Re: Live from a Rush Concert.
So I went and saw Rush on Saturday night in Hamilton Ontario at Copps Coliseum. My seats were in the balcony, about 3 rows up from the bottom, slightly stage Left. I'm estimating about 150 ft. back from the array. I'd give the sound a 6/10. Two problems:
1) A fair amount of echo that smeared out the definition. Not much that you can do about this. From now on I'm going to try to get seats closer to the PA to swing the direct/reverberant ratio more towards hearing the direct sound from the PA. When I saw them in October at the Air Canada Center, I was only 40 ft. back from the downstage Left corner of the stage, listening to the side-hang, and the sound was quite good.
2) Somewhat of a bump around 1.6k that gave everything a harsh, chainsaw-like sound; especially on vocals and guitars. During intermission, I was lucky enough to dodge security and make it down to FOH, where I got to briefly speak to Brad Madix! I told him of the echo problems, and he replied that "there's not much you can do about that except hang delays", to which I agree. As they already have 48 I-5's and 28 I-5b's in the air, any more would be a little crazy, plus would block sightlines. I asked if the array was zoned, and he said the top 3 boxes were on their own send, and that he would send someone to have a listen to the 1.6k honk. I don't think anything changed in the second half.
I do 4-5 arena shows per year, and I know that in those rooms definition can be a problem. I was surprised at how much low end there was up in the balcony, so the I-5b's certainly do their job. Overall, the mix was good, just the system could have been tuned better, at least where I was sitting. Lights, Video and Pyro were awesome. Geddy's voice was a little rough in Subdivisions, but was good from there on. Rush played great. And it was cool to actually speak to Brad.
-Mark