Adamson delivers for Trainspotting charity event
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Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh staged a huge fundraising party celebrating the 21st anniversary of Trainspotting hitting cinemas to help efforts to reopen Leith Theatre after nearly 30 years.
A special birthday screening of Danny Boyle’s iconic movie was staged in Leith Theatre’s auditorium during the Edinburgh Festival last month. The 1200-strong audience were urged to get into the party spirit by joining in and even chanting some of the iconic dialogue from the film.
Welsh joined forces with arts collective Neu! Reekie! to stage the fundraise alongside post-punk band The Fire Engines and celebrated US record producer and DJ Arthur Baker.
Ewan Bremner, who played Spud in the film also appeared at the event reading excerpts from a new Irvine Welsh novel, which will reveal what has happened to Spud. Ewen Bremner is also a Leith Theatre ambassador and contributed to the event.
To ensure dynamic sound and a party atmosphere for this important fundraising event The Warehouse used six Adamson S10 line array loudspeakers and four S119 subs per side, with S10 front-fills, powered by Lab.gruppen PLM20K44 amplifiers running Lake Processing. New Shure Axient Digital radio mics with KSM9 heads where used for speech and vocals together with a Midas Pro2 mixing console at front of house. Aidan Thomson from The Warehouse mixed the show with Graeme Brown as systems engineer.
Derek Blair from The Warehouse commented: “It was such a privilege to be involved in this charity event. Leith Theatre is going to be very important venue for Edinburgh. To have a venue of that scale and calibre on that side of town is going to be crucial. The event marked the 21st birthday for Trainspotting the movie, but importantly was also about putting Leith Theatre back on the map so the sound was critically important.
“Working with Leith Theatre Technical consultant Graham Wade, The Warehouse had to design an audio system that would work with a mix of speech, music and cinematography across a 1200 capacity multi-levelled auditorium. The audio quality and dynamic flexibility of Adamson S10 system was a perfect fit. The system provided clarity and range as well as an incredible punch during the cinema screening and musical performances.”
Originally built as a gift to Leith after its controversial amalgamation with Edinburgh in 1920, Leith Theatre was almost destroyed in a war-time bomb blast and nearly sold off in 2004 after falling into disrepair since its closure in 1988.
The Leith Theatre Trust took over the lease of the art deco venue from City of Edinburgh Council last year. It was nearly sold off by the council in 2004 to pay for the revamp of the King's Theatre before an outcry from locals forced a rethink.
Welsh was unveiled in January as the patron of the Leith Theatre Trust, which has been given a lease with the city council while it raises funds to restore the building. Rod Stewart, Shirley Manson and The Proclaimers have since been confirmed as ambassadors.
(Jim Evans)
