USA - A 50th anniversary is a once-in-a-lifetime milestone, but in the fleeting world of television, even a decade on air is a rare achievement. When Saturday Night Live prepared to celebrate its golden anniversary, perfection was the only option. The high point of the show’s multi-event commemoration was SNL 50: The Homecoming Concert, broadcast live on NBC, SNL’s long-time network home, and streamed on Peacock from Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan, as well as at select IMAX Theaters at Regal Cinemas.
As much known for its musical performances as for its comedy, SNL has been a progressive stage for music throughout its 50 years, with performances by artists of every era of those years as well as a launchpad for new voices.
Artists returning to recreate the magic for this singular event included Bonnie Raitt, Cher, Dave Grohl, David Byrne, Jack White, Jelly Roll, Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, and Ms. Lauryn Hill. Appearances by SNL comedy alumni counted John Mulaney, Dave Chappelle, Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Robert De Niro, with the ensemble hosted by one-time cast member Jimmy Fallon, who performed The Blues Brothers hit, Soul Man.
“For my career and for that of everyone who worked on that show, we knew we were not going to be around for SNL’s 100th anniversary,” says Mark Dittmar, VP of sales for Firehouse Productions, which handled the live-sound reinforcement for the three-hour event.
“So it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work on a show that has absolutely crazy amounts of music, and at the same time huge amounts of sketch comedy, musical comedy, and dialog. Every note, every lyric, every word of every bit had to sound great and be totally intelligible to everyone in the house. And it was.” And that was due to the combination of DiGiCo consoles at front of house and monitors, and an L-Acoustics concert sound system specially designed for the event.
Firehouse Productions brought in some big guns for the show: two each DiGiCo Quantum338 consoles for monitors and Quantum7 consoles for front of house, abetted by a dozen SD-Racks. These managed a total of seven 56-channel splitters between house and broadcast sound.
The event’s L-Acoustics loudspeaker system was equally expansive, comprising two hangs of 14 K2 each, one hang of 16 Kara II for the centre channel, two hangs of nine KS28 subs each, twin stacks of three KS28 for ground subs, 16 Kiva for front-fills, and four ARCS II for out-fills. The system, designed using L-Acoustics Soundvision software and managed by LA Network Manager on a Milan-AVB network, accommodated a turntable stage that enabled one artist to perform as the next one was setting up, with interstitial comedy and sketch performances taking place on a third performance area downstage left.
The pairs of Quantum7 and Quantum338 desks were split between each half of the turntable, with the third stage sharing their worksurfaces. The DiGiCo consoles’ flexible workflows gave the mixers – FOH engineers Jason Crystal, Jamie Pollock, and Dan Gerhart, with Mike Bove and César Benítez mixing monitors – what they needed to mix a diverse range of music genres and performances on the fly.
As smooth as the final show production was, Dittmar says it was the rehearsals that were truly intense, and that that was where the DiGiCo desks’ capabilities really shone. “The pace of rehearsals is tougher than the pace of the actual show because that’s when you’re building things, you’re figuring things out,” he says. “A band is telling you that their input list changed, so we have to be able to be very, very fast with our ability to integrate those changes. This is the moment when it all comes together. From that, we build the snapshots that will make up the final show, and DiGiCo excels at that – being able to route things quickly and successfully.”
Radio City Music Hall was designed as an acoustically perfect environment for music, and the venue’s management is extremely and understandably selective when it comes to allowing temporary systems to be deployed there.
“Radio City’s just such an amazing sounding place, it was imperative to have a system that performed well both musically and coherently,” he says, calling it “an honour and a spectacular experience” to bring an L-Acoustics system into that venue, and crediting Radio City’s tech staff for their help in doing so. “Dialogue needed to be at the right levels of volume and intelligibility. This audience was one of the most reactive I’ve ever seen in my career – and intelligibility is vital to getting that level of reaction to comedy bits. At the same time, fidelity is paramount for music. With L-Acoustics, we had both.”
