Iron Maiden Stays with EAW to the Finish Line of Its Successful "Somewhere Back in Time" World Tour
(EAW | Posted 2009-04-06)
Whitinsville, MA, USA - April 6, 2009 - The latest world tour from heavy metal legends Iron Maiden, a two-year-long journey called "Somewhere Back in Time," has taken the veteran English band around the world several times, some of it aboard a uniquely decorated Boeing 757 piloted by none other than lead singer Bruce Dickinson. And wherever the tour has taken them, one thing that's stayed consistent is P.A. system components by EAW, a world leader in audio system technology. For the last few U.S. and Canada legs of the tour, U.K.-based touring system provider ML Executives (www.mlexecutives.com), Iron Maiden's long-time SR provider, has shipped consoles and monitors here for the band, and Nashville-based Brantley Sound Associates (www.brantleysound.com) has provided the house sound system.
Iron Maiden's P.A. is massive and loud, just like the band itself. The flown main P.A. hang consists of 13 EAW KF760 Long-Throw Line Array Modules and three KF761 Short-Throw Line Array Modules; the side hangs are seven KF760s and three KF761s. In arenas with 270-degree dispersion, the systems adds two KF850e Virtual ArrayTM enclosures for extreme side fills and two more ground-stacked on either side of the stage, for a total of eight. Additionally, there are a dozen SB1000e Large-Format Subwoofers with two KF300i Medium Format Array Loudspeakers per side, on top of the subwoofers, and four KF300i's positioned in the two cutouts in between the three stage thrusts for vocal fill.
"This is a rock & roll PA system," says Brantley Sound Tech Joe Calabrese, who has been on the tour for the U.S. and Canadian dates. "It's powerful - the P.A. lets us convey the enormity of Iron Maiden's sound with amazing fidelity, not just to the people in the 'good seats,' but at the back of the arena as well." For this final show of the tour, which ends in Ft. Lauderdale just days before the release of Iron Maiden's tour movie Flight 666, the band changed the monitor system slightly, adding the compact yet powerful EAW SM15 and SM200iH Stage Monitors, a configuration the band also used on North America dates in 2008. Additionally, ML Executives has supplied Iron Maiden with EAW KF850e's and SM200iH's for the band's entire tour.
"The SM15 can get absurdly loud, and it's an incredibly great-sounding main monitor," says Calabrese, who notes that eight of them are used for downstage mixes. "It packs a massive punch." The compact SM200iH has a smaller footprint and is used on the ramps above the backline where space is limited. "Bruce can hear himself loud and clear and he's not worried about tripping over them," he says. "Altogether, it's a great P.A. system."
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