Hozier has had global success with the release of his anthem Take Me To Church and debut album, Hozier, which has been certified as gold & platinum in the U.S.
Adlib's team of Sam Proctor & Terry Smith (sound) and Kevin Byatt & Jeff Bond (lights) worked closely with renowned production manager Sue "Duchess" Iredale, tour manager Jake Ryan Foley and the band's FOH and monitor engineers Gavin Muddiman and Darren Dunphy with lighting designer Matthew Kilmurry.
An L-Acoustics K2 system was specified for all the UK shows, and for the two largest European venues, Amsterdam Heineken Music Hall and Brussels Forest National, Adlib supplied a larger K1 system. All the shows were sold out and highlights included three incredible back to back performances at London's Brixton Academy.
The standard audio configuration for the larger UK shows was 12 x K2 speakers a side with 8 x SB28 ground stacked below, together with four ARCS2 a side for infills and 4 KARA across the front of stage for lip fills. This system gave plenty of volume and an even, clear sound for each of the rooms, which were modelled using Soundvision software.
The speakers were all powered by L-Acoustics' proprietary LA8 amplifiers, 12 per side, and signal was distributed via AES with analogue backup on one of Adlib's digital return systems. This featured four Lake LM44s at FOH and two LM26s onstage, running via a Focusrite RedNet D16R connected via a TAC4 fibre multicore.
The Avid Venue Profile FOH console was supplied by Adlib, and Hozier toured their own stage package including IEMs and a compact Yamaha CL1 monitor desk.
Adlib provided one of their famous MP3 subs for a bit of air movement behind the drummer, powered by a Labgruppen PLM 20K amp and run into their monitor system.
The lighting rig was based on four 40ft over-stage straight trusses, the most upstage of which was utilised for the Hozier backdrop.
The back lighting truss was rigged with six Martin MAC Viper Profiles, six MAC Viper Washes, seven Clay Paky Mythos and four Atomic strobes.
The mid truss featured another six Viper Profiles, six Viper Washes, six Mythos and six 4-cell Moles (square format).
On the front truss, six MAC Quantum Washes took care of the general stage coverage together with eight ETC Source Four 36 degree profiles and another six square 4-cell moles.
The floor package included another six Viper profiles arranged in a line upstage on flightcases, peeping over the backline. These were joined by three Atomics and four MAC Aura LED wash fixtures tucked away in the downstage corners for low-level cross stage illumination.
Five Manfrotto stands were each rigged with a 2K fresnel, three located upstage for silhouetting band members and the other two downstage left and right in the same positions as the Auras. A final 4-cell Mole was also located upstage of the drum kit, together with four single PAR cans for additional backlight.
The production also brought in six pairs of their own custom vintage lights with glowing filaments.
Matthew controlled all of this via an Avolites Sapphire Touch with an Avolites Pearl Expert Pro for backup, both connected via a fibre ArtNet system.
(Jim Evans)
