The UK’s biggest-selling album group of the 21st century, Westlife, have been busy with their extensive The Wild Dreams Tour as their sensational return to music continues following their record-breaking 2019 reunion tour which saw Shane, Nicky, Mark and Kian play to over 600,000 fans across 27 countries.
The Irish pop kings kicked off the summer leg of their tour performing across the U.K. and Europe with two sold-out nights at Aviva Stadium Dublin, then sold-out headline show at London’s iconic Wembley Stadium followed by two dates at 45,000-seat Cork Stadium (Páirc Uí Chaoimh) in Ireland in the following week.
Chris Pyne has worked with Westlife on and off since 2010 including one of their main vocalists Shane Filan for his solo tours and he was delighted to be back on the road with them through the European summer.
“We have done a few outdoor festival shows in the UK and Europe plus four large stadium shows in Ireland then the major event at Wembley Stadium in London then onto Denmark and Norway festivals,” he commented. “After a few weeks break, we travelled to Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Singapore for the F1 and then back to Indonesia. The UK and Ireland Arena tour follows that from November till New Year. Westlife is very popular in SE Asia and China at the stadium level so there will be a couple of months run through SE Asia from mid-Feb 2023. There are possible dates in the US and maybe Australia next year as well.”
Chris comments that it has been no simple task getting the show on the road because the majority of artists around the world want to get out and make their careers back. So, as the live industry returns after Covid, it’s seriously ramped up to a point where equipment, crew and travel are very hard to attain. Thankfully, using Clair Global group has helped.
“Our current audio supplier is the Clair Global group including Brit Row, Clair Audio Rent and JPJ Audio,” said Chris. “We had an exceptional audio crew from various major acts like Foo Fighters, Rammstein, Genesis and Queen.”
Whilst Chris is ensconced behind a DiGiCo Quantum 7 at FOH, monitor engineer Becky Pell is also behind a DiGiCo Quantum 7 running monitors.
“We both use DiGiCo Quantum 7s as the prime live console with many new features including SD rack 96K 32bit cards and Mustard internal processing units,” said Chris. “I also use outboard Neve Portico units the Masterbuss processor and very handy 5045 source enhancement units which helps control vocals gain before feedback on B stage set-up. Becky is using Klang immersive IEM mixing units which have become very popular with IEM users.”
Chris’ main stadium system was L-Acoustics K1 and K2 as K1 has a particularly strong and consistent full tone and volume balance over distance. The occasional d&b GSL system was deployed for festivals using array processing to help reduce external noise limits.
“In large stadium environments, the focus is on creating clear and prominent vocal and music quality whilst dealing with very reflective environments and loud audiences, plus extensive B Stage 54 metres in front of the system,” added Chris. “Westlife audiences can be very loud, at recent stadium dates the average was 96db over 10 minute LeqA.”
Chris remarks that the return of one of the biggest ever boybands to their home territory in Ireland was hugely successful and considered the best live shows there’ve ever done. He says that the level of energy and vibe from the audience and artists was great and I’d expect after a couple of years of Covid restrictions it brought back life to many.
As to how touring will be over the next couple of years, Chris believes that over time, barring any major downfalls, it will return to normal as general life recovers in countries around the world.
“Obviously, there are limitations of transport and supplies still after the effect of Covid but we can expect the live industry to return as we had it before 2020,” he said. “There are basically no Covid protocols in UK and the majority of Europe anymore although on this tour there was daily testing before interacting with artists in dressing room areas.”
Becky has also worked with Westlife for many years describing her relationship with the band as nice and relaxed.
“Typically I’ll get a thumbs up from one of them after the first song, and when there’s a chat break whoever’s not talking might come stage left for a drink of water, or there’s sometimes an in-joke we’ll laugh about,” she said. “I’ve been with them for twelve and a half years now, so we have a very familiar discreet sign language for any changes they need during the show.”
Beck was generating thirteen IEM mixes plus side-fills and a line of downstage wedges.
“The musicians have quite different mixes from the Westlife guys – a lot fuller musically with the vocals obviously sitting a lot further back in the mix,” she explained. “The artists differ between themselves quite a lot too – two of them have very simple stripped-out mixes with not much more than something to pitch to, something to time to, and their vocal; one has a much fuller mix, and one is somewhere in between.”
As mentioned, Becky runs a DiGiCo Quantum 7 running at 96k, with a Klang DMI card in each engine and a pair of Mac minis controlling them. She uses just one screen for Klang rather than having another for redundancy.
“I have a switching unit so that in the event of me going to the B engine the screen can switch to that feed,” she added. “I had another Mac mini running Reaper multitrack recording which was handy during rehearsals, but I rarely used it once we were on the road.”
All the IEMs are Sennheiser 2000 series and the vocal mics are Sennheiser 6000s with MD9235 heads.
“There are no plug-ins, the only outboard I use is Klang, which has been a great success – the musicians love how spacious it feels, and the artists are now wearing both IEM moulds for the whole show, having previously had the habit of popping one out from time to time,” said Becky. “Klang is much less fatiguing to listen to than stereo, which has meant I can reduce the volume of everyone’s mix and that’s obviously great news for hearing protection.”
Everyone is on IEMs with Klang, the wedges and side-fills are there because the guys like the physical feel of some ‘weight’ on stage.
