It was a night of great music and high emotion for the estimated 500,000 fans in attendance. The audio and lighting equipment for both concerts was supplied by Italian company MMS srl. of Solaro (Milan); Maddalena Tronchetti Provera and Vittorio Quattrone of the Four One Music company organised the event.
The event was also a great success for Texim, official Italian distributors of the Electro-Voice, Midas and Klark Teknik equipment that comprised the entire sound reinforcement system. This year Texim celebrates 30 years as an Electro-Voice distributor, as well as 35 years in the professional audio business.
The event location included one of the most famous streets in Rome - that running from the Coliseum to the Imperial Forums - along which sound reinforcement was provided for one kilometre. Alessandro Galli was responsible for event production, with support from Diego Bertuzzi. Milan-based Stage System supplied the stage and the layer for the delay towers. The EASE projections for the audio system were made by the Texim Technical Department in collaboration with Giovanni Colucci and Massimo Sartirana of MMS, who made the final projections for the whole system.
The main system comprised 56 Electro-Voice X-Line enclosures (24 x Xvls + 4 x Xvlt + 28 Xsub) flown from four X-Line grids. The delay systems included 112 XLC127+ speakers suspended in the layer towers, and 32 Xsubs and 12 XLC118 subs in total.
Despite difficulties posed by the climate (with temperatures at times reaching 35°C in the days leading up to the concert and 90% humidity on event day) and the reflective surfaces of monuments and buildings, the alignment and equalisation of the system based on the EASE projections turned out to be perfect. This ensured that the hundreds of thousands attending the event were treated to sound of the highest quality. Final fine-tuning was performed by PA manager Massimo Sartirana and resident sound engineer Domenico Carnuccio, relying on the SMAART program as well as their own, highly trained, ears. The decision to suspend all the enclosures of the main system - including the subwoofers - was also vindicated.
The sound engineers of both artists expressed their satisfaction during both the rehearsals and the event. During Billy Joel's set in particular, one had the impression of listening to a perfect mix with a very high degree of intelligibility, a wide dynamic range, and tremendous sound pressure levels throughout the entire audience area.
(Chris Henry)
