After winning the 2013 Grammy Song of the Year and Best New Artist awards, indie pop band Fun.’s “Most Nights” tour has been packing music venues across 34 North American cities throughout the summer. Montreal-based Solotech is providing the tour with a Meyer Sound LEOâ„¢ linear large-scale sound reinforcement system.
“I’d heard LEO last year at Outside Lands festival in San Francisco, and I was tickled pink when I had the opportunity to take a rig out this year,” says Gordon Reddy, FOH engineer for Fun. “It’s a great kit, with a wonderfully smooth high end. If a typical sweet high end is like table sugar, then LEO is clarified honey.”
The band’s touring system includes main arrays of 14 LEO-M line array loudspeakers per side, with low-end impact supplied by a total of 24 1100-LFC low-frequency control elements. Rounding out the system are eight UPJuniorâ„¢ VariOâ„¢ loudspeakers and six UPQ-1P loudspeakers for stage lip and front corner fill, respectively. A GalileoA® Callistoâ„¢ loudspeaker management system with three Galileo Callisto 616 array processors and one Galileo 616 AES processor provide system drive and alignment. David Brazeau of Solotech designed the base system configuration in consultation with Reddy.
“LEO certainly has the horsepower when you need it,” claims Reddy. “At one show in the Midwest, the promoters oversold the venue and extended the audience area out into the parking lot, over 300 feet from the stage. They made no provision for delays; fortunately the LEOs delivered all the way to the back. It was fantastic.
“It’s a great system to listen to and mix on with such a big, beefy, dominant, coherent sound,” continues Reddy. “Other systems just don’t have the focus and the clarity that comes with the linearity of LEO.”
Joining Reddy for the tour are systems engineer Jonathan Trudeau of Solotech and monitor engineer Dave Rupsch. The band is mixed on twin DiGiCo SD8 consoles, each outfitted with Waves SoundGrid plug-ins. The band uses Shure SM-58 vocal microphones on a UHF-R wireless microphone system.
Fun.’s “Most Nights” tour includes a diverse number of sheds and amphitheaters with capacities of up to 20,000. Opening the shows is the indie rock duo Tegan & Sara.
