On the Road with Sam Fender
North-East’s finest takes CODA’s AiRAY system on the road for first U.K. arena tour…
North-Shields born Sam Fender is without doubt the rising star of the British music industry. His debut album Hypersonic Missiles entered the U.K. chart at number one in 2019, as did its follow-up, Seventeen Going Under, in 2021. Still in his twenties, Fender’s songwriting talent enjoys wide critical acclaim and his popularity with a broad audience continues to grow exponentially. In the spring of 2022, Fender embarked on his first arena tour of the U.K. playing sellout shows and receiving universally favourable reviews. A show with high quality songwriting front and centre demanded audio to match, and Fender took a CODA Audio system on the road in the hands of front of house engineer Peter Fergie.
The nine arena shows were Fender and his talented band’s biggest to date, and presented a highly dynamic demonstration of his abilities. His eclectic material draws upon heartfelt vocal delivery and a wide range of instrumentation, so the detail, as Peter Fergie explains is all important:
“We wanted to replicate the album as closely as possible but there’s an extra excitement you can add live. There are so many things happening - three electric guitars going at once sometimes, a whole load of synthesisers and keys, mandolins, saxophone, trumpet - the lot. On top of that, in particular in this show, the crowd are really loud - they’re singing every word to every song and there’s a lot of songs that break right down to very quiet sections and build back in again. You need to hear things in great detail and I think if you haven’t got that clarity, you’re really struggling. The CODA AiRAY system is very crisp and clear, and Cog, the system tech, has kept it nice and consistent for every show.”
The system was based on CODA’s flagship ultra-compact, ultra-lightweight AiRAY line array. Main hangs comprising 16 x AiRAY boxes per side (12 at 90° and 4 downfill at 120° for more horizontal dispersion) were supplemented by side hangs of 12 x AiRAY per side and a flown sub array of 4 x SC2. An additional centre hang of 3 x APS (arrayble point source) combined with 8 x APS as infill and 16 x SCP floor subs completed the picture. The system was driven by CODA Audio LINUS amplification.
Find out more: https://codaaudio.com/sam-fender-goes...