The latest world tour by heavy metal legends Iron Maiden – a two-year-long journey called “Somewhere Back in Time” – has taken the veteran band around the world several times, and one thing that’s stayed consistent is sound reinforcement system headed by EAW components.
For the last few U.S. and Canada legs of the tour, U.K.-based touring system provider ML Executives, Iron Maiden’s long-time SR provider, has shipped consoles and monitors overseas for the band, and Nashville-based Brantley Sound Associates has provided the house sound system.
The flown main hangs consist of 13 EAW KF760 long-throw line array modules and three KF761 short-throw line array modules, while the side hangs include seven KF760s and three KF761s. In arenas with 270-degree dispersion, two EAW KF850e enclosures per side are added for extreme side fill, with two more ground-stacked on either side of the stage.
Additionally, there are a dozen SB1000e large-format subwoofers with two KF300i medium-format loudspeakers per side on top of the subs, as well as four KF300i positioned in the two cutouts in between three stage thrusts for vocal fill.
“This is a rock ‘n’ roll PA system,” says Brantley Sound Tech Joe Calabrese. “It’s powerful – the PA lets us convey the enormity of Iron Maiden’s sound with amazing fidelity, not just to the people in the ‘good seats,’ but at the back of the arena as well.”
For the final show of the tour, which ended in Ft. Lauderdale just days before the release of Iron Maiden’s tour movie Flight 666, the band changed the monitor system slightly, adding EAW SM15 and SM200iH stage monitors, a configuration the band also used on North America dates in 2008. Additionally, ML Executives has supplied Iron Maiden with EAW KF850e and SM200iH on stage for the entire tour.
“The SM15 can get absurdly loud, and it’s an incredibly great-sounding main monitor,” says Calabrese, who notes that eight of them are used for downstage mixes. “It packs a massive punch.”
