This tour marked Cyrus’ first visit to Australia since being introduced to local audiences as Hannah Montana in 2006. Miley Cyrus has released ten albums and sold in excess of 500,000 singles in Australia.

With the 2 overnight festival events, JAS supplied the audio for the main stages 1 & 2 and it was decided this year to tour the systems and duplicate the audio. V-Dosc speakers were used to provide consistency throughout the festivals and sideshows at the Horden Pavilion and Festival hall which both have in-house V-Dosc systems.

JAS supplied a total of 10 Digidesign Profile console systems and also Jamie Davidson as the console tech for the entire run.

Dates

February 20-21, 26-27
March 1

SYSTEM A

Main stage 1 & 2
36 x V-Dosc over 3 x 12 hangs
36 x SB218
12 x ARC

FOH Consoles

3 x Digidesign Profile consoles
1 x Digidesign D-show

Monitor consoles

2 x Yamaha PM5D consoles
1 x Digidesign Profile
1 x Digidesign D-show

Stage monitors

24 x Wayloud wedges
16 x Nexo PS15 wedges
4 x Nexo Alpha side-fill systems

JAS Crew

FOH system tech: Jock Bain
FOH system tech: Nathan McGuinness
Monitor system Tech: Mathew “Boz” Boaro
Monitor system Tech: Dave Leggatt
Audio system tech: Shaun Ayles
Audio system tech: Stephen Brown
Audio system tech: Jamie Davidson

SYSTEM B

Main stage 1 & 2
36 x V-Dosc over 3 x 12 hangs
36 x Wayloud SB218
12 x ARC

FOH Consoles

3 x Digidesign Profile consoles
1 x Digidesign D-show

Monitor consoles

2 x Yamaha PM5D consoles
1 x Digidesign Profile
1 x Digidesign D-show

Stage monitors

24 x Wayloud wedges
16 x Nexo PS15 wedges
4 x Nexo Alpha sidefill systems

JAS Crew

FOH system tech: Peter O’leary
FOH system tech: Josh DeJong
Monitor system Tech: Richie Robinson
Monitor system Tech: Mark Nicholls
Audio system tech: Nahuel Gutierrez
Audio system tech: Otavio ‘Guto!!’ Santos
Audio system tech: Scott Barry

International superstar Ronan Keating toured Australia in January 2010 for his first concert tour in six years. The Irish star performed indoor stadium concerts in Melbourne and Sydney, and seven ‘A Day On The Green’ winery events around the country.

JAS supplied a 48 cabinet L-Acoustics V-Dosc / dVDosc system for the arena shows and a smaller duplicate system for the wineries.

Dates

January 20 – February 2 2010

System

36 x V-Dosc
12 x dVDosc
24 x SB218 subs
8 x ARC
1 x Digidesign Profile monitor console
1 x Digidesign D-Show FOH console
12 x D&B M2 wedges

Duplicate speaker system

24 x V-Dosc
12 x dVdosc
24 x SB218 subs
8 x ARC

JAS crew

FOH system tech: Josh De Jong
Monitor system Tech: Dave Leggatt
Audio system tech: Otavio ‘Guto’ Santos

One of the most celebrated and influential rock groups of all time, Fleetwood Mac, brought their ‘Unleashed’ tour to Australia in late 2009.

Fleetwood Mac played December 1 and 2 at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne December 5 at Hope Estate Winery, NSW, December 7 and 8 at Acer Arena in Sydney, December 11 and 12 at Members Equity Stadium, Perth and December 15 at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre.

The idea of Sound Relief was brought to life with the running of two simultaneous concerts at the Sydney Cricket Ground and the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Johnston Audio was asked to supply the audio system for the MCG event. What followed was an amazing four week period to produce the event. The story of the event’s development and artist involvement has been well documented elsewhere. We went to work on designing and installing a system for Midnight Oil, Split Enz, Hunters and Collectors, Wolfmother, Jack Johnson, Gabriella Cilmi, Jet, Paul Kelly, Bliss n Eso and Liam Finn to perform in front of the largest ever paying audience for a music concert in Australia.

So with a sold out 82,000 strong crowd at the MCG to cover and a special set of conditions we set about designing a system for the job.

Bruce Johnston and Jock Bain have been doing big shows in big stadiums for a long time, and designed a system that has worked well over the years. This included outer hangs of 15 V-Dosc cabinets and due to the low stage roof height we were only able to fly 12 cabinets per side for the main hangs. The roof also presented an issue with the point positions and we had to fly the main hangs further upstage than we would have liked.
Each outer hang was accompanied by a “tower of power” of 12 flown Wayloud dual 18” subs. A further 36 Wayloud subs – in 6 x pods of 6 – were positioned across the front of the stage.

The delay systems brought their own set of issues to the job. The MCG would not allow a crane on the arena to position large towers, so we were left with no option but to use 8 metre towers for the main delay arrays. Two delay towers were utilised, each with 15 Nexo Geo T cabinets. As the MCG is a 3 level stadium we all knew that the towers would not cover the job properly.
Tim Millikan became involved with the project to design the delay system required and to plot the overall system. Tim was a key part of the audio team at the Days in the Diocese Mass at Telstra Dome in 2008 and his understanding of the requirements of a large stadium system design was of great assistance.

Because of the restrictions with delay towers, Tim suggested that we bring in a delay ring positioned on the outside of the playing surface to throw to the upper levels of grandstands. Norwest Productions came to the party with 42 Kudo cabinets distributed over 14 wheeled carts.

The end result was great coverage everywhere and a great result. We went to the fifth level of the grandstand and were amazed how good it sounded at the very back row!

In the FOH tower, there were 4 DigiDesign Profile consoles – A & B boards, a set up / back up console for engineers to prepare their show, and Midnight Oil were carrying their own console package. Stage left saw 4 x Yamaha PM5-D RH consoles running monitors in the same configuration as out front. The monitor system was Nexo PS 15 wedges with Nexo LS1200 drum subs and Nexo S12 flown side fill.

The system patch was set up under the stage with Matt “Boz” Boaro in charge, with two fully independent stage patch systems to facilitate full line check for FOH, Monitors and Broadcast/Record before each act was rolled on stage into position. The result– not one miss-patch and Broadcast/Record crews saying that it was the best feed and communications design that they had ever encountered.

Sound Relief was an amazing event to be involved in – the spirit of camaraderie and cooperation was outstanding, and the production values achieved were extraordinary. We would like to thank Norwest for supplying their services to help make such a large event happen. Chris Kennedy and Richard Bilinski did not hesitate in offering their equipment and staff for such a great cause.

The Sound Relief Production Team included Nick Pitts as Event Manager with Stig Moor as Production Manger. Assisting Nick and Stig were Larry Ponting , Dugald McAndrew, Howard Freeman, Scrooge Madigan and Geoff Maher.

A huge vote of thanks and acknowledgement of a great job must also go to the Johnston Audio team who were outstanding throughout the event’s build, operation and pull down.

And finally, in a delicious dose of irony, the heavens opened throughout the day – it rained and rained, breaking Melbourne ‘s drought and bringing much needed relief to the final fires still blazing.

Date

March 14, 2009

Audio Crew

System Design

Tim Millikan
Chief System Engineer Robert “Jock” Bain

FOH

Doug Pringle
Josh de Jong

Monitors

Paul Kennedy
Richie Robinson

Stage

Simon Keet
Matthew “Boz” Boaro
Nicholas Brunney
Shaun Ayles
Otavio “Guto” Santos

Main system

54 x Vdosc
60 x Wayloud 218 subs
12 x Arc
6 x Dvdosc front fill

First delay

24 x Nexo GEO T 4805 Array cabinets
6 x Nexo GEO T 2815 Array cabinets

Second Delay

42 x Kudo split down to 3 boxes per cart.

FOH Control

3 x Digidesign Profile consoles.

Monitor Control

3 x Yamaha PM5DRH consoles

Monitor system

16 x Nexo PS15 Wedges
2 x Nexo LS1200 subs
8 x Nexo S12 line array sidefills

JAS supplied the speaker system and amps for the tour.

Dates

21, 24, 26, 28 February 2008
2 March 2008

System

46 x L-Acoustics V-Dosc
12 x L-Acoustics dV-dosc
28 x Wayloud 218 Subs
Crown VZ5000 and Lab Gruppen4000 amplifiers.

JAS Staff

V-Dosc systems tech: Robert “Jock” Bain
Systems tech: Craig Gordon
Monitor systems tech: Stephen May

The JAS system and crew delivered everything and more! The preparation and presentation of the system received many favourable comments and Robbie’s FOH engineer Dave Bracey said that the system was fantastic.

Johnston Audio supplied 54 L-Acoustics VDosc cabinets traveling on dollies of 4 to make the setup and pack-down faster. The two front inner hangs had 15 VDosc/side (specially painted cabinets supplied by Britannia Row) and the front outer hangs had 12-15 VDosc / side. There were 2 delay towers of each with 12 VDosc.

The VDosc cabinets were powered by Camco Vortex 6 amplifiers.

The Robbie Williams tour necessitated the design and construction of a flying version of the Wayloud subs. Similar to the L-Acoustics 218, 24 flying-version Wayloud Subs were built for the tour and flown in a vertical hang alongside the outer VDosc arrays. Another 24 Wayloud subs were positioned in stacks of 6 across the front of the stage.

The system design also had 18 L-Acoustics ARCS boxes in pods of 3 across the front edges of the stage.

The whole system was controlled by 16 Dolby Lake controllers and a barrage of computers supplied by Britannia Row.

Sheriff L Babari was the system designer and toured with Robbie Williams.

Dates

30 November 2006
December 1, 5, 9-10, 13-14, 17-18 2006

Johnston Audio Crew List

Robert “Jock” Bain – Crew Chief & Delays
Doug Pringle – VDosc system rigger
Peter O’Leary – VDosc system rigger
Connor Dune – Monitor rigger / operator

System

54 L-Acoustics VDosc
48 Wayloud subs
18 L-Acoustics ARCS
16 x Wayloud wedges
12 x Crown 24×6 amplifiers
1 x DiGiCo D5 112 EX console
8 x Camco Vortex 6 Amplifiers
18 x Crown VZ 5000 Amplifiers

Simple Minds’ Production Manager John Armstrong called to say that they were finding it hard to get the consoles for the Asian leg of their tour and fortunately JAS was able to supply a package including 2 x DiGiCo D1 consoles, 2 x Local racks, 1 x Stage Rack, 1 x return system and 1 x FOH FX system was dispatched to Hong Kong.

JAS also provided a V-Dosc PA system for the Simple Minds’ Palais Theatre show in Melbourne. The system included 18 V-Dosc elements and 16 Wayloud dual 18’ subs powered by Camco Vortex 6 amplifiers controlled by 3 Lake Contour processors.

Jock Bain was the CVE, Doug Pringle looked after FOH and Adrian Barnard rigged the Nexo PS15 monitor system.

Dates

May 3, 7, 9, 12 2006