Off topic a bit but I went to a Metallica stadium show last summer and it was the best sounding outdoor concert I’ve ever heard. (Highland Stadium/Bills) It was so crisp and clean and you could hear and feel each instrument. Plus coupled with the lights and pyros it just worked. They have some pro shot clips on their you tube page.
Was my sixth Metallica show but I’ve been to 100s of concerts. I worked for Budweiser in the 90’s while in college and my job was to go to concerts/bars and buy people beer so they would buy more Budweiser. Spent more than I ever made lol.
I've known that crew for decades, even though it changes up a little each tour, depending on who is available at the time. They were using DB Sound back in the day. We also handled Guns-n-Rose, ACDC, Kiss, The Stones, and a lot of other top billing artist. They are defuncted now. I can find out which gear their using, could be Clair Bros. I'm friends with almost all those crews.
Nobody owns their gear, it's all leased from companies I may be working for.. The only thing the band owns is their instruments.
The speaker cabinets have seriously made a transition to digital and greatness since the 90s. Every speaker is networked and we know all we need to know what the cabinets are doing while it's in the air and running. L-Acustics are rated top of the line right now. In the day during the Animals tour Pink Floyd brought out a system called Flaslight,.... stunning sounding system for outside stadiums.
Outdoors is much easier then indoors as we don't have any wall and ceiling restrictions for bouncing sound, we just uncork the bottle and let it rip outside.
Lots of war stories from those days. Now I do corporate/industrial, occasional movie or TV show,.. the're more money in that, because no one who does concerts wants to do that stuff,... so they choke us with money benefits.to drag us over. I still do concerts, just not as much anymore,.. and I'm ok with that. I was at my peak when those concerts were at their peak and just brilliant talent. Not fond of new music to be mixing.....it's just a flat line mix.
The last show I paid to see as audience was 1980, Robin Trower, $6. 2 years later I was mixing him. My very first show was 81, Rick Darringers w/ Gary Moore (from Thin Lizzy) as second gtr... was scare out of my pants. lol all went well, and that launched me into decades of the same.
As one can tell, after dealing with artist egos and audiences and too many people around us way too much,.. we tend to become a bit jaded and callus. We don't mean to be,.. it just ends up going with the territory when you've done it too long. <shrug>
