Adlib Solutions hits the road with Elvis Costello

Adlib Solutions is supplying lighting, sound, rigging equipment & crew for the current Elvis Costello and The Imposters ‘Revolver’ UK and European tour.

It’s the first time that the Liverpool based company has worked with the acclaimed musician and songwriter.

Adlib’s Steve Pattison and Pete Seddon are FOH and monitor system engineers respectively, ensuring that Costello’s engineers Fernando "Fern" Alvarez and Nathan Payne achieve the best possible results.

One of Adlib’s JBL VerTec systems was specified, which was chosen for its versatility and ability to be easily ground stacked as well as flown. The standard set up is 12 x VerTec 4889 elements per-side with three or four VT4880A subs ground stacked. For the Albert Hall, 28 additional 4889 boxes were added to the rig taking the main hangs to 14 a-side with additional side hangs of 11 each.

The 4889s are being driven by Camco Vortex 6 amps; for the RAH, the side hangs were powered by the new Crown ITECH 4x3500HDs. Front/lip fills consist of Adlib AA281s to cover the very front seats, and for the corner spots of the room, there are three L-Acoustics ARCS boxes a-side.

Alvarez specified an Avid Profile, on which he is using all of the onboard effects, while for system processing and EQ, the team are using four Lake LM26s. Onstage, monitors are overseen by Adlib’s Pete Seddon, who ensures that Nathan Payne’s days are as painless as possible.

Payne uses a Digico SD10 console, picked for its channel count. Costello plus his three band members are all on IEMs – they are running a Shure PSM1000 wireless system, complete with Sennheiser 3732 hand-held mics and Shure Q5s for the guest vocalists. The move to in-ears is relatively new, so there are still a few wedges – Adlib’s low profile MP4s – present.

Payne records the monitors each night so they can do a virtual soundcheck if needed. The inputs from the SD10 go out via MADI to hard drive recorders, which are then played back via the console running in MADI mode, giving him access to everyone’s mix – with the mics replaced by the recordings.

“Working with someone of Elvis’s stature is fantastic, and production manager Milo Lewis, and engineers Fern and Nathan have been great to deal with all along the way,” said Adlib’s account handler Phil Stoker.

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