused on every nuance of the sound. “I brought out a lot of my own mics, with Telefunken’s on the drums, my Royer ribbons on the guitars and a lot of the rest are industry standards. We have 57’s all over the stage, and there’s a reason they sold 7 million of them. On the kick, I am mostly using a Telefunken M82; although I can’t shake the habit of also using a Shure SM91 on kick, which will probably be in that #1 input slot on every tour until I die. The snares are miked with Telefunken M80’s, which I have been using for a while, and these have a nice high-end presence that works as a top or bottom mic. The overheads are these awesome new Telefunken M60’s — it’s crazy to me that a small-diaphragm mic could sound that fat. We’re also using some old standards, such as Sennheiser 421’s on toms.”
And guitars — a key element in any country performance — get plenty of attention. “All the guitar amps are miked with a Shure SM57 and a Royer ribbon, with either the bulk of, or the entire, sound coming from the Royer. Monitor engineers seem to prefer dynamics, so the 57 is there for both color and options. It’s a nice palette to have,” says Rabold. “One of the Royers is the 121L (with the thicker ribbon); one is a 101, which I really dig for live because it’s not as thick as the others and has less coloring in the low mids. I’m also using a Royer 122 active ribbon model. One of the issues with ribbon mics and traditional console preamps is that they have a higher impedance than standard dynamics and condensers, so the sound can be dulled unless you match the impedances. We’re using True Systems’ P-Solo ribbon preamps, which allows the sound to develop with a more defined low-end and a brighter, smoother top-end.”
And vocals — lead and background — are given first-class treatment. “Kenny sings through a Shure KSM-9 HS, which is the retooled capsule for that mic. When I first came onboard, I thought we might change that to something else, but I’ve found that it works very well on Kenny. It fits his voice well, but he cups the mic in six different ways throughout the show and the mic seems to handle that fairly well. He also keeps the mic a way back when he sings and likes to perform out in front of the P.A. and we haven’t had any feedback issues. The KSM-9 HS is not a mic I knew a lot about when we started this, but I’ve had a lot of success with it now and would use it on other tours,” Rabold adds.
“Background vocals are either Telefunken M-81’s or a Heil PR35, which one of the guys preferred. The bass player is right next to the drums and doesn’t sing very loud and ended up on an Audix OM7. We don’t discriminate — the best tool for the task at hand is what we use.”
In terms of direct boxes, “we went through a good bit of pre-production checking of different direct boxes, and we’re using the Sonic Farm 2DI4 Pentode Direct Box on acoustic guitar. For bass, we went through the process of A/B’ing and came up with the Avalon U5, with the tone controls set flat for clean bass and the Palmer PDI-09 for the dirty sound. They had never used a bass amp on other tours, so I put a small Peavey combo amp in an iso box with a Heil 40 mic on it. We also have the usual complement of lots of Radial JDI’s, so it’s industry standard with a smattering of ‘fru-fru.’”
Mix Challenges
This tour definitely does present a few challenges to Rabold. “The main issue is Kenny and his varying mic techniques while he is literally sprinting through a two-hour show. That should be the one that scares me the most, but so far it hasn’t be a problem, a real testament to the Shure KSM-9 HS,” he relates. “Yet what ends up as a challenge is the amount of midrange content in the songs. There are no real ‘traditional’ country arrangements. It’s more like guitar rock, so there are times when its three electric guitars and a B3 or piano going at once. It all comes down to separation between distorted guitar amps and solos, which is kind of where I came from, so I’m comfortable with that and it all comes down to being a very tone-based gig.”
Monitorland
As with a lot of larger, high-input-count tours, The Big Revival tour has two monitor engineers — with Bryan “Opie” Baxley handling the band and Phill “Sidephill” Robinson doing guest performers, the tech mix and Kenny Chesney’s mix. Both monitor engineers are working on PRO 9 consoles.
“I am mixing on the PRO 9, the same as Opie — and take a split through the digital AES ports,” says Robinson. “We both have individual inputs, but I route my outputs through his console via the digital AES ports. This way, we can change his console out if there’s a problem, but if mine goes out, I can just hop on his console and mix from there if I have to. This actually happened once, one night. We lost Opie’s console while the intros were rolling. We had to hold the show a little bit, but we switched the console in 32 minutes. It turned out that the router in there had crashed, so we grabbed another console, got it wired up and — we were back on. A spare is something that you get yelled at all year for having if you don’t use it, but when you do need it, someone asks why didn’t we have two of them?”
The band is on Jerry Harvey Roxanne in-ears and Chesney has Jerry Harvey JH-16 earpieces — with a twist. “We’ve also been using this new product called the REV33 TrueSound. It’s like a distortion stopper and impedance matcher and works like a dongle between the in-ears and the earpack. We’ve had really good results with that thing. It’s designed to stop ear fatigue. I’m a cynic and couldn’t believe this passive unit would work but it really does, and at $100 is very reasonable to save your hearing.”
In terms of his mix, Chesney “wants a pretty general mix with a lot of bass, and I push solos up a bit,” Robinson explains. “It’s also pretty snare-heavy to keep time, because he’s performing out in front of the P.A. for much of the show. I also add click to his mix to help with timing. If you’re way in front of the P.A., it gets crazy out there. Also, in stadium shows he flies in from front of house while singing and he’s way out of time with the P.A. and he’d be lost if we didn’t have the click in there.”
Chesney is using the Shure Axient wireless with a KSM9-HS capsule, and like Rabold, Robinson shares an enthusiasm for the mic. “That mic is phenomenal, he says. “We’re not endorsed by them, but I wouldn’t change that mic for anything. He likes to cup the mic, but cupped or uncupped, it sounds the same.”
Helming the band monitors is Baxley, who does monitors for both Kenny and another Nashville client, Dolly Parton, and has plenty of keep busy with during the shows. “I’m doing nine stereo mixes, because I also send mixes out the production people onstage and I also do a mix for our front of house lighting guy, so he can be right on time with the cues, rather than hearing the delayed mix from the P.A.,” he explains. “And sometimes I get more notes about the mix from him than from the musicians,” he adds, with a laugh.
In terms of RF, wireless coordination is shared between Robinson and backline tech Terry Fox. But it’s a little different this time out, says Robinson. “We just got certified for a part 49 FCC license, which is really nice because it allows us to register our frequencies. And anywhere we are in the continental U.S., if someone else is using our frequencies, we can tell them to turn off. It costs about $150 to apply and then another hundred or so to have someone else fill out the paperwork, but our production manager wanted us to get on the forefront of this. Its a good thing to have.”
Robinson — who has worked with a number of artists, ranging from Dierks Bentley to Uncle Kracker to Colt Ford to Sammy Hagar — has a level-headed philosophy about his gig. “In rock and roll, the average career is about three years (or three weeks), and I’ve been with Kenny for 15 years, he explains. “I’ve mixed FOH with other acts, but I like doing monitors. It’s a very stable groundhog day and I like that. The stress can be extreme some nights, but at the end of the show, you know where you stand — you either have a job or you don’t.”
All in The Family
One think that’s clear about “The Big Revival” — and the number of long-term Kenny Chesney veterans on the tour — is that everyone enjoys the camaraderie and overall vibe of working together as a team. “Now, don’t get me wrong — this is a business and not a hobby, but I’d rather be in a business that I love,” says Robinson. “And after 15 years with Kenny, I have no bad stories. That’s unheard of in the music business!”
That same sentiment is shared by Baxley. “I love working for Kenny, and doing monitors is a great job to have. Kenny is a great boss and is very loyal to his people. It’s like a family out there.”
Kenny Chesney World Tour
Crew
Sound Company: Morris Light and Sound
Production Manager: Ed Wannebo
FOH Engineer: Chris Rabold
Band Monitors: Bryan “Opie” Baxley
Kenny Monitors: Phil “Sidephill” Robinson
System Tech: John Mills
Backline Tech/RF Coordinator: Terry Fox
Crew Chief & P.A. Tech: Justin Meeks
P.A. Techs: Ryan Lewis, Phil Spina, Will Wilson
FOH & Pro Tools Tech: Tanner Freese
Patch & Stage Tech: Rich Rossey
Gear*
P.A. SYSTEM
Main/Aux Hangs: (80) Nexo STM M46/B112 boxes
Downfills, Fills & Delays: (64) Nexo STM M28
Subs: (48) Nexo S118 (flown); (32) RS18 ground stacked—all in cardioid
Front Fills: (14) Nexo PS10
Outfills: (16) Nexo S12
Amplification: (30) Nexo NUAR racks
FOH GEAR
FOH Consoles: SSL Live L500; DiGiCo SD11 (utility production board)
I/O Boxes: (4) SSL ML32.32 w/splits; (2) D 32.32 AES boxes; SSL Black Light II MADI Concentrator
Recording: 128-channel Avid Pro Tools HD rig, Mac Mini and (2) Avid HD MADI Units
Outboard Gear: Tube-Tech CL1B; Universal Audio 1176; (2) API 2500; (2) Empirical Labs Distressors and Fatso Jr.; UBK Clariphonic EQ; Crane Song HEDD; TC Electronic M4000; Bricasti System 4; Waves Maxx BCL; (2) True Systems P-Solo preamps for ribbon mics.
Drive System: (7) Lake LM44; (4) Lectrosonics TX wireless for tuning mics; (4) iSEMcon mics; Earthworks M30 mic; Apogee Big Ben clock; Roland Octa Capture; Cisco 300 Series switches for Dante transport & amp control.
MONITOR GEAR
Monitor Consoles: (2) PRO9s
I/O: (4) DL431; DL451; (2) DL371; (2) KT9650
Wedges: Meyer MJF wedges; Nexo 45N wedges
IEM: Shure PSM 1000 system
Earpieces: JH Roxanne IEM’s (band), JH Audio JH-16 (Chesney)
Recorder: JoeCo
Mics: Telefunken M82, M80s, M60s, M81s; Royer R121L, R101, R122; Shure KSM-9 HS, SM91, SM57s; Audix OM7; Heil PR35, PR40; Sennheiser MD-421s.
Direct Boxes: Sonic Farm 2DI4 Pentode Direct Box; Avalon U5; Palmer PDI-09; Radial Engineering JDI’s.
Wireless: Shure Axient; Shure UHF-R (band wireless)
Test Gear: Shure AXT600 spectrum analyzer
Cabling & Panels: Entertainment Metals, Inc.
AC Power Distros: Lex
*Due to the wide-ranging size of venues on the tour, a varying amount of P.A. is used at each venue, so the numbers of components used can vary widely.
