“Queen is an old school rock band, so you can’t snapshot with a digital console and count on that working every night,” says monitor engineer Gary Stokes. “They don’t play the same every night, so you have to ride those levels.”
On the current Queen + Adam Lambert outing, there is indeed a lot of fader riding, but no one is complaining. There’s been ample work for sound company Clair Global and the entire tech crew. The North American leg of the sellout tour kicked off June 19 at Chicago’s United Center and wrapped up Toronto’s Air Canada Centre on July 27, with several additional shows added along the way to keep up with the cheering fans and rave reviews.
Fronting the band in the tough-to-fill shoes for the late, great Freddie Mercury is 2009 American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert, joined by Queen alumni guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor, supported bassist Neil Fairclough, keyboardist Spike Edney and Taylor’s son, Rufus Tiger Taylor, on percussion.
On the tech side, making sure everything sounds as good as it looks, are Robert Collins at FOH, Kerry Lewis (band monitors), Gary Stokes (monitors for Adam Lambert) and system engineer David Coyle.
It’s big, it’s loud, it’s brassy and it’s a lot of work. Coyle says the biggest amount of work in setting up the show is on the stage. “We’re carrying 36 wedges and three side fills — it’s vast. I have half a truck of gear just for the stage.” Sound checks tend to be long, often still going on past when the doors open. But that’s okay with the crew, because they know that with this band, precision is important.
“This is a straightforward rock ‘n’ roll show,” declares Coyle. And the goal is to have it sound “like the record.”
Mic Mash-ups and Other Tales
Systems engineer Coyle has been with Clair for 21 years, and this is first outing with Queen. “For the system, we have the Clair i-5 3-way boxes as main and side hangs, augmented with BT-218 double-18 subs,” he explains. The setup also includes “old school analog racks” including dbx 160 compressor/limiters and Klark Teknik DN 360 EQs.
Coyle says the new thing on the tour is the Shure Axient wireless transmitters topped off with a Heil PR-35 capsule used by Lambert. “The capsule complements his voice, and Adam and his engineers like using it.”
There’s more interesting miking going on in that mash-up: Drummer Roger Taylor has his cymbals miked from underneath. The decision for that is practical: The large “Q” set piece/video screen lowers to the point where overhead mics were not practical. “When the “Q” came all the way down [in rehearsal], we knew we had to go for a different selection of drum mics,” Coyle says. “We couldn’t do standard miking practices, and the situation wasn’t ideal, but we worked it out with different mics.” They ended up using a combination of DPA and Audix mics, and with some custom clips, made it all work.
Sacrifice? Not at all. “It’s not really a sacrifice to use a microphone you haven’t used before,” Coyle explains. “We had a lot of different choices, and we went through a lot of looking at everything — and sometimes, being forced to use something different isn’t bad.”
Guitarist’s Brian May’s amps are captured using (again, old school) Sennheiser 421’s, placed left, right and center. “He has all the amps up all the time, so it’s about how loud you can get it.”
The Lambert Challenge
While few who have seen the show would say that Lambert is doing anything less than a stellar job vocally, for the guys twisting the knobs for the audience, it’s a tale of two generations. When Lambert goes out playing his own music, he likes his stage quiet. There are no guitar cabinets, certainly no wedges, and even his drummer’s kit has more padding.
But with Queen? Let’s get that stage loud. Thus the extra monitor engineer, mixing only for Lambert.
“It was a good decision to bring Adam’s own guy out,” Coyle says, of Gary Stokes, who handles the task for the frontman. “The two monitor engineers are both fantastic, and they work together really well.”
Stokes has been working mixing boards for 30 years, and not as a monitor engineer. “I’m primarily a FOH guy, so this is a bit unusual for me,” he says. “When I do work as a monitor engineer, it’s usually because the situation is problematic.”
Stokes has a history with Lambert, having been his FOH for the singer/songwriter’s own shows. “He is an amazing singer and has an amazing range and pitch. I work for k.d. lang a lot, and she, too, has an amazing range and pitch. Really good singers have really good hearing!” he laughs. “They hear subtle details more than average singers, and consequently, they have more specific needs. There’s not a static mix that will make them comfortable or happy through a whole show or even a whole song. When they go in the higher register, you need to ride a fader or EQ a bit, for example.”
Stokes is especially sensitive to how his mix for singers can cause a physical reaction on stage. “For example, too much compression will cause certain singers to move the microphone away from them, causing another problem where you need even more compression,” he explains. “In Adam’s case, it’s all very subtle. When he says he wants his vocal brighter, he wants just a half dB more.”
Another challenge comes from Lambert being such a dynamic performer. “He likes to work the crowd, and get them involved.” Key to creating the excitement level he wants is having an exciting mix in his head, Stokes adds. “He’s rare in monitor world in that he wants the full production in his ear, so I mix it just like I would if I was doing FOH, except I take the other non-vocal elements back a bit, take out some of the low-mids of instruments, and I might push up some other instrument that are a good reference for him to find his pitch. It really ends up being an FOH mix for an audience of one, with a few qualifiers thrown in.”
But “Adam is very sensitive, and he doesn’t want his mix to be too loud, which I appreciate, because I’m listening to it all at the same volume,” Stokes says. Lambert’s IEM’s are JH Audio’s JH16.
Lambert is “all over the stage,” Stokes adds. “I can’t predict where he’s going to be and sometimes I can’t see him on this big stage with a big set, and that’s a bit dangerous!” So with him moving around all the time, including the louder part of the stage where May generally presides, there’s a bit of a battle with what is bleeding through his IEMs. “That’s the battle, both audio-wise and psychologically: dealing with the ambient noise.” The sound of the hall and the slapback it might offer is another aspect he’s constantly dealing with.
Stokes makes it all happen with a Midas PRO9. “I find that console to be the most organic for a digital board, and it gets to what I want quickly. I come from the old analog world, and this is really hands-on, with the faders being right in front of you. Other digitals don’t do that so well, they kind of fake it.”
Stokes relies on the TC Electronic Reverb 4000 rather than the built-reverb on the board. “It’s a really reliable reverb, and you can get to what you need quickly. I have to adjust the reverb from room to room and even from song to song, so it’s more convenient.” Another tool he’s using for Lambert is the UK-based UTA’s D2, with an XTA DPA324 for a little bit of de-essing.
Is This The Real Life?
From an audio perspective, there is one very “dangerous” part of the show … and that’s during “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Lambert trades lead vocals with the late Freddy Mercury via a video clip of him doing the song with the band live in the 1970s.
“We don’t use backing tracks for anything else,” Coyle says. “We practiced it a lot in rehearsals. And it’s challenging, as you’re dealing with whatever sound and image quality there was with the original track. We had to transfer it over to digital and get everybody locked on a time code to get it right with the show.”
Favorite for Coyle? “Sorry, I can’t put anything above Rhapsody.” Once a classic, always a classic, and with 15,000 fans chiming in with “Galileo, Galileo,” the sound has to be as big — or larger — than the elaborate staging.
Queen + Adam Lambert Tour
Audio Crew
Sound Co: Clair Global
FOH Engineer: Robert Collins
Monitor Engineer: Kerry Lewis (band)
Monitor Engineer: Gary Stokes (Adam)
System Engineer: David Coyle.
P.A. Gear
Main Hang: (28) Clair i-5 3-way line arrays
Side Hang: (16) Clair i-5 3-way line arrays
Subwoofers: (12) Clair BT-218 double-18 boxes
Front Fill: (8) Clair i-3 140-degree wide-throw systems
Pit Fill: (2) Clair p-2 2-way boxes
House Amplification: Lab.gruppen PLM-20000 (12 amp racks)
FOH Gear
Console: DiGiCo SD7 with three SD-Racks
Outboard: (2) Summit TLA100A tube compressors (Adam vocals); (4) dbx 160SL compressors (band vocals); TC Electronic System 6000 for vocals; onboard DiGiCo effects for instruments.
Playback: 82 channels of Avid Pro Tools PT10-HD for “Rhapsody” archive.
Monitor Gear
Console: DiGiCo SD7 with three SD-Racks (Queen)
Console: Midas PRO9 (Adam)
Outboard: TC Electronic Reverb 4000; UTA D2; XTA DPA324 de-esser.
IEM Earpiece (Adam): JH Audio JH16
In-Ear Hardware: Shure PSM1000’s
Wedges: (36) Clair SRM wedges
Sidefills: (3) Clair R4’s 3-way full range
Monitor Amplification: Lab.gruppen PLM-20000’s
Photos by Steve Jennings
