Mike & The Mechanics recently played London’s Royal Albert Hall to launch their 2011 “Hit the Road” tour. Featuring a new lineup that includes UK R&B star Andrew Roachford, the tour coincides with the release of their first album in six years, ‘The Road. Concert production for the tour is being handled by Britannia Row Productions, which deployed an Outline GTO-based system for the Royal Albert Hall/
The main system comprised left and right hangs of 12 GTO elements, with three Outline Mantas underhung from each array, plus three along the stage lip to cover the near-field. Side-hangs of 13 Outline Butterfly elements covered the bleachers while an under-stage array of Outline Subtech 218 subwoofers provided low-frequency reinforcement.
Britannia Row’s Bryan Grant was at the show, and said, ‘This venue is not the easiest in which to create a system design that provides even coverage and, especially when full, it is necessary to deliver full-range coverage of more than 270 degrees in the horizontal, plus around 50 to 60 feet in the vertical. The GTO system providing the bulk of the left-and-right mix sounded just as good as we’ve come to expect, and the fact that we could easily integrate other products from the Outline range to create a commonly voiced system to cover the whole room made it relatively easy to get this right.”
Front-of-house engineer/producer Matteo Cifelli said, “I have used Outline Butterfly on numerous occasions, always with great results and so it is always my first P.A. choice when I’m on tour, but this was my first show with GTO. Its development from Butterfly was immediately evident as it has the same punch, intelligibility and tight coverage pattern, but GTO provides noticeably more energy—almost a Butterfly system on steroids, yet its ‘detail’ gives me the sensation of mixing in a studio environment. Mike & The Mechanics is not a loud band, but GTO’s headroom and effortless power enabled me to create a very dynamic and well-controlled mix with plenty of space for everything.”
Find out more information about the GTO Series.
