Powering Dermot Kennedy’s Weight of the Woods tour

Dermot Kennedy is an Irish singer/songwriter with a huge string of hits to his name. The Weight of the Woods Tour is an epic world tour accompanying his latest album of the same name. Having completed the European leg, engineers Will Donbavand and Michael Fitzsimmons (Fitzy) will be continuing across North America, Asia, New Zealand and Australia from August.

Audio for the tour is supplied by Solotech, with Donbavand using a Quantum 338 Pulse at front of house, with Fitzy utilising a Quantum 5 at the monitor position. With special one-off performances squeezed in before the resumption of the tour in August the engineers have no time to relax so, as Fitzy begins, having consoles that can keep up is a must.

“So far, it has been a raging success, the show has been very well received with 5-star reviews across the board. We couldn’t have asked for more!” he says. “Solotech have been great and our tech, Dominic Green, keeps everything running smoothly. Everyone on stage is really happy. I started out with a Q338, but we’ve added to the show and now I’ve run out of channels I’m on the Q5. The fact that you can just swap over your show file to a different console is a big plus.”

At front of house, Donbavand is equally happy with his setup. He has been with Dermot Kennedy since 2017, and DiGiCo has been a part of his workflow since 2018. He is making the most of his channel count with the DiGiCo Pulse software and having bussed sends of all the talk-back. He is also using a Fourier transform.engine for his plugin requirements. Keeping his setup compact and sharing racks helps to save space in the truck which is something that is always appreciated by production, as he explains.

“We got our first control package in 2018 and it’s been DiGiCo ever since,” he says. “Sharing racks helps keep production happy and, as I am reaching the limits with channel count, I find things like the additional, zero-latency Con Sends very helpful, especially for talkback between us.”

The Dublin homecoming show closes the European stint of the tour, so the set list was expanded with additional guest artists and a large choir. Donbavand switched to a Quantum five for those shows and also found switching consoles fuss-free.

“There are essentially no playback-tracks in this show which means there are a lot of people on stage,” he notes. “In London, we had a 10-piece choir and I used a Q112 for the extra channels. In Dublin, our choir expanded to a 22-piece, plus special guests, so I swapped to a Quantum 5. Workflow wise, for me that’s easier than having a Q338 and sidecar Q112. Thankfully, moving between consoles is super easy. This is also useful when we’re using a B-rig or picking up equipment locally because, even with our tech Dom prepping in advance, there are always slight issues with networking or card counts to pick up on site.”

For Fitzy, knowing the DiGiCo workflow inside out helps him to trouble shoot last-minute issues under pressure. On stage, the Quantum 5 is doing most of the heavy lifting, with just a few pieces of outboard in addition to his console. The stage is essentially silent, with all performers using IEMs and a pair of subs for stage energy. It is a setup that is working well and is easily adaptable across different venues. Whatever happens in those last few minutes before the band walk on stage, he knows it is a setup he can trust.

“Even with the best techs and equipment things do still go wrong in that last hour before the show starts,” he says. “Our formula works well and has worked across a few different projects, but I’ve been doing some pretty rigorous testing against my current external source enhancer and the Mustard comes extremely close, with the added benefit of the filtering. So, maybe next time out I might not even take the extra hardware.”

For Donbavand, the on-board processing is also indispensable and, as he continues, he is using the Mustard Source Expander (MSE) practically everywhere. “I’ve moved everything that was previously hardware-PSE to MSE, apart from one song on the B stage,” he says. “During a particular moment, one of our backing vocalists sings softly with Dermot, so I insert an external Primary Source Enhancer as well as having MSE on her channel. Previously I used other processing on Dermot and the backing vocals, now it’s all MSE. I like the fact that you can filter the sidechain, by choosing a different input, so sometimes I will choose the head amp as the input, so it gets the pre-EQ full signal. I also use the ducker on a couple of things. There’s MSE everywhere and it’s very nice to have on board.”

For both engineers, it will be DiGiCo as standard as they continue the tour and with the support of Solotech, including fantastic technicians on the road, they could not be happier. As they both conclude, when things are this good, why consider changing?

“I speak DiGiCo completely fluently and because everything works great, I don’t need to apply that energy anywhere else,” says Fitzy.

“I have seen the show evolve from 200-people audiences in clubs to doing two nights in Dublin’s Aviva stadium, which is about 50,000 seat-capacity. It’s been a super nice ride and the whole production has evolved a lot,” Donbavand ends. “DiGiCo’s ease of workflow means starting from scratch with another console has never even crossed my mind.”