Concerts at the New Stadium

[CantSmileWithoutYou]

Fortus (GnR second guitarist) talking shit about the stadium

View attachment 113948

That is cutting though. Let's hope that Gaga's team dont think the same.

 

[worcestersauce]

If it turns out a fantastic stadium for football is not conducive to staging rock concerts I can live with that, it's football that matters. Let other teams play their games in a concert hall.
Here's a thought why not fit the stage in one of the stands?

 

[SirHarryHotspur]

Think someone said when they saw G&R at London Stadium the sound was poor , perhaps it's the band and their sound engineers thats the problem.
Don't think we have had any this year but when Drumsheds was operating in Edmonton there were complaints about the noise as far away as Ilford perhaps G&R should borrow their amplifiers.

 

[chrissivad]

I'm sure our stadium will need a different set up to a most other stadiums. It will just take some working out on the best set up.

 

[thekneaf]

The guitarist on the stage will subjectively have zero idea how the sound in the stadium was. He'll be listening to his monitor.

I can fully believe there will be teething problems and tweaks to the way things will be set up, as a more knowledgeable poster mentioned earlier.

However, G&R have literally now cancelled shows because they're so below par they can't perform. That is quite telling.

 

[SirHarryHotspur]

The acoustics in the stadium have been designed with the noise coming from the crowd especially south stand and not from a stage at one end of the pitch, sure they will perfect it for future events to get the right sound balance that can be heard equally all over the stadium .

Stadium Acoustics: Make it Loud | Resonics Blog

The new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium leverages cutting-edge stadium acoustics, design and engineering to create one of the best match day experiences.

resonics.co.uk

 

[Finchyid]

If it turns out a fantastic stadium for football is not conducive to staging rock concerts I can live with that, it's football that matters. Let other teams play their games in a concert hall.
Here's a thought why not fit the stage in one of the stands?

my view (biased obvs) is it is a fantastic stadium for rock concerts, loads of bars, access to pitch and great viewing. I didn't have a problem with sound...It was clearly a GnR issue and as reported since the Glasgow gig is cancelled, Axl has an illness which impacted it. Carrie Underwood you good hear brilliantly

 

[aliyid]

my view (biased obvs) is it is a fantastic stadium for rock concerts, loads of bars, access to pitch and great viewing. I didn't have a problem with sound...It was clearly a GnR issue and as reported since the Glasgow gig is cancelled, Axl has an illness which impacted it. Carrie Underwood you good hear brilliantly

We had no issues in 529 which is quite far away.

It sounded like usual crowd interaction banter between Axl and the crowd on the Friday as he was shouting to them “you want it louder? Do you want it louder??? I think we can make it louder… COME ON!!!!”

 

[Annabel]

Interesting comment from someone on Reddit about this. Apparently GnR didn’t use the stadium system, had a new sound engineer & Axl was a tit.

 

[Wick3d]

I guess its best to wait for the Gaga concert. I'll definitely be reporting back about the sound then

 

[Delboy75]

I think especially with a loud rock band when the actual instruments can just sound like a bit of noise the majority of the “ sound” will be judged on the vocal. And clearly the lead singer was below par. It was probably a bit of a mixture of things but I expect GaGa to be much better.

 

[bobby.james]

Don't think we have had any this year but when Drumsheds was operating in Edmonton there were complaints about the noise as far away as Ilford perhaps G&R should borrow their amplifiers.

Yeah Drumsheds shut at the beginning of the year ?

 

[Riandor]

It was also reported in the music press that the delays on the first night were because Axl didn’t want Fans in the stadium until he was sure he was up to performing.

 

[Tucker]

Interesting comment from someone on Reddit about this. Apparently GnR didn’t use the stadium system, had a new sound engineer & Axl was a tit. View attachment 113962

So it’s basically down to GnR being unreliable old hasbeens like I said a couple of pages back. Don’t get me wrong, I love their stuff from the late 80s/early 90s but they’ve been gash since then.

 

[Nerine]

That Reddit post above...


Gary Clarke Jr and Michael Monroe didn't really sound too dissimilar to Guns. I wouldn't say either sounded categorically "better"

And I also find it quite unlikely that a new FOH engineer was drafted in for this gig when they were in Ireland only a couple of days prior.

The only mitigating factor could be Covid or something, and the FOH dude had to leave. I struggle to believe there was no soundcheck. Plus, a lot of this kind of things is dealt with in the scenes for each show.

I also mentioned a few pages back that I didn't think they had enough system with them.

Rammstein had FAR more in a smaller venue the week prior (The Ricoh in Coventry.) They also had more (and bigger) delay towers. Google "PA delay towers" if you want to know what they are.

I think Guns should have had much bigger ones of those (and another couple of them to boot). That would definitely have helped. As well as the main hangs being bigger. Rammstein's main arrays had nearly double the cabinets at the front, but a few less angled at the sides. (Understandable as the stadium wasn't as wide)

FWIW, and I've seen some bands..., Rammstein at Coventry were unbelievable. The sound was by far and away the best large stadium sound I have heard period. It was devastating. Crushingly loud, clear, not harsh, not fatiguing, ridiculous subs, could wax lyrical about it for days. Perfect. Could properly get into it and mosh around like a lunatic.


The problem being with the Guns setup was that the stadium was an unknown, and the rig usually goes around with the band. Sometimes there is a B Rig that travels in advance to some locations, but usually, the PA they take will be pretty consistent venue to venue. They'll possibly add and take away at some places, but generally it will be similar.

If it were me, I'd have had a bigger system, probably double at the front, and a couple of extra delay towers with more boxes on each hang.


They used something very similar at the Spammers ground a few years back and I was underwhelmed then, too.

That said, I saw AC/DC with Axl singing at The London Stadium too, and that wasn't lacking at all. That was loud as fuck.


I'm a bit torn because it's my favourite stadium and my all time favourite band, and a subject that I actually have a pretty in depth knowledge about given my profession.

 

[Nerine]

So it’s basically down to GnR being unreliable old hasbeens like I said a couple of pages back. Don’t get me wrong, I love their stuff from the late 80s/early 90s but they’ve been gash since then.

This is a bit of a myth and generalisation.

Just a few nights prior to London, they were churning out huge 3.5 hour sets, on time etc etc, and Axl was on point.

They've been touring hard for a while now. He's 60 years old, and doesn't exactly have an easy back catalogue of songs to sing. They don't drop the tunings of songs to make it easier, either. Everything is in record key.

Far more singers of that era have shat out far worse than Axl. Vince Neil, Jon Bon, etc.

 

[SirHarryHotspur]

Yeah Drumsheds shut at the beginning of the year ?

So that's why weekends are a bit quieter around Chingford area .

 

[SecretLemonadeDrinker]

That Reddit post above...


Gary Clarke Jr and Michael Monroe didn't really sound too dissimilar to Guns. I wouldn't say either sounded categorically "better"

And I also find it quite unlikely that a new FOH engineer was drafted in for this gig when they were in Ireland only a couple of days prior.

The only mitigating factor could be Covid or something, and the FOH dude had to leave. I struggle to believe there was no soundcheck. Plus, a lot of this kind of things is dealt with in the scenes for each show.

I also mentioned a few pages back that I didn't think they had enough system with them.

Rammstein had FAR more in a smaller venue the week prior (The Ricoh in Coventry.) They also had more (and bigger) delay towers. Google "PA delay towers" if you want to know what they are.

I think Guns should have had much bigger ones of those (and another couple of them to boot). That would definitely have helped. As well as the main hangs being bigger. Rammstein's main arrays had nearly double the cabinets at the front, but a few less angled at the sides. (Understandable as the stadium wasn't as wide)

FWIW, and I've seen some bands..., Rammstein at Coventry were unbelievable. The sound was by far and away the best large stadium sound I have heard period. It was devastating. Crushingly loud, clear, not harsh, not fatiguing, ridiculous subs, could wax lyrical about it for days. Perfect. Could properly get into it and mosh around like a lunatic.


The problem being with the Guns setup was that the stadium was an unknown, and the rig usually goes around with the band. Sometimes there is a B Rig that travels in advance to some locations, but usually, the PA they take will be pretty consistent venue to venue. They'll possibly add and take away at some places, but generally it will be similar.

If it were me, I'd have had a bigger system, probably double at the front, and a couple of extra delay towers with more boxes on each hang.


They used something very similar at the Spammers ground a few years back and I was underwhelmed then, too.

That said, I saw AC/DC with Axl singing at The London Stadium too, and that wasn't lacking at all. That was loud as fuck.


I'm a bit torn because it's my favourite stadium and my all time favourite band, and a subject that I actually have a pretty in depth knowledge about given my profession.

So the upshot is still that the sound issues were mostly attributable to GnR / their crew / their equipment rather than there being an inherent problem with the stadium's acoustics?

 

[The Scarecrow]

Fortus (GnR second guitarist) talking shit about the stadium

View attachment 113948

In terms of acoustics, it's a fairly unique venue, so they were guinea pigs, I'll give him that.

So, as a professional acoustician, let me try to shine some light on this.

First of all, closed stadiums really aren't suited to host concerts. The distance between the perimeters simply is too big, and you will get unfavourably late reflections. But not only that. Sound at high frequencies is attenuated by air to a much, much higher degree than sound at low frequencies. So when the sound reaches the back of the stadium, the spectral content will be skewed towards the bass, and the sound that reflects back will be the same. So when that reflection reaches a listener, not only will it be perceived as an echo, it will also be heavily dominated by bass notes, which will drown the medium and high frequencies.

So why is this a particular issue at our ground? Well, it might not be. It can be something as simple as the geometry of the stadium, and the fact that it's the first concert. But I also think that the padding in the ceiling might play a part. Usually, in concert halls, you want a high ratio of reflection from the side walls, and a low ratio of reflection from the back wall, for the reasons explained above.

And the ceiling? Well, that depends on the venue and the type of music. To take the venue first, if the distance to the ceiling is big, you don't want too many reflections coming from there (unless you're performing music that benefits from a very high reverberation time). If the distance is small, reflections will be beneficial for most types of music.

The distance to the ceiling in our ground is, compared to concert halls, quite big. However, compared to the distance to the wall at the opposite side of the stadium, it's quite small. So by the time a reflection reaches you from the back wall, the same reflection will have reached you several times back and forth from the ceiling. If it wasn't for the padding. So now we have a ceiling that's barely reflecting anything, and back walls that are reflecting lots of bass. So we're not getting any early favourable reflections from anywhere, really. If we did, those would help strengthening the direct sound and make the late reflections less noticeable.

Besides, the padding is designed to dampen reflections from the crowd, so I assume it's at its most effective between maybe 250 to 1000 Hz. So if there's any sound reflected from the ceiling, that's mostly going to be bass as well.

And the solution? Well, there's hardly going to be a silver bullet. As I said, closed stadiums aren't suited as concert venues at all, and particularly for bass heavy music like rock and metal. It will be better when the sound engineers get used to it. But if we're serious about using the stadium for concerts, we should get some sort of mobile membrane absorbers that can be mounted at the back, and maybe ceiling too if my assumptions about the padding are correct (although that seems difficult in practice) before a concert and taken back down after. Of course, that also won't make the stadium a perfect concert venue, nothing will, but it should help to improve it.

 

[Tucker]

This is a bit of a myth and generalisation.

Just a few nights prior to London, they were churning out huge 3.5 hour sets, on time etc etc, and Axl was on point.

They've been touring hard for a while now. He's 60 years old, and doesn't exactly have an easy back catalogue of songs to sing. They don't drop the tunings of songs to make it easier, either. Everything is in record key.

Far more singers of that era have shat out far worse than Axl. Vince Neil, Jon Bon, etc.

There’s several anecdotal posts in this thread about times where GnR have been unreliable, late, and crap. I’m not saying they can’t pull off great gigs at all, just that they can’t do it reliably.

Sounds like they had serious issues last weekend, and they are trying to blame it on the stadium.

I just don’t buy the excuses, especially since they didn’t do sound checks etc.