Fans witnessing the Foo Fighters on their current world tour in support of their album, ‘Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace’, are being treated to a technically complex new stage show, one highlight being a circular auxiliary stage descending from the ceiling. This in-the round section was previewed at the end of 2007 during the band’s nine-date arena shows in the UK, where the high-energy rock show on the A ‘main’ stage was contrasted with an acoustic performance on the second, B ‘floating’ stage. The tour’s greatly expanded equipment list features Sennheiser microphones exclusively — evolution e600 and e900 series, and dynamic MD models.

"There’s a big ring at front-of-house and the B stage descends and slots into the ring," explains long-time band monitor engineer Ian Beveridge. "The whole backline and everything comes down on it. The band plays about forty minutes on the A stage, followed by an acoustic set on the B stage, and then they come back for a big rock finish on the main stage. That’s what makes it interesting. It’s unusual to do a true acoustic band show out in the middle of the hall."

The dual-stage set-up certainly adds a layer of complexity to the audio.

"When Dave [Grohl] goes off the main stage," continues Beveridge, "the guitar is actually being picked up from the A stage but it has to be heard at the B stage. Then, his vocal is at the B stage but the band has to be able to hear it on the A stage, so it gets crazy. But it’s worked out well so far."

The Foo Fighters are joined on the B stage — which is separated from the main stage by a 100-foot walkway — by guest musicians Pat Smear (guitar), Rami Jaffee (piano, Hammond B3 organ) and Drew Hester (percussion), who all played on the band’s fully acoustic tour last year, plus Jessy Greene (violin, cello). There are three vocal positions set up for band frontman Dave Grohl, each featuring Sennheiser’s MD431II microphone, a model on which he has relied since mid-2005 for its tight polar pattern and rejection characteristics. Taylor Hawkins (drums), Chris Shiflett (guitar) and Greene all provide backing vocals through evolution series e945s.

According to Bryan Worthen, front-of-house engineer for the band, "The 431 is really, really flat at the high-end. It’s crazy how much low-end is in that microphone, too. At times Dave sings really quiet, then he screams his head off, so I insert an Avalon 737 on his main vocal and spare, roll off some of the low frequencies, add a tiny boost of the high-end for a little more sparkle, then let it rip! It sounds great and we’ve never had major problems with feedback at any of the shows."

Due to the extremely high sound levels on the compact B stage, where six of the musicians rely on under-floor wedges for monitoring, tight microphone pick-up patterns are certainly an advantage.

"We ended up with e904s on the guitars on the B stage. They worked best," notes Beveridge."

On the main stage, Grohl’s guitar amps are miked using an MD421 and an e935 with another MD421 on Shiflett’s amp set-up.

Various evolution e600 and e900 series microphones are used on the drum kits on both the main and B stages, including e902s on the respective kick drums. Shiflett and Nate Mandel (bass) are using Sennheiser G2 personal monitoring systems.

"They don’t need to pull anything out or swap a pack or anything," says Beveridge. "They just walk out to the B stage with the packs on."

The Foo Fighters kicked off their 2008 Tour in Sunrise, Florida on January 16th and wrapped up their run across Canada at the end of March. The band will be in Japan, New Zealand and Australia in April before travelling to the UK in June.

For more information about Sennheiser please visit www.sennheiser.co.uk or call:

Robert Collins, Sennheiser PR