Earlier this year, Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan embarked on a North American tour to mark the 30th anniversary of Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, her breakout third album. The 12-song collection sold over three million copies and teed up 1997’s Surfacing, the eight-times Platinum album that garnered McLachlan two Grammy and four Juno Awards and spawned several hit singles, including the now ubiquitous “Angel.”
The Fumbling Towards Ecstasy Tour kicked off on May 25 in Seattle, Washington, and showcased the powerful capabilities of the largest L-Acoustics L Series professional sound system on a tour to date, comprising three L2 elements over one L2D per side, supplied by tour provider Solotech. L-Acoustics Kara II side-fill hangs, paired with both flown and ground-based KS28 subs as well as Kiva II front-fills, provided additional coverage on the tour, which visited major venues across the US and Canada, including Hollywood Bowl, Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado, and Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
Lee Moro, Senior Vice President at Solotech US Live Productions, recalls that Dan Cleland, McLachlan’s tour director and FOH engineer, called him ahead of the tour. “He said, ‘Get me a good system; I love L-Acoustics.’ And he said, ‘Get me a good console; I like DiGiCo.’ He gave me the ability to send something out that I thought was appropriate, because he values my judgment, and I value his. It’s great to have that kind of mutual respect and trust.”
The L Series proved its exceptional power and clarity at the demanding Red Rocks Amphitheatre, where it made its debut at the iconic venue. “I’ve mixed at Red Rocks many, many times so I know the challenges,” Moro says. “It’s 300-plus feet to the back row, and with a dynamic show like Sarah McLachlan’s, where she’s sitting at a piano and whispering into the microphone, the person in the back row needs to hear just as well as the person in the front row.”
After receiving assurances from L-Acoustics, he says, Moro sent the tour out with an L Series speaker system and a DiGiCo Quantum338 console at FOH. “From the accounts that I heard from our audio team and Dan, who was mixing the Red Rocks show, they had an amazing night,” he reports.
Fred Cantin, Solotech’s system engineer on the tour, emphasizes the L Series compact design and lighter weight reduced the tour’s transportation footprint. In practical terms, Cantin, who has previously worked with Michael Bublé, Heart, Andre Rieu, Michael Jackson, and many others, reports that the L Series speakers made the job a little easier on this tour for him and the audio crew. An L Series system is easier to set up and tune, since it involves far fewer individual boxes and is designed with a fixed curvature—each L2 or L2D element is configured with a similar contour as four K2 elements. With a standard PA hang, the angles between each element in, say, a 16-box array all need to be calculated and individually set. But with L Series, he says, “You just send the boxes to the stage, the guys pin it together, lift it up in the air, we adjust the trim and the angle of the bumper, and that’s about it. For load-out, we just drop it, put it in the tray, and send it to the truck.”
What’s more, he says, L-Acoustics design optimizes each L Series module’s performance as a single cohesive unit, rather than requiring each element to be tuned separately, as may be the case in a conventional line array. “They tune it so that, by itself, it responds well. When we add a second one, it will integrate itself. And when you add a third and a fourth, they all integrate well.”
The result, Cantin quickly discovered, is seamless and even audio across the coverage area. “You have a consistent sound when you walk from the downstage edge all the way to the back of the venue,” he observes. “Normally, you would have fluctuations, and there are physical reasons that would explain that, but this system is extremely consistent and clean. It gives you a lot of space to do your mix, and your mix will sound great.”
McLachlan, whose sales now total over 40 million albums worldwide, is considered a Canadian national treasure, not only by her myriad fans but also those who have toured with her. Moro, who had a brief opportunity to both mix FOH and tour manage McLachlan on a string of dates some years ago, says, “As a Canadian, I grew up listening to Sarah. She is one of the most amazingly talented artists and always has some of the most amazing musicians with her. She goes from a whisper to a scream and is every bit as massive and as whispery quiet as you can imagine. It’s a very tough gig as an audio engineer, but also one of the easiest gigs for an audio engineer, because she’s so good.”
The new L Series was an ideal match for such a dynamic performer. As Cantin comments, “The rejection from the system is great when you’re onstage. The only place where we knew the PA was even on was when we did the beautiful but acoustically challenging Greek Theatre in Berkeley, where every sound that goes out comes straight back.”
To capture McLachlan’s dynamic vocal performance, he continues, “We need a quiet stage, so there are no wedges or side-fills, and guitar amps are backstage in iso cabinets. There are a lot of condenser mics onstage, so everything bleeds. There is a grand piano that we mic and use live, but we can use the MIDI out of the piano. Mostly, if it’s only her and the piano, we use the acoustic piano, not the electronic version. But when there are drums, there’s a lot of drums in the piano, so for those songs, we rely on the MIDI.”
“Because of the different sized venues, the system had to be versatile,” Moro sums up. This being a five-truck tour, size and weight were also factors, and the L Series elements are almost half the size and 40% the weight of a comparable multi-element array. “It checked a lot of boxes – superior sound quality, versatile coverage for different venues, and a reduced environmental impact. It was a match made in heaven to showcase this system because it delivered exceptional results night after night. And that’s what we strive for.”
