Celebrating the music of the 1950s, Bill Kenwright’s musical Rock ’n’ Roll Heaven has given Flare Audio one of its first theatre outings.

With a production style that is more a series of gigs than a conventional musical, the show’s vibe relies on the main front of house system. Comprising Flare’s X5A Vertical Point Source Array loudspeakers groundstacked with Q18 Directional Touring Bass subs, this has been supplied by Orbital Sound. Featuring the music from the likes of Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison, the show has a dynamic live feel with its four-piece band – guitar, bass, kit and keyboards – on stage throughout. Four singers share lead vocals across the various styles and the inter-song story links.

Specified for its top-end clarity, the main Flare Audio system is configured with a modest array of X5A loudspeakers per side, in conjunction with just four Q18 2x18-inch subs per side – part of the company’s Quadhorn series of sub-bass designs. Front fill duties is being provided by four V10 loudspeakers, with the stage monitoring delivered via a mix of d&b audiotechnik wedges, including M2, M4 and MAX12 units.

‘We wanted to generate a thoroughly live feel, and we were looking to present the show with the best possible quality,’ says the show’s sound designer, Dave Preece. ‘I first heard the Flare Audio speakers at Orbital’s London HQ, and although not on a theatre scale at that time, I thought they sounded lovely. The Flare designs generate a very clean sound, with good high-end definition – you can tell there’s a lot more clarity going on.

‘With no traditional horn system present in the X5A, the results just sound so much better. To maintain the production’s feel, the brief from Keith Strachan, the show’s director, was that everything had to be live – if it wasn’t live, we couldn't do it. So we have no click tracks on the show, apart from just one intro track – the production is purely the band and vocalists on stage. The Flare-based system has fitted the vibe perfectly, giving us the overall quality, clarity and consistency that we wanted. In some ways, the X5A loudspeakers are perhaps larger than we might have preferred given the scale of the tour, but at one venue – Orchard Theatre, Dartford – Flare brought in their new X2A design, so we could hear it in context. It sounds equally promising,’

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More: www.orbitalsound.com