I was surprised to learn that the Concert Sound proprietary monitors onstage for Clapton actually have an 18” as their LF component, rather than the industry standard 15” or 12”. “They’re so warm!” Kerry told me. I made the mistake of asking him what the crossover point was coming out of the 18”, and he referred me to the head office in England. If I was a real spy, I wouldn’t have asked, but just leaned a little closer to the KT analogue crossover and scoped it out! Foiled again!

Monitor Support Rack Monitor Amp Racks (Lab.Gruppen Amps) Concert Sound Custom 3-Way Stage Monitor with 18-in Woofer

Kerry Lewis has emerged from many years of hard work with a light in his eye and a spring in his step. That fact is more impressive to me than all the gear numbers and new toys in the world. We took a walk over to stage left and checked out the setup that Kerry came up with for keyboardist David Sancious. There I saw the only set of wedges onstage that have 15” speakers, with an independent amp rack, just for stereo keyboard, set up behind the player; parallel to them is a pair like everyone else’s, that bring the other musicians’ sounds to Mr. Sancious. Could you do this on a little stage? Not with these particular boxes, but you could use a pair of smaller powered speakers for a less wealthy keyboardist. The crucial element is this – let’s assume a problem with the monitor rig. The drummer can keep playing. The bass player and guitarist have their amps. The keyboardist is the only one who is, in so many cases, absolutely dependent on their wedge mix. One night, on this Clapton tour, Kerry’s Midas console did freak out and start re-setting itself, a process that takes a couple minutes and does not pass signal while it is taking place. After a few cycles of that, Eric Clapton directed Kerry to just shut the desk down. Because Kerry had David Sancious sending a stereo signal to his own amp rack and dedicated wedges, the show could go on.

This really struck a chord with me, because two weeks earlier, I had to put a show on hold in front of 1500 people, because my digitally-muted monitor desk-du-jour was having a cow. And without his wedge mix, the keyboardist in that band had nothing. Kerry’s solution made so much sense to me, and also relieves the monitor mixer of constantly making changes for a player, if their patches are not unified. Let the player make himself happy!

Up at the Hyatt House bar on Sunset Strip, we reconvened after the show, first fighting our way through date-night traffic. Spectrum owner Ken Porter arrived and joined myself and our site’s fearless leader Ken Berger, PSW’s Rob Carey, Mr. Lewis and Mr. Collins, and FOH tech Curtis Flatt. We hoisted a few and had a good time, winding down as older gentlemen do. :-)

Please check out the Q&A with Curtis Flatt and the interview with the head of Concert Sound, Tim Boyle. I asked Curtis whether it was a rush, the nights that he personally mixed EC, when Robert had to leave the tour briefly. Tim Boyle speaks about how when an artist is happy with the sound, they actually play their best, which, guess what, in turn sounds good!

I don’t hear that being discussed often enough in the constant hollering about line arrays, neodynium, Kevlar, steering and digital this or that. All that is a means to an end, supporting the music.

I would like to thank Robert Collins for his hospitality in seating this aging Cream fan there at FOH behind him; it was a very, very special night.
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Tools of the Trade

Midas XL4 console
DBX Quantum Digital Mastering Processor
EAW KF750 and 900 speakers
Meyer SIM systm
BSS Soundweb
QSC/Peek Audio RAVE is a digital audio transport system
Mackie HDR24/96
Yamaha RCS Rev 1
TC Electronics M1000
XTA and Klark Teknik graphic EQ’s
BSS Varicurve

Related Stories:

Clapton System Network
Q&A with Spectrum's Curtis Flatt
Demanding Excellence: Concert Sound Limited
Clapton and the EAW KF900 System