On May 1 the unmistakeable vocal talent that is Beyonce descended on London’s O2 Arena and put on a show that was so spectacular sonically and aesthetically that it will surely last long in the memory of all who witnessed it, writes Paul Watson.

Whether you’re a lifelong fan or just someone who appreciates a good vocal performance, there’s no debating it: Beyonce is bloody amazing. However, for her it’s not just about being on stage; she reviews her show tape every night, and she’s heavily involved when it comes to the audio and lighting elements.

“Beyonce is definitely not shy about her opinions on things, and it’s good to hear those specifics, although it’s not always easy making them happen,’ smiles Eighth Day Sound’s Stephen Curtin, who is also FOH engineer for The Mrs Carter World Tour. “She always wants a nice clean vocal, but she gets far more particular than that: she likes to be very well heard over the music out front, which can be challenging for me as I have to build in some headroom, first to accommodate the music and then her vocal, and that’s before you start hitting any kind of system conversion.’

Vocal chain

Due to Beyonce’s seriously wide dynamic range, her vocal chain is somewhat longer than most: signal from her Sennheiser SKM 5200-II handheld (with MD 5235 dynamic capsule) hits the pre-amp on the DiGiCo SD7 at FOH, gets crushed a little by an inserted Avalon 737 compressor, then gets sent to a group where it receives a light squeeze from a Waves compressor plugin; before finally settling at the master fader.

“The vocal’s going through a few different stages, but it’s not limiting her dynamic range; it’s just harder live than in the studio to be able to go with the music,’ Curtin insists. “She’s got to be limited beforehand, to find out how low she can go before she’s lost, so it’s a case of balancing compression to get it to sit in a pocket of 8dB as opposed to 20dB.’

Beyonce and the “Big Mamas’ (her three backing singers) also have their own dedicated monitor engineer, Daniel Gonzales, who also works from an SD7, while Demetrius Moore works monitors for her band from an Avid Profile.
“It’s pretty crazy during a Beyonce performance at monitor position as there is a lot of talkback going on and it tends to get very vocal,’ Curtin admits. “For one guy to concentrate on Beyonce, the girls and the band would be very taxing!’

There are 12 channels of Sennheiser EM 3732-II wireless receivers on the tour, to cater for the eight Sennheiser SKM 5200-II handheld mics and four Sennheiser SK 5212-II belt pack transmitters (for the horn section). IEMs are Shure PSM10000s.

“The flexibility of the RF when working with Sennheiser is great, because unlike many manufacturers, if you buy something in a certain range in the US then come over to Europe, you can re-tune it,’ he says. “On the flip-side, Shure took hold of the in-ear world when they brought out the Diversity receiver belt packs with the PSM1000s, which made our RF and monitor guys way happy in terms of stability.’
At FOH, Curtin is running 80 channels on his SD7 at 96kHz, so that it ties in with the whole system.

“I’ve always been a DiGiCo man and it’s fantastic that we can run at 96kHz. This means we’re straight out of the desk into the Dolby processors and amplifiers at the front end of the PA without any sample rate converting going on whatsoever,’ he explains. “We’re using a mix of AES and analogue because Demetrius (Moore) needs analogue signal as there’d be a lot of sample reconverting involved if we went AES into the Avid (Profile) console.’

Curtin is utilising one DiGiCo SD-Rack at FOH and there are a further four on stage. Flexibility is key on this show, he says, and much of that stems from his DiGiCo setup.

“I have one local SD-Rack and there are three on stage which we’re using as inputs; then there’s a fourth SD-Rack which is mainly used for the support stuff and a few extra bits and pieces,’ he explains. “The flexibility of DiGiCo is what drew me to the consoles in the first place; everything is simpler and more intuitive, and compared to other manufacturers, there are less steps to go through to get to where you want to be when mixing.’

Eighth Day is providing crew and PA for the entire tour, and the sizeable rig is by d&b: two hangs of 20 J-Series enclosures with eight cardioid-configured flown J-Subs per hang constitutes the main L/R; a further 16 J-Series make up the side hangs; and 12 Q-Series boxes make up the centre clusters. There are an additional nine J-Subs per side on the floor and a scattering of d&b M4 wedges on stage, should the in-ears go down; and the bassist and drummer are using Pearl Throne Thumpers.

System tuning

System tech, Eighth Day Sound’s Arno Voortman, uses Smaart and WinMLS to make his calculations, though he admits this venue didn’t need much tweaking.
“The tuning process at the O2 Arena doesn’t take long as it’s very similar to an American arena, which I’m obviously used to,’ Voortman explains. “I use Smaart for the low-end timeline and WinMLS for everything else.’

Voortman is a big fan of d&b for its ease-of-use and versatility; and as far as processing goes, he lets the speaker do all the talking:
“I find DSP is often being abused these days, as in over-processed, which can actually make it a detrimental thing; suddenly systems sound worse instead of better! If a system is a good system, why should you tweak the hell out of it?’

US-based company, Upstaging, provided the lighting rig – and it’s like no other I’ve ever seen, the focal point of which is undoubtedly LeRoy Bennett’s “Wall of Inferno’, which utilises a massive 446 of SGM’s new low-profile, lightweight X-5 strobes, and 208 Clay-Paky Sharpys. As a result, this show (we think) is the brightest ever to be recorded on a concert stage.

“I was very impressed by the X-5’s combination of power consumption, brightness and rugged design,’ Bennett explains “In addition, the fact that each strobe breaks down to three individual cells is great, as it enables me to project very low res graphics as well as bright blasts of light and strobing.’

Bennett was responsible for the entire lighting design which incorporates more than 1 000-fixtures and has also allowed him to experiment with some ideas he’s had up his sleeve for some time, according to lighting director and operator, Whitney Hoversten.

“When someone finally came out and said “let’s just do a big lighting show’, LeRoy was all, “oh yes, let’s try a lot of tricks on this one’,’ Hoversten recalls, tweaking his grandMA2 at FOH position after sound check. “In terms of the “Wall of Inferno’, what the X5s are capable of is absolutely fantastic, especially given their compact size and low power draw; every 4 x 4 pod is just one circuit which is a huge advantage with power distribution, so it’s bright as hell.’

Reflecting light

“Then at the “Bey Stage’ we’ve got some very cool things going on. LeRoy came up with the concept of having all the light coming from the ground and reflecting back down and we’ve done that using mirrors. We beam light from the Sharpys onto customised MAC 700 fixtures that have had the head taken out and a mirror put in its place, and it works really well: on one side you get this flat surface so if you go in a tight cone or tight iris it looks like just another Sharpy, but if you do it wide you get these cool pink square beams; and on the other side you’ve got these amazing mirror ball effects.

“By the end of the experiment, we realised the concept isn’t just a one trick pony too: because of how the light hits the two sides, when you spin it, it does some really amazing things; we discovered some cool stuff by accident, which is always a bonus, and Beyonce loves it!’

It’s not only the mirrors Mrs Carter has taken a fancy to, however: at her personal request, a further 15 X-5s are to be added to fill in across the centre section of the stage!

There are 198 mirrors used in total, and additional fixtures include 71 Martin Vipers; 94 Martin MAC Auras; 28 Vari-Lite VL3500 washes; seven Syncrolites; and two Martin MAC 3s.

In terms of control, Hoversten says nothing on the market comes close to the grandMA2.
“The grandMA2 is completely customisable, so I can put anything anywhere; and unlike other consoles, you the user tell it how you want to receive the information,’ he says. “The software’s Layout View is also fantastic; it allows you to assign icons to fixtures, which means I know instinctively where everything is, and that’s really great for the operator, especially with a rig of this size. It’s a great step forward in terms of lighting control.

“Then from a programming standpoint, because I’m always doing things on the fly, this console is also great because of its quick access; on the hardware side, its parameters, universes and general control capabilities are also very impressive.’
I was sat at FOH position (ridiculously, next to Jay-Z!) throughout the show, which looked and sounded absolutely out of this world. The system was being driven very hard, but any slight distortion just enhanced the experience, to be honest; the band were phenomenal, and the intelligibility and energy that came from Beyonce’s voice – well, I don’t know where to begin…

After opening with Who Run The World (Girls), a two-hour set left the crowd mesmerised, and Beyonce was right on the money – she didn’t seem to break a sweat, despite dancing her backside off throughout! There were two highlights for me: her being zip-wired to FOH to perform the latter part of the show from her “Bey Stage’, which was right on top of us; and the unbelievable finale: as Beyonce came to the end of her mega-hit, Halo, Bennett’s unbelievable “Wall of Inferno’ provided the ultimate “wow’ moment as more than 1 000 fixtures illuminated the entire arena.
A fitting end to an amazing night.