Sound provider Sound Image, based in Escondido, Calif., carried a full L-Acoustics system on Lana Del Rey’s North American “Endless Summer” tour, with opener Courtney Love, which encompassed 20 shows from May 7 until June 16. The system included a K1 main loudspeaker system, with K2 outfill arrays flown as needed in wider venues.
Sound Image’s loudspeaker complement for the tour comprised left and right hangs of 12 K1 modules above three Kara for downfill, flown adjacent to sub arrays of four K1-SB. Outfill arrays of eight K2 were also deployed for tour stops at venues with wider seating geometries. Below, six SB28 subs were stacked in cardioid mode onstage, with six Kara spread across the lip for front fill. Thirty LA8 amplified controllers housed in 10 LA-RAKs, five per side, powered and processed the entire system.
“This is my first time touring with K1, K2 and Kara, and I’m having a wonderful time with it,” says Max Bisgrove, Del Rey’s front-of-house engineer. “It gives me superb vocal clarity, headroom in spades, excellent coverage, and packs a serious punch when called for. I would recommend it to anyone and will be requesting it again in the future.”
Lana Del Rey’s Endless Summer audio crew (left to right): Tarik Khan, Sound Image P.A. tech; Max Bisgrove, Lana Del Rey FOH engineer; Bill Price, Sound Image system tech; Kyle Turk, Sound Image monitor tech; and Simon Lawson, Lana Del Rey monitor engineer.
Bill Price, FOH system tech for Sound Image, notes that the biggest potential battle on this tour concerns the amount of low end on the stage. “Lana is a very discreet vocalist, very self-conscious about how she approaches a microphone,” says Price. “What we want to do is keep the low end around her, but nowhere near overpowering, to give her a lot of space onstage, yet keep plenty of bass out there in the audience.”
That’s accomplished by flying L-Acoustics K1-SB subs with the main hangs and time-aligning them to push the low end from the hangs out to the sides and rear of the sheds the tour is visiting. The setup of SB28s stacked onstage in a cardioid configuration gives the sound the low punch it needs, keeping it in the crowd and off the stage, and leaving Del Rey’s voice plenty of room.
“It’s a challenge,” Price adds. “With Lana’s voice being so velvety, Max has to keep the gain pretty hot, which can create feedback problems, even with in-ear monitors, because her microphone will usually be down in front on stage. He attenuates a few critical frequencies to compensate, but it’s really the P.A. system that makes it happen. The K1 is an amazingly sensitive and incredibly musical loudspeaker.”
