The three-week tour in late September and October featured a rig of 12 COHEDRA mid/high cabinets per side at most venues. The system was supplied to Production North by HK AUDIO's UK distributor John Hornby Skewes, together with two COHEDRA PR-8 and two PR-16 Power Racks. It was configured by FOH engineer Nick Warren using HK's CAPS Aiming Software prediction software. " COHEDRA exceeded my expectations for this tour," says Warren. "Firstly it is fantastic to fly and put together. The way the rigging is configured means that apart from lifting the lids of the PA boxes, you can fly the whole system quickly, easily and safely on your own. Once up, the system requires very little EQing, which means you're not upsetting everyone by playing music or pink noise all day."
Steve Levitt from Production North adds: "I'd already had some positive experiences with COHEDRA during gigs with Westlife and Blue. It's a very compact system that delivers not only high volume but a really big sound, so I though it would be just the right thing for McFly."
A typical configuration for the tour was three CDR 208 S (straight) cabinets flown at the top for long-throw, then alternate CDR 208 T (trapezoidal) and CDR 208 S cabinets throughout the array, with three CDR 208 Ts at the bottom. These were angled downwards so the array could be kelped tightly to provide the right amount of curvature. At one of the smaller venues this was varied by ground-stacking eight CDR-208s per side using HK's newly-launched ground stacking frames, as the flying points were unsuitably placed.
When it came to low-end, Warren discovered that the most even coverage was achieved by positioning six columns of four COHEDRA CDR 210 Sub subwoofers two feet apart across the front of the stage. As this wasn't possible in some venues, either two columns of six or a column of eight with a column of four next to it was used.
"The tour was always going to be challenging from the start," says Warren. "We knew we would be dealing with high levels of screaming and radically different venues as we did the same venues with Busted two years ago." However, the McFly fans outdid Busted in the screaming stakes, hitting peaks of 121dB, with a constant level of at least 104dB throughout the show. "To compensate for this, which is pretty difficult as the screaming is in the same frequency range as the guitars and vocals, we ran the COHEDRA system at 100-115dB constantly all night; a lot to ask of any PA," adds Warren.
Warren was also extremely satisfied by his first encounter with COHEDRA. "The overall result has been fantastic and consistent throughout the whole tour. However next time I hope I'm mixing a band on COHEDRA whose fans listen rather than scream . . ."
(Lee Baldock)
