Gladys Knight has returned to the Flamingo Showroom (Las Vegas) toheadline an extended run of dates, alongside a seven-piece band andfour backup vocalists, including brother and former-Pip Merald (aka,Bubba). Because of the add-on dates, monitor tech John Wrote specifiedan improved monitor system.
Pictured: monitor tech John Wrote (left) and monitor engineerElliott Peters under a pair of Gladys Knight’s new L-Acoustics’ ARCSloudspeakers.
Wrote, who also serves as concert touring operations foreman forProMix Electrotec’s Las Vegas office, spearheaded the early-Juneinstallation of a new loudspeaker setup comprised of half a dozenL-Acoustics ARCS® loudspeakers, flown three per side as sidefillsfor Knight, and eight 115FM floor wedges used by her band.
“The Flamingo Showroom actually hosts three different performances aday, with Gladys’ show being the middle one, so our entiremonitor system is portable and gets struck after every show,” saidWrote. “That was one of the reasons we went with the L-Acousticssystem: the compact size and weight of the ARCS cabinets nicely allowthem to travel in and out on stage pipes, yet their size doesn’t comeat a compromise to either audio quality or coverage.
“Gladys is using them as her primary monitors, along with afew existing cabinets for rearfill, and since they went in, she’shearing things she’s never heard in the mix before. In fact, herbandmembers were telling me that the ARCS sound too good because nowshe’s able to pick out the tiniest little flubs in their performances.She has a fantastic ear.”
Elliott Peters, who has worked with Knight on and off for 16 years,is serving as the production’s monitor engineer. “Most of my pro audiocareer has been spent as a front-of-house engineer, so I’ve had thepleasure of using V-DOSC® and dV-DOSC® in the past,”commented Peters. “The ARCS systems are a chip-off-of-the-old-block.They sound great and are incredible in that they require almost no EQ.Gladys wears a headset microphone, and with our previous setup, theboard EQ, parametrics and graphics were all hacked up pretty well. Now,there’s just a tiny bit of board EQ in there and that’s it. To say’night and day’ doesn’t do it justice. It’s unbelievable. I actuallylook forward to going to work now, whereas before it was like, ‘What amI going to get glared at for today?’ Since the L-Acoustics system wentin a month ago, I haven’t been the recipient of a single evil eye fromthe stage.”
Aside from the ARCS and 115FMs, ProMix Electrotec also providedpower and processing for the loudspeakers, as well as a new monitorconsole.
For more on the rig, visit www.l-acoustics-us.com. Find out more about ProMixElectrotec at www.promix.com. For more touring news, visit mixonline.com/live_sound_tour_profiles/index.htm.
