Kylie darling: please sack your sound engineer
I’m not too sure that my lovely wife Jayne would approve but I must admit that under normal circumstances I would quite happily fantasise over the prospect of sharing a sauna with her and Kylie.
Last night was no kinky threesome however. There were at least 18,998 other people crammed in there with us and the “sauna” in question was the much overrated Manchester Evening News Arena.
Sadly, the Kylie X 2008 concert was completely ruined by the venue’s oppressive heat and diabolical sound quality.
Don’t get me wrong, what her lungs produced was pure Kylie – and what they were wrapped in was, of course, as delightful as ever. But oh dear… her much heralded new band sounded like a recently-formed group of teenage wannabes bent on blowing out the windows at their local village hall!
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not averse to loud music per se, but what they delivered last night was a distorted mess that completely drowned out the voice of our diminutive, delectable iconic Aussie heartthrob.
Kylie darling: please sack your sound engineer. We really had no way of telling how good your band was through all the distortion
And my message to the MEN Arena: (definitely NO darling of mine): Sort out your acoustics …and your air-conditioning …and your seating …and your car parking and…
Better still, knock the whole place down and build a proper arena geared more to customer experience than money-grabbing sardine-packing. And as far as the over-steep upper tiers are concerned, the only customers who might actually enjoy the experience of scaling these would be seasoned rock climbers!
The MEN should take a lead from Liverpool’s excellent new Echo Arena and Glasgow’s equally brilliant SECC.
Biggest doesn’t necessarily mean Best!
EDIT: check out the comments…
July 13, 2008 @ 4:25 pm
It seems I’m not alone in my opinions:
A quick Googleing of “MEN Arena” throws up a large number of reviews (not particularly about a Kylie concert) such as:
* “One of the worst concrerts I have had the misfortune to attend. From where we were sitting (Block 114 lower) the sound was awful and why were there no video screens?”
* “started 20 minutes late. Distorted sound. Over-amplified to a painful level.”
* Gigwise columnist Gill Ripley sums it up rather succinctly in her opening paragraph of a recent review. She writes: “In the intestines of hell, otherwise known as the MEN Arena…”
July 13, 2008 @ 4:25 pm
It seems I’m not alone in my opinions:
A quick Googleing of “MEN Arena” throws up a large number of reviews (not particularly about a Kylie concert) such as:
* “One of the worst concrerts I have had the misfortune to attend. From where we were sitting (Block 114 lower) the sound was awful and why were there no video screens?”
* “started 20 minutes late. Distorted sound. Over-amplified to a painful level.”
* Gigwise columnist Gill Ripley sums it up rather succinctly in her opening paragraph of a recent review. She writes: “In the intestines of hell, otherwise known as the MEN Arena…”
July 23, 2008 @ 7:38 am
Seems they got it right in the end. A friend of ours went to the last night of Kylie’s Manchester stint and reported on our Facebook page:
Nevertheless, a good sound engineer get’s it right first time!
July 23, 2008 @ 7:38 am
Seems they got it right in the end. A friend of ours went to the last night of Kylie’s Manchester stint and reported on our Facebook page:
Nevertheless, a good sound engineer get’s it right first time!