DPA Microphones were present in abundance at the Gran Rex Theatre in Buenos Aires when keyboardist and composer Rick Wakeman played two concerts featuring his best-selling albums Journey to the Centre of the Earth and The Six Wives of Henry VIII.
The concerts were the culmination of a South American tour that also included six band-only shows in Brazil, Chile and Argentina. The final two sell-out concerts in Buenos Aires involved two different full orchestral shows, complete with a five-piece rock band, a choir, narration and solo singers.
Front of House sound engineer and co-production manager Ian Barfoot, who has worked with Rick Wakeman on numerous occasions since 1985, was given the task of specifying the audio equipment for the tour.
"The two orchestral concerts in Buenos Aires involved more than 90 channels, of which more a third used DPA microphones," Ian Barfoot says. "Although some of the equipment I wanted was not available in South America, I did insist on DPA microphones, especially for the orchestra. I used DPA IMK4060 Instrument Microphones for the harp and all the high strings such as violas and violins, while for the cello and bass we used DPA d:vote 4099 Instrument Microphones. We needed so many - over 30 in total - that we couldn't source them all locally and had to ship the majority of them with us from the UK."
For this tour, Barfoot and his co-production manager Erik Jordan also specified DPA's d:facto Vocal Microphone, which was used by the two main vocalists Ashley Holt and Cecilia Barba.
