"Is there any sound in popular music that is more exhilarating, more joyful, more uplifting, more life-affirming than that of Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band in full flight?" So enquired the UK's Daily Telegraph after experiencing one of The Boss' shows on the recent (short) European leg of his The Rising world tour.
Having witnessed the party that was the Paris date at the Palais Omnisports Bercy on October 14, the debut European show, one would be hard pressed to challenge the correspondent's enthusiasm.
Half of the Paris set was drawn from The Boss' latest, and arguably greatest, album - The Rising. It's the first studio album since 1984 to feature the celebrated E Street Band line-up of Clarence Clemons, Max Weinberg, 'Little' Steven Van Zandt, Nils Lofgren, Roy Bittan, Danny Frederici, Garry Tallent and Patti 'Mrs. Springsteen' Scialfa, plus new violinist recruit Soozie Tyrell - all of whom are touring.
It was clear from the audience's spirited reaction to songs like 'Lonesome Day', 'Mary's Place', 'Waitin' On A Sunny Day' and the powerful title track, that the new material compares favourably with established classics like the epic 'Born To Run' and 'Dancing In The Dark'. In fact, from a personal standpoint, only the absence of the evocative 'The River' prevented this from being a faultless performance.
With no scenic art to distract the audience, this show was undeniably about the music and forging a connection with everyone in the room. Although not an 'in the round' production, per se, Springsteen and his intrepid troubadours performed at one end of the hall with a partial audience behind them.
Springsteen said very little to the crowd between numbers (when he did it was often in French), however, it was his raw, sleeves-rolled-up energy that reminded everyone how he communicates more effectively than most live performers by keeping it real, projecting messages and observations that the Average Joe can relate to.
Anchoring the whole performance was the impeccable sound quality which, I was reliably informed by one of the arena's staff, eclipsed that of most shows in recent years at Bercy. In the driving seat was FOH Sound Engineer John Cooper who found his way into the Springsteen camp through his work with The Judds and Natalie Merchant, and association with this tour's PA supplier, Colorado-based Audio Analysts.
"I was working with Natalie Merchant when I met Jon Landau, Bruce's manager, who was also then managing Natalie," recalled Cooper. "The initial relationship with Jon started out so well that he thought I'd be a good candidate to mix Bruce."
What were the qualities that sparked Landau's interest? "I think it was about the overall scope of the way I dealt with mixes and I had a good sense of what needed to happen with Bruce. He wants to deliver the familiarity of the records, but at the same time he changes the signature of a lot of these songs live."
Cooper continued: "This band probably performs live better than in the studio, and it's hard to capture the incredible power of the performance. When youÕre dealing with an act that has so many years behind them as the E Street Band, you begin with a pretty good outline of where you should go with the live mix. But my job should be transparent - the audience should be thinking about the music, not the loudspeakers!"
However, it's the loudspeakers on this tour which have made a significant difference to The Boss' sound. The system is JBL Professional's VerTec line array package, which Audio Analysts first invested in around 18 months ago. Cooper's experience of VerTec was limited prior to this tour, but he was confident it would deliver the fidelity that Springsteen's music demanded.
Generally, the system has been configured as two front hangs of 12 VerTec full range VT4889 cabinets with 12 VT4880 subwoofers matched to the same angle, and one identical VerTec/subs hang per side, with three rear eight-box clusters [left, centre and right]. The VerTec cabinets are driven by Crown MA5002 and 2402 amps, controlled by a Crown IQ system. A BSS Omnidrive system breaks out into front, side and rear stereo zones, alternating left and right around the house, so every listener experiences a true stereo image.
Cooper said: "It's definitely the tool for the job and I've heard it perform very well in a wide range of venues. We carried 112 cabinets in the States and brought the front 80 out to Europe [subbing out the rear fill to Frankfurt-based Sirius Schalltechnik Services GmbH]. All the coverage is from the air, including the subs. We're trimming extremely high, too - around 45 feet to the bottom of the arrays. That lends itself to better coverage of the overall house."
Audio Analysts had already been touring its proprietary (JBL-loaded) AALTO system for some years before VerTec came along. Albert Leccese, VP of Engineering and Tour Sound for Audio Analysts, said: "Obviously we saw line arrays coming in and what it meant to not have one ourselves. In all my years in live sound I've never seen a loudspeaker technology get adopted so fast by so many people. We looked at a couple of options, including V-DOSC which popularised the whole genre to start with. VerTec, with its practical rigging aspects and light weight, and not least the qualities of the NDD (Neodymium Differential Drive) components, was a winner. The rigging is extremely well thought out, simple yet very articulate. Doug Button at JBL is a highly skilled loudspeaker designer and good at understanding what makes a component withstand all the rigours of touring."
JBL is rightly proud that such an all-American artist is enjoying such good results with an all-American product. "Having watched the evolution of both this band and their music, and of concert loudspeaker systems over the past few years, it is gratifying to see what can happen when a veteran artist unveils new music... and has new technology with which to do it," noted David Scheirman, Director of Tour Sound for JBL Professional.
"That doesn't mean, in our industry, that 'new techology' is always better, in fact often it is not. But when the development team at JBL began work on the VerTec system, achieving higher intelligibility, true musical fidelity, and really moving things forward for engineers by providing more headroom and power reserves for higher-level concert presentations, these were all primary goals. Now, when listening to a real professional like John Cooper mix splendid music on a system that can truly deliver those goods, it helps make all of the hard work worthwhile at the end of the day."
DIGITAL TRIO
The Rising tour also marks a victory for Yamaha's PM1D digital mixing console. No less than three PM1Ds have found their way on to Springsteen's show, with one at FOH and two in monitor world - a statement of confidence in the product if ever there was one! The third PM1D was sub-rented from Hi Tech Audio.
At FOH, Cooper is using all of the on-board electronics, outweighing the need for outboard graphics to EQ the system. "I'm using all eight FX processors and most of the dynamics controls on each channel," said Cooper. "The console has time correction on each input and output, so any delay offset that I choose to do is done on the console as well.
So much processing power is within the PM1D that I only have one outboard rack for this tour. It has a couple of Lexicon PCM 80s - one is used specifically to reproduce Max Weinberg's big reverbed snare sound on 'Born In The USA', and the other is for his toms. I have two circuits for Bruce's vocal, a main and a spare, which consist of a Midas XL42 pre-amp EQ which goes into a BSS DPR-901 dynamic EQ, then to a Summit DCL200 tube limiter."
One of the first American engineers to work with the PM1D, Cooper had the luxury of using one for a year with Wynonna Judd before joining Springsteen, as well as beta testing software for it a year prior to that. Two weeks in rehearsals for this tour, in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, aided the familiarity. He had also been mixing on an Amek Recall for five years before the PM1D, so live automation was hardly a new phenomenon to him.
However, Cooper commented that the learning curve on the PM1D is steep. "Its fundamental operation is reasonably instinctive, but there are a lot of levels to understand if you are to use the desk to its full potential. It's more a case of finding the facilities to achieve what you want it to do. You've got 24 'folders' and some have 10 pages on the control operations, so the depth is quite substantial, and learning where to go to locate things rapidly is the trick.
"Mixing on it, when you get to that point, is fairly simple. Instead of reaching for the tone control or pre-amp on a given channel, you select the channel and then go to the strip. A lot of people assume it takes more time but once you have figured out the processes involved, which are very different to analogue, you get there pretty quick. There's like six ways to do anything, so you've got to figure out which is the best approach for you personally. People who have computer skills will learn the PM1D very rapidly, because it's basically a computer controlling audio and you need to be diligent about saving and file keeping. First-time users should not try to run before they can walk, otherwise they could find themselves in a heap of trouble! This is the second PM1D I've toured with and I haven't had any problems in terms of reliability - theyÕve both performed flawlessly. It's a wonderful piece of equipment and I don't ever see myself turning back to analogue."
With the exception of the vocal mics, Cooper had carte blanche to select the E Street microphones. "Bruce has been using the Audix OM3 for 10 years and it's a sound that he's comfortable with, plus its tight pattern give us excellent rejection for what is a pretty loud stage. We have wireless capsules for Bruce and wired for everyone else. They perform very well and I have no reservations about the choice. That said, we'll be auditioning some alternatives when we return to the States." Manufacturers, take note!
The rest of the stage is covered the way Cooper wanted it. Kick drum uses a Shure SM91 boundary mic and Beyer M88; the snare has an SM57 on top and Beta 98 underneath, plus a Countryman CSM16 lavalier mic for picking up the cross-stick work. Hi-hat has an AKG C390, the rack tom mic is an SM98, floor tom uses a Shure KSM 32, and rather than having conventional overhead mics, Weinberg's three cymbals each have a KSM 44 miking them from underneath. Guitars are miked with KSM 32s, Clemons' saxes have Beta 98 mounted on the horns, and the organ's Leslie speaker has a KSM 32 on the bottom driver and a Shure stereo VP88 on top.
MONITORS
Two PM1Ds are being used for monitors with engineers Monty Carlo at stage left and Troy Milner at stage right. Monitoring is half dependent on proprietary Audio Analysts wedges and JBL 3218 side fills, and half on Shure PSM 700 in-ear systems. Sennheiser 300 Series IEM systems are also being tried out on the tour, with the engineers reporting good results.
With such a large band and so many cues, plus the different demands of IEM and wedges, it's too big a job for one engineer. Therefore, Carlo handles the requirements of Springsteen, Van Zandt, Scialfa, Bittan and Tyrell, while Milner takes care of the remainder. In the case of Danny Frederici, Milner sends him a sub-mix which the musician tailors on his on 12-channel Spirit mixer.
Milner said: "The PM1D makes changes instantaneous, and that allows us to spend more time on getting mixes instead of resetting knobs. We use the scene captures for all the changes we have, the in/out options, routing, and can throw EQ on anything. My PM1D has just 32 outputs while Troy's has 64 because he is doing more outboard EQ and FX sends. He also has a couple of outboard pre-amps which eat up ins and outs," added Carlo, who was running up to 30 mixes between the wedges, IEM, and sends to backlne techs.
THE VISUAL TERRAIN
The visual brief for the tour came directly from Springsteen, and was communicated to Jeff Ravitz, The Boss' Lighting & Set Designer since 1984 - the Born In The USA era. The pair spoke at length about how this tour should have a much different mood and character to the last, in 1999, which in the absence of new material drew heavily on 'greatest hits'.
A buoyant Ravitz explained: "With The Rising, I think Bruce has turned another corner, creatively, and it's a very strong new set of songs. Some of them are quite serious, some upbeat, but they all share passion. The brief was to reflect that seriousness when appropriate, and he was open to using textures and patterns, and exploring angles that ultimately translated into a great deal of floor uplighting."
With an audience behind the band for most dates, any kind of set fabrication would have been unworkable, although a simple black drape backdrop was used at Wembley where all of the crowd were in front of the stage.
"We have been thinking of bringing in a chain-link fence backdrop just so that we have something to reflect light off," revealed Ravitz. "That would be a first for Bruce, who prefers to have no major distractions from his music. However, when we played the MTV Video Music Awards recently, he did a performance in a remote location in front of the new glass cube planetarium in New York, inside of which is a giant sphere that represents the Sun. We lit that in a number of ways and he liked it so much that he's started to open up his attitude about backgrounds. So we'll see how that develops."
There's a certain ambiguity about some of the new album's lyrics, although there are definite references to September 11. Was there any desire to underline these? "No," insisted Ravitz, "there was an understanding that we were going to downplay any literal references. These songs stand on their own two feet but Bruce likes the audience to embrace them in anyway they wish. To deliberately evoke any feelings connected directly to September 11 would have been very wrong."
Springsteen often departs from his set list and pulls out a wild card. Of the 150 songs that he can pull from, only 50 songs are programmed in, and a system was needed that could cope with spontaneity.
Kit-wise, Ravitz's allegiance to Morpheus products is evident. "There are 89 Morpheus Fader Beams which have an incandescent source; we also have 14 BriteBurst 200s, 27 M Faders, 14 PC Spots, and 13 Omni Faders," Ravitz said.
In addition to the Morpheus lights, Ravitz chose 10 Martin MAC 2000 profiles. "Bruce suggested that I might like to return to something I was doing prior to the 1999 tour, which was to use textures in the form of rotating gobos to break up the evenness of the lighting. MAC 2000s have really good optics, are brighter than a lot of the alternatives out there, and have a very good colour system, so Morpheus were happy to make them available to us."
Conventionals are few, but there are eight ETC Source Fours, 10 9-lite Molefays, and four Syncrolite SX3Ks for the big audience moments. The Fader Beams and conventionals are driven by an Avolites Diamond II, and all the other moving lights are controlled from a Wholehog II console.
VIDEO
In line with a 'setless' show, the video on the Rising tour is also understated, functioning purely as image magnification, or I-Mag, for the fans. Provided by Performance AV, with Video Director Chris Hilson at the controls, the fully digital SDI system is driven by a Pinnacle 9000 switcher. Five Sony D35 cameras send live images to the pair of Lighthouse LVP2056 20mm pixel pitch LED screens at the sides.
Having 20mm screens on an indoor show seemed an unusual choice, but Performance AV's Peter Daniel explained: "We're only renting these screens from a French Lighthouse dealer because the new 16mm screens that should be here were not quite ready for us!"
After Paris, the tour progressed through Europe, taking in a VH-1 special in Barcelona and an acclaimed Wembley show, before returning to North America in early November for a long run up to Christmas. May and June will see Springsteen and the band back in Europe for a stadium tour, and it comes highly recommended.
Show Photography:
Carole McConnell & Darrell M. Westmoreland
Crew & Set-up Photography:
Michael Partineo, Darrell M. Westmoreland
& Mark Cunningham
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band - Key Personnel & Suppliers:
Management: Jon Landau, Barbara Carr ¥ Booking Agent: BPB Consultants, Creative Artists Agency
European Road Manager: Wayne Lebeaux
Assistant Road Manager: Lenny Sullivan
Business Management: Thrill Hill Productions
Accounting: Michael Lorick
Tour Director: George Travis
Production Manager: Lyle Centola
Stage Manager: Vinnie Polifrone
Production Assistant: Kelly Shaunessy
European Backline Technicians: Kevin Buell, Ricky Lapointe, Dallas Schoo, Roy Witte, Jerry Pratt, Alan Fitzgerald, Harry McCarthey, Joe Lopez
Riggers: Thom Moore, Gary Reese, Lef Carroll
Carpenters: Eric Wagner, Mike Colucci, Dan Lee
PA: Audio Analysts
FOH Sound Engineer: John Cooper
Monitor Engineers: Monty Carlo, Troy Milner
European System Engineers: Albert Leccese, Kurt Joachimstaler
Sound Technicians: T J Rodriguez, Jubal Reeves
Lighting: Morpheus
Lighting & Set Designer: Jeff Ravitz/Visual Terrain Inc. (www.visualterrain.net)
Wholehog Programmer: Jason Badger
Design Assistants: David Mann, Erin Powell
Lighting Director: Todd Ricci
Lighting Operator: John Hoffman
Lighting Crew Chief: Mimi Exler
Lighting Technicians: Brad Bruehler, Bryan Humphries
Video: Performance AV
Video Director: Chris Hilson
Video Crew Chief: Barry Otto
Cameras: Scott Lutton, Dave Driscoll, Eric Seefranz, Phil Summers
European Catering Team: Randi Brevetz, Stephen Mattai, Rolando Ramos
European Trucking: Redburn Transfer
Power: CAT Entertainment Services
Security Co-ordination: Fox Venue Consultants
Freight: Rock-It Cargo
Travel/Hotels: Tzell Travel, Airworks, The Tour Company