My wife and I were at the Chieftains concert in Los Angeles at the Disney Concert Hall last night. Paddy Maloney got up from his chair, holding his pipes, approached the microphone, and his tenor reg ( I think) fell out of the stock. He calmly picked it up and reattached it and then continued to introduce the next tune. He “casually” glanced at the reed, or so I thought.
If it were me, I’d be in a panic, but he’s a pro, and I’m not.
On another note, his base drone puck, the trombone part, was detached and laying on a table adjacent to his chair. I wondered why, until I realized that there was a pickup attached (taped) to the puck. I’ve never seen pipes mic’d like that. There was a mic for the chanter, and the one on the bass drone puck. He would pull it off when he got out of his chair to go to another free standing mic.
How did the acoustics treat the Chieftains? I have only heard orchestras in there and I’m curious to hear what it’s like holding a smaller group. I love that hall!
To my ears, I really didn’t like the way it was mic’d. Left of center (fiddles) seemed to be mic’d too hot; at times you couldn’t hear Paddy’s chanter above the fiddles. It may be where we were sitting, left side, above the orchestra seats and slightly to the rear of the main performing area. Even my wife asked why the sound was “muffled” sometimes. There was feed back from center mic at the start of the program. Paddy had to change mics when he was doing his gaelige intro.
We saw Burt Bacharach last June. We sat next to the pipe organ and every thing sounded fine. Or,maybe, I wasn’t being that critical, that being Burt and all.
Next time, I want to sit in the center section, regardless of elevation and see what it sounds like.
That’s interesting…do you know where the amplified audio was being output? I remember hearing that the hall is explicitly not for amplified music, but I could be wrong.
I couldn’t really tell where it was coming from; there was a small set of speakers mounted in that gorgeous wood, on either side of the stage and then a giant bank of speakers suspended from the ceiling. All the musicians had monitor speakers in front of them.
YES, he did. He played an air, which I recognized, but for the life of me , can’t remember the name. He used the regs to do some closing chords with the chanter. He did this weird ghost D that I wondered how it was done; a cross between a bent ghost D and a bark. Every so often you could hear the drones. I was wondering which set of pipes he was playing. I didn’t bring any binoculars and photos were frowned upon.