Following the success of previous collaborations with Britannia Row, notably for the homecoming of the Irish footballers from the World Cup which was also an event for 100,000 in Phoenix Park, Mikam once again teamed up with the London sound company who furnished the X-Line line array system from Electro-Voice. The system comprised a hang of thirteen mid-hi cabinets and ten subs ground-stacked per side with EV X-Array delay towers of two Xn, four Xf and six Xb cabinets each. Klark Teknik DN9848s handled system processing. In terms of desks, Midas consoles were the order of the day with FOH engineer Evan Doyle on a Heritage 3000 while an XL250 looked after monitor requirements and a 32-channel Midas Venice was on hand for running playback.
According to the event's sound supervisor, Mikam's Peter Carroll, the show was relatively straightforward, as the majority of acts were simply providing a live vocal over playback, but the system nevertheless sounded superb. "X-Line is one system that does exactly what the guy behind the desk tells it to do. If the computer says you have X-amount of coverage, that's exactly what you've got to the foot. I've never used a system that has such perfect tracking as this. Even at 120m it's like mixing in a studio - you can hear everything. It really is stunning."
(Lee Baldock)
