Coldplay launch with live streaming and Lawo
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Following Coldplay’s decision not to tour Everyday Life for environmental reasons, the band came up with an alternative for achieving maximum impact: “We wanted to pick somewhere in the middle of the world where we normally don’t get to play,” Chris Martin, Coldplay’s frontman, told the BBC.
A few days before the Amman performances, Coldplay’s management announced the addition of a one-off live show on 25 November at London’s Natural History Museum. Selected songs of this performance will be available on radio and social media, and the proceeds will be donated to an environmental charity.
As always, what looked easy at show time was the result of intense preparations involving the best people in the industry. Tony Smith (Coldplay’s audio designer, FOH tech and crew chief) liaised with Toby Alington, broadcast sound engineer, to find a solution for the Amman broadcast mix. Alington in turn approached Dirk Sykora to discuss a Lawo console solution for Jordan through SR Films. Alington mixed the two sets live in Amman with the help of Coldplay’s Rik Simpson (producer, sound engineer) and Dan Green (FOH engineer).
Both the band and the technical crew had arrived in Amman one week prior to the Sunrise and Sunset performances. According to Dirk Sykora, who configured and programmed the Lawo mc²56 mixing console used for the streaming events, a total of 192 inputs were recorded on three separate DAW machines and mixed live on the console for stereo broadcast. The band rehearsed the new material at a theatre in downtown Amman.
Despite assumptions to the contrary, Coldplay’s two Amman performances were ‘proper’ live gigs that were also filmed and streamed, says Alington: “It certainly wasn’t an event filmed to playback. We really needed those 192 audio channels, and additionally rigged an array of ambience mics around the Citadel to capture Amman’s live ‘atmos’ at dawn and dusk. The whole project was magic - everything fell snugly into place.” Dirk Sykora of Lawo concurs: “Coldplay’s gigs at Amman’s Citadel are among the absolute highlights of my professional career.”
After two superb shows whose impact was felt on a global scale, the band and its crew flew to London for the live gig at the Natural History Museum. With FOH mixed by Dan Green, the performance was also recorded and mixed by Alington and Rik Simpson using the Floating Earth OB truck - again with a Lawo mc²56 console based on the settings Dirk Sykora had prepared and saved in Amman and later transferred to the console in the OB truck.
(Jim Evans)
