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Not content with being the richest or loudest, the music business has become obsessed with being the highest, fastest and deepest. Taking a lead from Katie Melua's mind-boggling undersea concert, Jamiroquai have set the world record for the highest and fastest gig ever staged by playing to an audience of fans and media on an airliner at 37,000 feet.
The Gig in the Sky took place on 27 February and set six World Records on the flight from Stansted Airport to Athens, via Munich. The event, promoting Sony Ericsson's Walkman phones as much as Jay Kay's back catalogue, called for the building of a special sound and lighting rig onboard and culminated in a gig at Athens International, the first time a concert has been staged air-side at an airport.
Preparation for the record attempt began in October 2006 but Mike Lowe, a director of Britannia Row Productions, which works regularly on Jamiroquai tours, says initial plans for the performance area, audience seating and general technical provision did not meet Civil Aviation Authority regulations. These were revised and a second planning session took place in January this year, with some band members involved. "We learned much more from that," says Lowe, "and the next time we went out on the 757 was the real thing."
The biggest problem was providing power for the sound and lighting systems, as airliners do not have proper electricity feeds. HSL Productions built palettes of dry cell batteries and invertors, weighing a total of 1.5 tons, to drive the PA and lights. Seats were removed to make room for the batteries and the performance space, which had backline and a backstage area as usual.
The front-of-house system consisted of a Turbosound TQ-308 a side, with a TQ-115 sub-bass. This covered the first 50% of the cabin, with two TQ-308 delays in overhead lockers for the next 25%. The final 25% of the plane was divided from the rest by lavatories so a second FOH system of TQ-308s was installed. As the cabinets are self-powered amplifiers were not required, saving on weight and space.
Jamiroquai's regular sound engineer, Rick Pope, mixed on a 16-channel Yamaha LS9, which Lowe says, was "fairly stuffed" as it was also feeding the monitors and laptop recording for the video shoot. Jason Kay monitored on two Turbosound TFM-420 wedges, with the rest of the band working with in-ear units.
On arrival in Athens everyone disembarked and moved to the terminal built specially for the 2004 Olympics. Here the band played in the glass lobby, which Lowe and the crew decided was unsuitable for a flown L-Acoustics V-DOSC system, which had been used on the last tour. A Turbosound Aspect rig was ground-stacked and, says Lowe, worked well within the space. FOH and monitor desks were Yamaha PM5Ds, with the on-stage system a mix of 15 EAW SB12 wedges and IEMs.
Representatives from the Guinness Book of World Records confirmed the 25-minute airborne performance as the highest concert ever, fastest concert ever, highest concert in an aeroplane, fastest concert in an aeroplane, highest ever recording and fastest ever recording. But questions remain. Who is going to attempt the coldest and hottest concerts? And will airlines now allow mobile phones to be used on flights? Or is that a privilege only for funk bands and their telecom giant sponsors?.
Article written by Kevin Hilton and reproduced by kind permission of ProSound News Europe. © CMP Information Ltd 2007
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