professional audio

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Morocco, 1997

We have always enjoyed the JBL speakers. They are bullet proof and have come through for us on many occasions. In fact, on one show in Morocco back in 1997, Joe was using two of Brigham Young University's JBL SR4732a boxes atop a couple of the SR4718 subs, with a pair of SR4722s for fills. As we first arrived at the "venue" we were overcome by how little it looked like the theaters and auditorium settings we were used to. The space was a centuries-old, outdoor courtyard surrounded by twenty-foot brick walls. No stage existed, and no lights were to be seen anywhere. It was literally a huge, empty, walled courtyard about 100 feet wide and a good football field long. We had been in Tunisia and Morocco for a few days and the barrage of French and Arabic languages and the constant cus cus dinners were making us a little homesick, not to mention "sick" sick. The performers left to do some community appearances and left the crew standing next to our rented equipment truck (which reeked of fish), staring at the vastness of the performance site.

Out of nowhere an army of Moroccan workers appeared to construct a wobbly stage out of boards and cinderblock bricks. A team of electricians ran cables to pipes that were dressed with an array of lighting instruments. Large photos of the Moroccan president were hung with care on the back wall of the stage, as is the custom. Sound was set up and it came time to see if everything was going to work. I fired up a Vega wireless microphone and began wandering the expanse, listening to myself reverberate and echo through the surrounding neighborhood. I kept walking and walking and talking until I was speaking, hearing nothing for a moment, then hearing exactly what I had just said coming from some yonder stage.

The promoters of the show had expected an audience of about a thousand. By the time the show was rolling, a mob of about three thousand people stood as tight as the sardines once shipped in our equipment truck. They were everywhere, walking, standing, climbing. But the biggest problem was that they were very lively and noisy. Our modest sound system had been designed to handle an audience of about half that size in a more controlled environment. I ran down to the amp rack and opened the QSC amplifiers wide open. Those JBLs got over the top of that audience and delivered the show so all could hear. The Vega wireless mics performed beautifully. I was very impressed with that equipment and have been a bigger fan ever since. That's why AnderSound's first speakers were some of those same JBL models, the first amps QSC, and our first wireless mics were Vegas.

Later, the performers told me that as they got off the bus to walk into the venue for the first time since that morning, they heard from my sound check CD the familiar sounds from U2's "Where the Streets Have no Name," which warmed their souls and told them "you know, I think everything is going to be just fine." And I believe it was.

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