Firehouse and Clair Global’s Eighth Day Sound Rush to Support Benefit Concert
“These guys normally take six months to a year to plan something like this, and they pulled it off in three weeks,” states Eighth Day GM/Account Executive Meegan Holmes.
“These guys” started with a team headed by Joel Gallen, executive producer of Tenth Planet Productions, and filtered down to Firehouse Production’s Mark Dittmar and his team making it happen, with Eighth Day/Sound Image/Clair Global supplying one of the PAs. The “something like this” was FireAid, a benefit concert held on January 30 at two arenas simultaneously: The Intuit Dome and the Kia Forum.
“This was certainly the largest show I’ve ever done without a dress rehearsal,” Dittmar says. Like a great artist, Dittmar and team did not let anyone see them sweat.
Firehouse supplied their JBL VTX V25-ii-CS rig in the Intuit Dome and all the personnel, control, RF, and intercom needs in both venues; Eighth Day supplied a d&b KSL system in the Forum. And the names did turn out for this: In the former, Billie Eilish, Jelly Roll, Lady Gaga, Olivia Rodrigo, Stevie Wonder, and Sting performed; in the latter, Alanis Morissette, Anderson .Paak, Green Day, Pink, Stevie Nicks and Joni Mitchell performed; plus many more for a total of nearly 30 acts. The event was produced by the Azoff family in collaboration with producing partner Live Nation. Gallen was executive producer, and the talent producer was Rick Krim.
“If you live in Southern California, you know someone has been impacted by this,” Holmes says.
Egos Checked at the Door
Firehouse Productions gets its name because when it was founded in 1984, its location was an actual firehouse in Brooklyn, NY. They are experienced in the world of big live events — they have been the audio coordinator/systems designer for MTV Video Music Awards 16 times in the last 20 years, and they did the same for the Live Earth event. They specialize in live broadcasts, and this one was especially complicated.
On January 15, Dittmar got the call that a fundraiser for victims of the LA fire was in the works, and were they available? The deadline was a mere two weeks. “We were like, ‘yikes!’” Dittmar exclaims. He sent a preliminary sketch over right away laying out what he thought it would take to do it, and then started moving his team on it before there was official approval. “On the 17th, we had to send a semi from New York to our Vegas location, so there was no time to wait for the producers to make a decision — it was a gamble to just throw giant piles of audio gear in the truck, but that’s what we did.”
It wasn’t completely blind though, as “we were aware of what it takes to do huge events like this. But this was right up there as a Herculean process we were having to handle other shows at the same time.” There is a major difference: “Normally with a show like this, had more time. You would work on the design, then work on crewing, then loop back on budget as you get more information. With this, all that and more had to happen simultaneously. We were advancing vans, designing, getting the crew — it was intense.” Firehouse immediately set to gathering an 80-person crew, 40 people for each venue.
A few days before the show, they traveled to LA, and with the framework in hand, they were sound checking the first bands 20 hours later. “Two days after that, we were live on the air, and that was a little scary,” he says. “No dress rehearsals, no rehearsing the changeovers or how the timing on that would work — we just went for it.”
They knew the stage would be a turntable format so while one band was performing, the next one was on the back of the turntable setting up. The meant two DiGiCo consoles per venue at front of house, plus two monitor console and production consoles. “On something this large and this fast, we just threw our big consoles at it, [DiGiCo] SD7s and 338s, as we needed to make sure we had enough inputs and outputs. This is what I would call a ‘large festival package,’ but these events don’t run like festivals, so we just throw everything we can at it.”
TV trucks had to be integrated, meaning a much larger intercom system was needed. “We had about 130 users in each venue, plus the two venues themselves were interconnected with video, audio, and Riedel’s Bolero wireless intercoms were put in place. So right off the bat there are a lot more complexities; there’s just a whole layer of stuff that sits on top of a TV that doesn’t sit on top of a traditional rock festival.”
The Firehouse team reached out to the bands’ engineers — but even that had its challenges as the bands involved had to figure out what they wanted to do at such an important, high-profile event. “In the case of someone like Stevie Wonder, a performance by him can require 75 inputs or 150 inputs, depending on what he ends up doing. Then it becomes, ‘oh Sting is going to sing with them’ and ‘Flea is going to play with them.’ So now we’re dealing with collaborations, and there’s a lot of creativity happening simultaneously and we needed to keep up with all of it.”
Egos were checked at the door and a spirit of cooperation persevered. For example, there were some engineers that wanted to bring their own desk, but Dittmar says they all got on board (no pun intended) pretty quickly that sharing the DiGiCos would make the show go smoother. “It became a matter of how we can work together to make sure the engineers and the artists are happy and produce a successful TV show.” Small concessions and compromises were made. Another example was that maybe a certain piece of outboard gear for reverb was preferred, but by using what was on the Waves server which was already there made that smoother. “Instead of dealing with every individual thing, can we modify our normal work flow a bit? And everyone responded to that in a really positive manner saying that they can make it work.”
Dittmar confirms that this mentality transpired interdepartmentally as well as lighting, video, staging, and everyone bent over backwards to ensure the best possible results. “We always have a good working relationship [with the other disciplines], but this show took it to a whole new level. It was definitely people working hard and going out of their way for each other.”
“The devastation from the fires cannot be understated as they destroyed the homes, offices, and studios of many in the music industry including impacting some members of the Harman/JBL family,” says Daniella Peters, director of tour sound for JBL. “Los Angeles has been the home of JBL for nearly 80 years, so we were touched that Mark Dittmar of Firehouse called to say that the JBL VTX system would be used to raise money to help thousands of people rebuild. We’re so appreciative that Firehouse was able to turn around their gear and staff for this meaningful event in such a short time.”
‘Everyone was Willing to Help’
When the idea of FireAid started, one of the first calls went to Eighth Day Sound, a division of Clair Global. Holmes took the call. She started in the business in 1992, working as a stagehand for Delicate Productions before moving to the Eighth Day’s Los Angeles branch for nearly 20 years. In 2016, they were acquired by Clair Global, and today she is GM and account executive there.
When she learned what was needed for two venues, Holmes made a critical, honest assessment: They could not do this, at least not on their own. “With the Grammys happening that same week and a lot of other work surrounding that, it would be a challenge for any company to take on the entire audio needs — I really didn’t feel we had the right bandwidth to manage it. I told them we would help, but that he should call Firehouse.”
Later a call came in from client Red Hot Chili Peppers saying that they wanted a d&b system in the Forum where they were set to play, and they asked if one could be supplied. “So we stepped in and donated that P.A. system. Our team put it together, took it down, and flew it. Then we had our system engineer on site working closely with the Firehouse people, so that ended up being our little corner of this huge event, and we’re very proud to have helped.”
Their system engineer, Grant Cropley, was key to getting that system tuned to where it needed to be, and quickly. Once rehearsals in the room started, he made little adjustment from his original alignment. “He said he really enjoyed working with the Firehouse team saying they were all kind and welcoming, and to me it’s just another sign of how wonderful this professional is. Everyone just got behind the cause.”
It worked out all across the board because many of the artist playing that venue were already clients with Clair Global, Sound Image, Eighth Day Sound or Britannia Row Productions. But wait — there’s more. “That started a whole rabbit hole of us providing rehearsal systems for all these artists. So outside of what ended up happening in the building, we donated gear for all these rehearsals around town, and that ended up increasing our involvement.”
Holmes was also struck by the spirit of cooperation from the artists on down. “Everyone was willing to help,” she says, adding that president/CEO Troy Clair and the rest at the HQ in Lititz can be “3,000 miles away and still understand the impact that they can have in making a donation; while not necessarily being part of this [Southern California] world, not necessarily living through it, but still step up and say we’ll donate whatever exists in our inventory … that’s really great.”
Holmes says Firehouse deserves plenty of credit. “This really fell into their wheelhouse … this situation where all these bands come out and just play two or three songs — they do that well.”
When FRONT of HOUSE spoke with Holmes last month, she had still not watched the show, as her home in Pasadena was in the evacuation zone and had to stay away for two and half weeks. “We were lucky our home was still standing,” she says. “And this particular show had a lot of heart in it, and I tried to watch it but the first package featured a Pasadena firefighter and they started showing that footage … and I just can’t watch it yet.”
In the Trenches
A handful of audio engineers were called in including Barry Warrick, who has done a lot of broadcast work including the Grammys, iHeart Radio, and BET and Country Music awards. He got the call just 10 days before the concert, taking his place on the “A” side of the Forum with FOH engineer Michael Bové on the “B” side. “A few of the acts brought their own engineers, but it ended up splitting up well,” he says. “And Mark [Dittmar] was great getting us the necessary information for us to program our consoles and be prepared for everyone. We were ready for anything they could throw at us.” Warrick mixed John Mayer and No Doubt among others, including surprise guests.
Rehearsals happened, but they were sporadic and out of order, and the precious time was shared with camera blocking. “I think we had an hour and 30 minutes so that the cameras could line up their shots, and we could get our audio, and then move on to the next act, just storing settings into our consoles.” As far as working with the DiGiCo Quantum 338 with the Pulse Package, that is Warrick’s console of choice, so it was a great situation for him, he says.
“It’s always stressful at first until we get going and get into it. Then once I hear the first couple of notes of the first song and hear that everything is good, then I calm down,” he laughs. “That moment before you unmute everything and you don’t hear feedback, you’re like, ‘Okay, everything is good.’” He adds that he still enjoys what he’s doing and that he quickly gets into it, “dancing around, singing, enjoying the music — it’s a joy for me.”
Warrick tips his hat to his professional siblings handling the visuals: “A big moment for me was seeing all the lights and how they lit up the arena. It was just something that ran through me, emphasizing what we were doing that night and why we were doing it, what it all stood for.” [For an in-depth feature on the visuals, please see this month’s cover story in our sister publication, PLSN.]
At FOH, Kenny Kaiser was another engineer in the trenches. He was on break with his day job of working for the Killers when he got the email from Dittmar. “A day before the first rehearsal, I got the information and flew out there,” he says. “Then it was two days of rehearsals, and then the show.”
He ended up working one half of the Dome and got to mix Sting, Lady Gaga, Lil Baby, and Jelly Roll and Tate Mcrae. He had done shows with Firehouse with events like iHeart Radio, and Jingle Ball; and with Eighth Day and Clair, he had worked shows at the Hollywood Bowl and KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas. “This was a breath of fresh air,” he emphasizes. “Those other shows can be stressful, but this was refreshingly not. Every production person going into this understood their role. Usually there’s at least one production person who ends up throwing [a wrench] into it, but not this show. It was super cool.” Kaiser says that some of the acts brought their engineers, but they typically “stood by and let me do my thing — it was very chill and surprisingly easy.”
Like all the engineers, he had two days to program. He chose to create template files to accommodate everyone as opposed to trying to create scenes. “I focused on 20 sounds like kick, snare, etc.” He had two run-throughs which each song an artist did. While he, like others moving faders, accepted the parameters, it doesn’t mean he wasn’t thinking about what if’s. “There was a lot of wishing I could do something over, but in the grand scheme of things with only 30 minutes per act to sound good, everyone did a really good job on it.”
The Stevie Wonder part was the most challenging, Kaiser confirmed. “He started out with 102 inputs, and we condensed it down to 48. I really appreciate everyone that came in working for the same goal. It was very seat-of-your-pants, and we had 10-15 minutes to line check — every A2 was killing it, hitting it out of the park.”
It all flew by him so fast that the magnitude didn’t sink in until after. “I was flying home after and thinking about growing up listening to the Police and then it hit me — I got to mix Sting! When you’re sitting there doing the work, you don’t get to think about what your childhood dreams were.”
He adds, “I really enjoyed working with Firehouse — I do every time. They are so well-staffed and professional. Probably everyone on their crew could do your job better than you!”
The event raised more than $100 million so far, with total donations still climbing. (FireAid is still available to stream on YouTube, max, and Apple TV and will be for a full year). “It turned out well,” Dittmar says, still sounding a bit exhausted. “The key thing is while the show was certainly a challenge technically, and there was a lot of pressure and stress, it’s nothing to compared to what the people affected by the fire have gone through.”
Donations are still be accepted at www.FireAidLA.org.
