“Though we’re a big band with a large input list, we’re simplified in many respects,” Kid Rock’s FOH engineer Steve Cross says. The one-off Rock put on at the Scottrade Center arena on New Year’s Eve was certainly big (Lasers! Pyro galore! Balloon drop!) And, simply put, the audio team made it sound great, despite no real rehearsals and the audience hearing it all through a new console. The show was at this town’s home of the NHL Blues hockey team and, as a room, it’s pretty neutral, says Cross. “We had to put up quite a tall array to get the coverage we needed, but it worked out well. It’s always fun to take a large P.A. into a sold-out arena and have a great show. Couldn’t think of a better way to start the New Year… unless palm trees and sand were involved!”
A Series of Fortunate Events
Cross grew up in Bloomington, IN, where he drummed in bands, playing through high school and college. He started at Indiana University as a music major before discovering the school’s recording program. Soon he was mixing in local bars and clubs, and after getting his associates degree, he headed south to Houston and got a job at LD Systems. “They’re a regional live event company and I worked with them for five years, going out on a couple of tours supporting the audio team,” Cross says. “Through a series of fortunate events, in 1999 I started mixing for Lynyrd Skynyrd.” Fortunate indeed, as he was family with them for eight years. Among the many devout fans of that band was one Kid Rock, who would hang out at shows and do some songs with them occasionally. In 2007, Cross moved over to mixing for Rock, and has been FOH for him ever since.
Few artists delve as deeply across a wider range of genres than Rock, something that is equal parts challenging and thrilling for Cross. “He’s always had a taste of southern rock in his work, and the current country songs could be considered in an older style,” he explains. “But when he was younger, there was a more aggressive component, with the heavier rap. So today at his live shows, you literally get everything! You’re going to hear rap, heavy metal, rock, southern rock, country, an acoustic guitar ballad and even a little gospel.”
For the past year, Rock has mostly done one-offs like this New Year’s Eve gig. “We usually get the set list about 10 minutes before show time, and it’s a little different every time. He knows how to move the energy around, and lately, he’ll throw in one or two new songs he’s working on to see how they go over. He likes to change it up for himself so it doesn’t get stale for him.” There are 12 performers on stage: drums, bass, two guitars, keyboardist, percussionist, sax player, three background vocalists and a DJ — plus Rock, who plays a little guitar and a little piano, but mostly is singing and moving all over the stage.
For many years, Sound Image has been his soundco of choice, and since 2011, Rock and the audio team has chosen a L-Acoustics rig. To cover 270 degrees of the arena, they flew six hangs comprised of the K1, K2 and KUDO, as well as KARA front fills and 24 SB-28 ground-stacked double-18 subs.
What is new is the console — Cross recently switched to the Avid S6L. “I’d been on the Avid Profile for a long time, and I really liked the layout and features, but being an older digital console, the fidelity wasn’t quite there,” he says. “When the S6L came out, I looked at it closely and saw it had a lot of features that allowed the switch to go seamlessly. I could load from my Profile to the S6L and with just a little tweaking. It was ready. It was like I was always mixing on it.”
That last point is key as he was taking a big leap of faith because he had zero rehearsal time — though he spent a lot of time in the shop with it going through every single possibility. “I did two one-offs in November, and this is my third show with it! But it’s been a painless upgrade, and fidelity-wise, it blows me away.” He’s using zero outboard gear, and not even that many plug-ins.
Crane Song’s Phoenix is used to bring out some analog coloring, and he uses that primarily on the drums. The Acme Motown DI on bass is “really amazing — it is handmade by a local Detroit guy and modeled precisely from a pair of DI’s he acquired from the original Motown studio. Other than that, there’s not a lot of processing going on. The band plays dynamically, and I don’t have to do much in the way of trickery to make it all come together.”
Mic-wise, there are a lot of Shures: KSM32s are on the guitars, and Rock sings through a 58 wireless, as do everyone else who sings backup on stage. There’s an Audix D6 on the kick drum and AKG 414s overhead and on the cymbals.
Rock is deeply involved in all aspects of his show. “He listens to the board take of every show every night,” Cross reveals. “He used to come back at me with a mountain of notes, though over the years, he trusts me more and just has comments when there’s a major change. But he gets meticulous about everything — it’s a double-edged sword, but a good one! You can’t ever slack, because you know he’s always listening.”
Twice the Fun in Monitor World
Kid Rock and producer/engineer Mike E. Clark’s relationship goes back to the very beginning of both careers. “I was working in this little rap studio, and he was 16 or 17 — he’s white, I’m white, and here we were, doing rap. We both impressed each other and became friends.” Their recording/producing collaboration has always been strong, but when a few years ago Rock asked him if he ever thought of coming out on the road doing monitors, Clark demurred. “I had heard the horror stories!” he laughs. But Rock kept asking, and finally caught Clark in a “why not?” mood. Once he committed, he got serious about it, and was well aware that it’s not a simple transition, but two very different worlds requiring different technical skills and mind sets. Manuals were read, information was gathered. “Then I jumped into the deep end — but fortunately for me, they didn’t beat up too bad,” he winks.
Both Clark and the other monitor engineer Luke Johnson are on Avid Profiles, and both said the move to S6L would likely happen eventually, though they were pleased with the two Avids.
Clark was key to the recent move from a stage of wedges to IEMs. “When we started the last tour, I told Bob [Kid Rock] that if he wanted a cleaner stage, he needed to get everybody on IEMs.” He pointed out to Rock that it would look better and be easier to mix. When he was included in a mass email where Rock mandated the change, he considered it a victory. “It was a huge win!” he laughs again. Shortly after that, it seemed clear that it would be better to bring on a second monitor engineer. “Bob requires 100 percent, and there are a lot of cues happening,” he points out. “When he does things like run behind the drums with the mic, I have to bring it down and bring it right back up again at the exact moment he starts singing again — lots of things like that.”
Two years ago, they brought in Johnson to split monitor duties. Johnson grew up in Rockville, IL, and attended the town’s community college that had a solid A/V department and a professor who thought enough of his abilities to encourage him to move to Nashville and make a go of it. A little persistence and door knocking led to an entry-level job at Sound Image, and he’s proven himself enough to be trusted with this gig.
“Sound Image is good at pushing younger guys into the fire,” he says. As for his fellow monitor engineer, “Bob has been trying to get his studio engineer [Clark] out on the road with him years,” Johnson says, “so it’s really great that Mike finally agreed.” Johnson takes care of eight of the 12 performers on stage, and he does it almost exclusively with IEMs, although there are four or so wedges on stage — considerably fewer than the 20 that used to be there. The wedges are all proprietary Sound Image designs. “I really prefer them, because they really thump and have great gain before feedback.”
Johnson confirmed “it was an executive decision that Kid made to get us all onboard.” Understandably, there was hesitation and even a little resistance, but Johnson said once they were fit and working with them, “it was fun to watch a kind of glow appear on their faces!” he laughs. For most that, they turned to Jerry Harvey Audio, and some Ultimate Ears (Johnson uses JH Roxannes for mixing). Percussionist Larry Fratangelo is the one holdout, preferring Sound Image MA-212 wedges. Keyboardist Jimmy Bones uses both IEMs and an MA-212 keys, and drummer Stefanie Eulinberg uses an 18-inch L-Acoustics DV sub with Sound Image MA-115 on top. “She uses the PQ personal mixer out of our Avid Stage Rack with her Shure P6HW hardwired ear pack.”
The band members all want different mixes, a request that Johnson accommodates. “We have a three-way split from the stage — one going FOH, and the other two going to Mike and myself,” Johnson explains. He adds it all went off without a hitch. “All departments worked well together, and it was obvious Bob and the band had a great time on stage as well!”
When the Lights Go Down
“The fun part for me is when the house lights go down — there’s not one of those moments where I don’t feel that rush of adrenaline. For a split second, the entire weight of the show is on my shoulder,” Cross says. “All the prep, the sound check, it’s all behind me. Now it’s time to do it right or go home, and that, for me, is the best part of the gig.”
Kid Rock NYE 2016
Sound Company: Sound Image
AUDIO CREW
- FOH Engineer: Steve Cross
- Monitor 1 (Kid Rock & BGV): Mike E. Clark
- Monitor 2 (rest of band): Luke Johnson
- System Tech/Crew Chief: Joe Calabrese
- Audio Techs: Taylor Anthony, Dave Shatto
P.A. SYSTEM
- Main Hang: (32) L-Acoustics K-1, (32) K-2,
- Side Hang: (30) L-Acoustics KUDO
- Downfill: (12) L-Acoustics KARA
- Subs: (8) L-Acoustics K1 SB (flown), (24) SB28 (ground)
FOH GEAR
- Console: Avid S6L Console
- Microphones: Shure 57s, 58s, Beta 57A, Beta 58As, Beta 91, Beta 98s; Beyer M88; AKG C414s; Sennheiser e90s
- Direct Boxes: Radial J48 DIs
MONITOR GEAR
- Consoles: (2) Avid Profiles
- Wedges: Sound Image MA Series
- Amplifiers: Crown IT12000HDs
- IEM Earpieces: Jerry Harvey Audio; Ultimate Ears
