It was Adlib's second Specials tour and the first for monitor systems engineer Marc Peers who jumped at the opportunity to be onboard. "It's an absolute privilege to get to work with one of the best and most original bands of that era," he enthuses.
With up to 13 musicians and performers onstage at peak times, monitor world was quite frenetic. Peers was working alongside Specials monitor engineer Pete Abbott, who has been with them since 2009, like Adlib, coming onboard via tour manager Mike Darling.
Adlib supplied 16 d&b M2 wedges, powered by D12 amplifiers, which handled a total of 12 mixes. Lynval Golding, Neville Staple and the flute player used IEMs, together with the string section so a mix of Sennheiser G3 supplied by ADLIB and G2 owned by the band was utilised, complete with a technical IEM mix for the backline techs.
Abbott specified a Soundcraft Vi6 console not only as he likes the sound of it, but because it has two sets of fully independent PFL buses, one of which he uses for wedges and the other for IEMs. It also has a plethora of input & outputs busses - of which they used 46 inputs and 28 outputs. "It has plenty of scope and is one of the best sounding boards available right now," he sums up.
Side-fills - two ARCS boxes per-side, were flown to give the best coverage in both vertical and horizontal planes, complimented with two SB28 subs per-side.
At the other end of the multicore, keeping it loud and clear were Adlib's James Neale, systems engineer for the FOH system, and band engineer Marcos Ferrari from Brazil who has has been mixing The Specials since their reformation.
They used L-Acoustics K1 for the main hangs, with eight per side, plus thre Kara down-fills per-side for the theatre venues. At the Ricoh Arena in Coventry & Alexandra Palace in London they added six V-DOSC delays a-side two-thirds of the way down the hall, just behind the FOH position.
The subs were four SB28s a-side on the floor, and a selection of ARCs & dV-DOSC cabinets were used for front-fills. The FOH console was a Midas Heritage H3000.
Adlib's account handler Phil Kielty says, "It's great to see the Specials going stronger than ever and getting such a great reception wherever they go, bringing their magic and musical heritage now to a new generation. I was brought up on The Jam, The Specials etc and everyone here at Adlib is thrilled to work with them again - and it's always a pleasure to be part of Mike Darling's team."
(Jim Evans)
