Skip to content

Gearhouse SA Supplies R Kelly Shows in Africa

Share this Post:

JOHANNESBURG — Gearhouse South Africa supplied sound and crew for R Kelly’s first visit to South Africa. After five days of production rehearsals at Sun City Superbowl, there was one show there and another at Cape Town’s Grand West Casino. Michael Lewis managed the project for Gearhouse, and their teams worked very closely with R Kelly’s FOH sound engineer Rob “Cubby” Colby. Llewellyn Reinecke, Gearhouse Audio’s systems engineer, also looked after FOH.

Colby specified a V-DOSC system, which was flown in Sun City as 12 elements a side for the main left and right hangs, complete with three dv-DOSCs underneath for front downfills.

Colby also specified a 1:1 ratio for subs and V-DOSC, so the 24 subs  were ground stacked 3 high and 4 wide on the floor of the Superbowl.  Additional hangs of 6 V-DOSCs a side formed outfills for the 9,500 capacity arena.

These were all driven from a combination of LA8 and LA48 amps, and the system was processed with Lake Dolby run via a wireless remote tablet — a standard setup for Gearhouse.

Gearhouse SA provided Colby’s FOH console, a Digico D5, along with a second one for monitor engineer John “Elmo” Sheldon.

A major challenge for the Gearhouse Audio crew was flying the V-DOSC system so it was positioned precisely where Cubby had stipulated it should be in the room — a challenge that was augmented when his plane was delayed, so it had to be done without him being there.

Reinecke used L-Acoustics Sound Vision acoustic modelling software to draw the room and pinpoint the right positions and worked closely with Gearhouse Rigging, which engaged in some serious bridling work to get the exact PA flying positions.

 “It was really interesting — and very demanding — working with Cubby, which was great,” Reinecke said. “He’s one of the most experienced engineers in the industry and everything had to be exactly right.”

Onstage, Gearhouse Audio’s Andy Furtner oversaw monitor world, which consisted of a row of L-Acoustics HiQ wedges powered by LA 24 amps running along the front line to provide some air movement, together with four Turbo 718s and four Floodlights for side fills.

The eight piece band and R Kelly were all on PMs — they used their own molds, with Gearhouse supplying Sennheiser belt packs. The stage was really quite loud for them as they are used to an in-ear environment, but for the Gearhouse crew, it was almost eerily quiet onstage.

The shows were produced/promoted in SA by Roddy Quinn and Real Concerts.

For more information , please visit www.gearhouse.co.za