Last night’s relief concert, a benefit to raise funds for those directly impacted by Hurricane Sandy, was quite the spectacle. My wife and I missed McCartney and the other headliners who closed the show (we do have to work today), but we saw a number of the old fogies, including Springsteen, The Who, and my one time idol, Eric Clapton. EC was clearly in the best shape, vocally, of them all--his set was a stunner. I remember watching Clapton and his Cream bandmates perform at the old Garden when I was in high school. We missed Billy Joel, fortunately, who resembles Orson Welles more each year.
How many of those watching--up to two billion, by some estimates, worldwide-paid even scant attention to the incredibly high quality of the surround sound audio that was captured, mixed and broadcast in real time? Every band, or solo artist, required individual instruments and amplification. Set up times between acts was blazingly fast. What a job! We recently had a great surround sound system installed in our bedroom, and I’ll be blogging about the components we used shortly. The quality of the multichannel imaging this 5.1 system yields is stunning.
Firefighters, cops and the volunteers who have contributed so generously to the relief effort were properly acknowledged last night. Here’s a shout out to the audio crew, unsung pros who helped make 12/12/12 such a successful evening.