More than 20,000 people attend each night's concert, and this was the biggest outing so far in south-east Asia for Nexo's GEO D system, supplied by Media Vision. Either side of the stage, arrays of 15 GEO Ds flew below five GEO Subs, with four CD18s stacked in pairs to provide the sub-bass needed by bands like Tower of Power, and Lee Ritenour. At the front of the stage, four PS10s were used as fill, to give some additional high-end definition. Either side of the 20m wide stage, below large projection screens, two PS10s were used to add definition.
Some 60m back from the stage was the mixing tent, where FOH engineers were mixing on Yamaha PM5Ds, and behind that, two columns each with five GEO S cabinets were operating at low level, providing more definition for the audience at the back of the field. No further supplement was required for the bass, which was travelling a distance of more than 160m from the stage to the back of the field. The system was powered by Camco Vortex amplifiers, and processed by Nexo's NX242 digital TDcontrollers.
Stage-side, the monitor system was all Nexo PS15 wedges, mixed on a Yamaha M7CL. System engineers had prepared a stack of Alpha for side-fill, but never turned them on because the stage was so quiet, thanks to GEO D's cardioid performance and rear rejection of 20dB. All engineering personnel were provided by Bangkok PA company Mr Team, which used a slick system of sliding side stage platforms to set up all instruments, backline and monitoring for the next act. Simply sliding out the first stage, disconnecting the multi-core and sliding in the new stage meant that band changeovers were achieved in less than three minutes.
Tony Oates from Fuzion Far East, Nexo's Thai distributor, was at the festival on opening night. "Mid-winter in Bangkok, the temperature must have dropped to all of 24 degrees C with a light breeze by the time Tower of Power hit the stage. This band has been in my A list since I was a young man (they've been going 36 years!) and I was really looking forward to it. By halfway through the first track, the excellent TOP engineer on the FOH console had everything sweetly in place and the band were cooking. It just got better and better - the crowd were on their feet and the GEO D system just went on delivering effortlessly. I kept trying to pinpoint what was special and finally it dawned on me that here was a system at the bleeding edge of technology (the only thing you could hear on stage was the backline and monitors) that sounded totally natural and - dare I say it - analogue. In a world where everything is starting to sound very clinically digital - what a pleasure. Not a still foot in the park."
(Lee Baldock)
