In August the Norwegian port of Stavanger hosted the Tall Ships’ Race 2004. 

The curtain raiser for the event was an outdoor free festival close to the bay, where the ships were lined up ready to start the race. PA Compagniet sub-hired two arrays of eight Martin Audio W8L line array enclosures, and two stacks of eight WSX powered subs — along with QSC PLX amplifiers — from Danish colleagues ETP, to provide suitable coverage over the large area.

Some 55,000 people enjoyed the final show featuring Norwegian band Kaizer’s Orchestra. To quote local newspaper Stavanger Aftenblad: “The sound was excellent, and very impressive. You are supposed to feel a thump in your chest at a rock concert, and on this occasion you really did. The sound travelled so far that people living on an island across the bay thought they heard thunder. Then they figured it must be the neighbour’s son practising his drum kit.

“But in fact it was Kaizer’s!”

The local city council of Stavanger was responsible for the event and the superlatives kept pouring in: “We are lost for words; this is the best festival ever.

“The sound was sensational and all the technicalities were handled excellently!”

Front-of-house engineer was Øystein Wierli; monitor engineer was Eirik Watne and stage co-ordinator was Sigurd Syvertsen.

Wojciech Musnicki, of the Polish rental company, Musnicki Sound Systems, launched his newly-acquired Martin Audio W8LC Wavefront line array system with a bang by supplying the sound for Deep Purple’s concert in the Legia Stadium, Warsaw, Poland recently. The Deep Purple concert was part of a world tour to promote their new album Bananas.

The main Legia Stadium PA system for the concert comprised 16 x W8LC Wavefront line array systems, 20 x W8C Wavefront Compact systems, configured as eight W8LC plus two W8C inners per side, and eight W8C outers per side with eight WSX subwoofers per side. A number of W8C’s were also used as stage floods.

Martin Audio 2-input, 6-output DX1 Loudspeaker Management Systems were used for system crossovers and band zoning. Amplifier racks were equipped with Martin Audio MA2.8S amplifiers for the W8LC’s with Martin Audio MA4.2S amplifiers for the WSX subwoofers and Hill TX1000 amplifiers for the W8C’s.

Commenting on the unusual system configuration, Martin Audio’s Jim Cousins said, “Legia Stadium has heavily raked seating to the sides of the audience but the far end of the pitch is completely open to a distant residential area. The Deep Purple system configuration used the 16 available W8LC’s to form a tight, vertically-controlled pitch system. Wavefront Compact W8C’s were used as “mosh pit” fills. The rest of the W8C’s were used in 2-wide, 4-high progressive curvature side hangs to
form shorter-throw, wide-coverage systems for the
side seats.