LONDON — In August, the Caffè Nero Artist of the Month was pop songwriter Jamie Abbott, who has traveled and performed all around the U.K., performing in as many as three locations per day. Accompanying him on the tour of Caffè Nero locations in August was bassist Tom Kenrick and K-array’s Blueline KB1, which proved well-suited for the duo’s on-the-go performance schedule.
More details from K-array (www.k-array.com):
Bars and cafes have always not only been places where you could enjoy a steaming cup of freshly brewed coffee, but – especially in Italy – they are places where people come together to chat, meet up with friends, read, and even listen to music. Caffè Nero is a chain of “Italian style” bars distributed in the UK, Dubai and Turkey, which also organizes cultural events. Among these, there are musical performances staged in sales points, with a program very similar to a real live tour.
The Caffè Nero Artist of the Month- coincidently also the name of the initiative – for the month of August was Jamie Abbott, a London based pop songwriter, who has toured the length and breadth of the UK, often performing two or even three times on the same day and in different locations.
Aside from bassist Tom Kenrick, accompanying Abbott around was K-array’s Blueline KB1 – perfect for a tour that requires flash arrangements and setups from one location to another. Blueline was picked out from the rest because of K-array’s high-quality professional sound diffusion, complete with many devices designed for musicians: the ability to call up presets from the comfort of a PC, to electronically define the vertical angle of diffusion, the integrated digital mixer, internal resources for audio processing, combined with superb sturdiness and easy setup. The KB1 is composed of a vertical module which houses eight 3.15 ” speakers for medium to high frequencies, and a 12″ subwoofer. Thanks to the producer Kipper, the musician’s touring needs in various cafes were exceeded with a simple high-quality system.
“I am terrible when it comes to the technology side of things and the KB1 is really easy to use. It’s also a very compact system and goes up really quickly,” said Abbott.
However the reasons for choosing KB1 are not only logistical, as pointed out by the musician: “The KB1 has presets for particular microphones which is a nice touch. It has saved further time because we don’t have to worry about setting up the EQ on the mics,” Jamie says. “I am also looking forward to being able to control the system via the forthcoming iPad app. That will make it even more convenient.”
One more highlight is the case – so strong that, although the system fell from the trolley during one of the trips, everything continued to work perfectly.
This tour proved to be yet another opportunity to appreciate the unparalleled quality of K-array in terms of compact size and high quality performance: “The system also created quite a lot of interest,” said Abbott. “It’s very discrete, but sounds fantastic and people were intrigued by that!”
For more information, please visit www.caffenero.com.
