SR/Live Thu, July 03, 2008

The Foo Fighters are currently on a world tour in support of their album, “Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace.” Fans around the world are being introduced to a technically complex new stage show, featuring a circular auxiliary stage descending from the ceiling. This “wow-factor” was previewed at the end of 2007 during the band’s nine-date arena shows in the UK, where the Foo’s high-energy rock show on the A “main” stage was combined with an acoustic performance in the round on the second, B “floating” stage. The tour’s greatly expanded equipment list features Sennheiser microphones exclusively - evolution e 600 and e 900 series, and dynamic MD models.

As long-time band monitor engineer Ian Beveridge details, “There’s a big ring at front-of-house and the B stage descends and slots into the ring. The whole backline and everything comes down on it. The band plays about forty minutes on the A stage, followed by an acoustic set on the B stage, and then they come back for a big rock finish on the main stage. That’s what makes it interesting. It’s unusual to do a true acoustic band show out in the middle of the hall.”

The dual-stage set-up certainly adds a layer of complexity to the audio. “When Dave goes off the main stage, the guitar is actually being picked up from the A stage but it has to be heard at the B stage. Then, his vocal is at the B stage but the band has to be able to hear it on the A stage, so it gets crazy. But it’s worked out well so far,” reports Beveridge.

The Foo Fighters are joined on the B stage - which is separated from the main stage by a 100-foot walkway - by guest musicians Pat Smear (guitar), Rami Jaffee (piano, Hammond B3 organ) and Drew Hester (percussion), who all played on the Foo’s fully acoustic tour last year, plus Jessy Greene (violin, cello). There are three vocal positions set up for band frontman Dave Grohl, each featuring Sennheiser’s MD 431 II microphone, a model on which he has relied since mid-2005 for its tight polar pattern and rejection characteristics. Taylor Hawkins (drums), Chris Shiflett (guitar) and Jessy Greene all provide backing vocals through evolution series e 945s.

According to Bryan Worthen, front-of-house engineer for the band, “The 431 is really, really flat at the high-end. It’s crazy how much low-end is in that microphone, too. At times Dave sings really quiet, then he screams his head off, so I insert an Avalon 737 on his main vocal and spare, roll off some of the low frequencies, add a tiny boost of the high-end for a little more sparkle, then let it rip! It sounds great and we’ve never had major problems with feedback at any of the shows.”

Due to the extremely high sound levels on the compact B stage, where six of the musicians rely on under-floor wedges for monitoring, tight microphone pick-up patterns are certainly an advantage, noted Beveridge. “So we ended up with e 904s on the guitars on the B stage. They worked best,” he says. On the main stage, Grohl’s guitar amps are miked using an MD 421 and an e 935 with another MD 421 on Shiflett’s amp set-up.

Various evolution e 600 and e 900 series microphones are used on the drum kits on both the main and B stages, including e 902s on the respective kick drums. Shiflett and Nate Mandel (bass) are using Sennheiser G2 personal monitoring systems. “They don’t need to pull anything out or swap a pack or anything, they just walk out to the B stage with the packs on,” says Beveridge.

The Foo Fighters kicked off their 2008 Tour in Sunrise, Florida on January 16th and wrapped up their run across Canada at the end of March. The band then heads off to Japan, New Zealand and Australia in April before traveling to the UK in June. Their single “The Pretender” held the number one spot on the Modern Rock chart for a record 19 weeks. They followed up with another number one song “Long Road To Ruin” and are about to kick off the third single, “Let It Die.”

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