Finally, A Great Sounding Concert – Thanks ELO!

If you’ve following this blog for any length of time you know that I pretty much stopped going to concerts because most sounded so bad. It’s like an entire generation of FOH mixers learned (incorrectly) that the most important thing on stage was the kick drum. Well, I finally heard a great one at the Honda Center in Anaheim with Jeff Lynne’s ELO.

It’s not easy to mix a 13 piece band, especially one with such diverse instrumentation (drums, bass, 3 keyboards, 3 guitars, 2 cellos, violin and 6 vocals), yet there it was sounding just like the record over and over. In an 18,000 seat arena that’s quite a feat, and one that was much appreciated.

One of my pet peeves with concerts is that most FOH engineers seem to be so concerned with the kick and snare that they forget about the vocals, not to mention the heavy emphasis on the subwoofers. What you get is a low-end heavy mix with little distinction between instruments and a vocal that you can’t understand. With concert-goers routinely spending anywhere from $100 to $1,000 per seat, they deserve more.

I’m not sure who the engineer and crew was for ELO, but I believe it was Gary Bradshaw, assistant Onno Ooms and system engineer Joachim Dewulf if everything is the same as during the band’s 2018 tour.

If that’s the case (I think it was), here’s a great article in FOH Magazine about the setup. It’s pretty interesting that there are no effects used, especially reverb on the strings, but that’s a good reason why everything was so clear and distinct.

If you ever wondered whether concert audio can actually sound good anymore, do yourself a favor and catch ELO if they come to a city near you. Not only is the music great, the band performs it so well, and for once, you can actually hear it all clearly.

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