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ALT-J & THE GIG THAT MADE PRO AUDIO HISTORY On 15 June 2018, Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, New York, was the venue of choice on for an L-ISA immersive audio system to be utilised with British rock trio, alt-J. The concert was a live environment surround sound first, as Kel Murray exclusively reports.
Tickets for this groundbreaking show were sold as general admission so the audience could experience it from anywhere in the stadium, enabling 360-degree audio perfection. We’ve all experienced this 360-degree soundscape notion in a cinematic capacity at interactive theatre shows, and even from the comfort of our own homes, but creating, and successfully maintaining, detailed sound effects during a live gig has fundamentally altered the possibilities of live sound production. In short, our live concert experience has been changed forever. The band’s sound reinforcement was supplied by Rat Sound Systems, which deployed an (enormous) L-Acoustics rig to provide consistency of sound throughout the venue. The company has been alt-J’s worldwide audio vendor since 2015. The level of trust between band, crew and rental company is what tourable pro audio dreams are made of; a challenge that would wow fans and critics, and revolutionise the touring industry. In the months prior to the gig, alt-J keyboardist Gus Unger-Hamilton, told [my old haunt!] the NME about the concept in a bid to let the mainstream press known what a big deal the project was: “As I understand it, it’s a 360-degree speaker system... so wherever you’re standing in the audience, you’ll be able to hear the music coming from all around you. And
using clever computer stuff, we can make sounds move around the room so if there’s, say, a helicopter sound, you can have the helicopter start from behind you and fly over your head, or have beeps and bloops bouncing around the arena in different directions, generally creating quite a cool atmosphere.” The young musician might have coined the term ‘clever computer stuff’, but this was an understatement. As I moved from FOH on that highly anticipated Saturday night in Queens to the nose bleed seats at stage right; the helicopter noises began to infiltrate the stadium to dramatic effect. The patrons in front looked to the sky, then behind their heads, then to the sky again before mouthing ‘wow’ at the notion that those sounds weren’t courtesy of the NYPD as perhaps first assumed, but rather, courtesy of the outdoor live music extravaganza happening all around them. THE ORIGIN Before we dive into the implementation of this groundbreaking technology, we must ask: how and why did this concept come about with this particular band? Stephen ‘Tav’ Taverner, alt-J’s Manager, is a man with a curious mind: “alt-J are a band that have a lot of space in their music, so it struck me a 08
