SR/Live Sat, November 22, 2008

A triumvirate of pro audio’s fourth estate descended on Wembley Stadium the first weekend in July to visit with Metallica’s FOH engineer “Big Mick” Hughes and see his Midas XL8 digital console. Having mixed over 1,600 shows for Metallica since joining them at Front of House 23 years ago, Hughes is truly the Hagrid of Heavy Metal.

On Saturday, July 7th, Wembley was the site of one of the eight Live Earth concerts around the world held over a 24-hour period, beginning with Aussie Stadium in Sydney and timed to spread West throughout the day, ending with a free concert for an estimated 400,000 on the Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro. In London, it was a rare weekend of summer sunshine that also saw the Tour de France start there for the first time.

Wembley crowds were estimated at 70,000 for Live Earth and over 65,000 on Sunday for Metallica’s concert, but with parking lots charging 25 pounds and accessed by winding industrial roads, the prudent commute to Wembley is via the Tube on the Metropolitan Line. A reformed Genesis kicked off Live Earth after an all-star drum ensemble pounded out SOS, but the stadium was still half-empty at half past one.

Performances by The Beastie Boys, Black-Eyed Peas, The Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Madonna – who closed the show – plus 15 others all playing 3- or 4-song mini-sets, including a surprise performance by Spinal Tap of “Stonehenge”, their new single, “Warmer Than Hell”, and “Big Bottomed Girl”, where they were joined by a dozen other bass players on the bill. Preceding them was Metallica, who played their own concert the following day using essentially the same loudspeaker system.

Sound services in the UK were provided by Britania Row, who provided a similar system the week prior for Wembley’s star-studded Concert for Diana. The main system was comprised of two pairs of 16-box EV X-Line arrays – one for the long throw down the center, the other for sidestadium coverage – with a dozen double- 18 subs flown in a column between. Ground-stacked in front of the stage were four evenly spaced piles of a dozen subs each. About 250 feet back, spot towers also supported 20-box Outline Butterfly line-arrays used as left and right delay systems, and a 10-box array hung from the center tower. Ten-box Butterfly arrays were also flown to cover the extreme sides of the stadium.

For Live Earth, an off-center mix position house-left, about 150 feet from the stage, was loaded with a half-dozen DiGiCo digital consoles, including two main D5 desks at the front of the mix position serving each side of the revolving stage, an offline desk for checking and tweaking files, plus Madonna’s D5. The following day’s Metallica concert was mixed from a house-right position equipped with Big Mick’s Midas XL8 console. A DiGiCo D1 production console feeding four Dolby Lake Processors was used both days, manned by system engineer Sherif el Barbari. A Yamaha PM-5D was employed for Metallica support acts Mastodon, H.I.M and Machine Head.

Hughes’ modest outboard rack is fitted with a 3U Midas DL451 for local analog and digital I/O. The only outboard effect utilized is a Korg DRV- 3000 for a particular repeat that also pitch-shifts in “Master of Puppets”, while all other effects are internal. A Waves MAXX BCL is connected via AES digital. Also in the rack is a Klark Teknik DN 9331 Helix Rapide with 31 motorized-faders for controlling the XL8’s onboard graphic EQs. Playback includes a Sony CDP-11 for “Long Way to The Top” and other walk-in music, and a 360 Systems Instant Replay atop the rack for Metallica’s “Ecstasy of Gold” intro track.