In March, Guns N’ Roses brought the “Chinese Democracy” tour to Centenario Stadium in Montevideo, Uruguay for an enthusiastic crowd estimated at more than 30,000 people, with sound reinforcement for the outdoor concert employing a high quantity of D.A.S. Audio Aero Series 2 and Aero line arrays loudspeaker.
Three sound service companies united for this large undertaking: Leggio Sonido (directed by Jorge Leggio), Ariel Marti’s Marti Audio, and Victor Lampariello’s Compañía Uruguaya de Sonido. Together, these firms pooled an impressive amount of equipment together to help pull off one of the most memorable hard rock concerts to hit Montevideo in quite some time.
Jorge Leggio, director of Leggio Sonido, discussed the nature of the setup. “This was an outdoor concert where the crowd was situated on the soccer field, in an area about 100 wide meters by 85 meters long,” he explained.
“There was also a second area, which was elevated 20 meters high with an incline of 35 degrees in regard to the ground. The stage was used in a lateral position facing 85 meters across the distance of the second level.”
The main PA system consisted of two distinct loudspeaker setups—one for the instruments and a second system dedicated solely to lead vocalist Axel Rose’s voice.
The ‘instrument’ system was built using 32 D.A.S. Audio Aero 50 large format, 3-way line array modules—flown sixteen elements per side at a height of 12 meters.
These loudspeakers were driven by Lab Gruppen FP 10,000Q power amplifiers, with loudspeaker management tasks handled by a Lake processor.
The ‘vocal’ system used another 16 Aero 50’s—flown eight per side at a height of 10 meters.
These were accompanied by an additional eight Aero 12A powered, 2-way loudspeaker systems that were positioned over the center of the stage and flown at a height of 12 meters.
