Most people commenting on social media had only positive things to say about the Monday night concert, including one person who said it was the ‘‘best sound’’ of all the concerts they had been to at Forsyth Barr Stadium.
However, there were complaints about the sound from some, particularly those seated in the Speight’s Stand.
Some said the sound improved after the first five songs and others said they were able to move to spots where the sound was better.
One concert-goer said they left early and they would be looking for a refund.
Dunedin city councillor Lee Vandervis said the venue ‘‘failed to control the echo, bursts of severe feedback, harsh sibilance from the horn speakers, and a mush of toneless bass sounds masked by the heavy kick drum’’.
‘‘I went to the central mixing desk position, where audio should have been ideal, but found the same echoing mess and found another sound-mixing engineer who had also gone to the same mixing position to try and see why it was so awful.’’
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Queen guitarist Brian May said on social media before the gig the stadium was ‘‘a wondrous building, if a little challenging acoustically’’.
A Dunedin Venues spokeswoman said the number of complaints was minimal and
DVL had received an ‘‘overwhelmingly’’ positive response.
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"A Dunedin Venues spokeswoman said the number of complaints was minimal and
DVL had received an ‘‘overwhelmingly’’ positive response".
Whatever, it still doesn't fix the sound issues that Brian and Lee pointed out.
Unfortunately, the designers of the stadium were probably told it was for sporting events and not for holding concerts by internationally recognised musicians, e.g. Pink, Stevie, Elton and others, so the acoustical properties were probably never really taken into account.
I've also been to a concert and unable to hear the performer "talking" to the audiance and the singing was also quite distorted.
A number of people have actually said the music sounds better when you're outside the stadium, possibly because the plastic roof makes it act like a very big speaker cone.
I believe there have been several audio engineers who attempted to make the acoustics better, but with the variety of performances, adjustments would need to be made for every event ...
Except for the Uni students watching Otago thrash Canterbury ... just turn up the volume !!
I well remember an article in D Scene (remember them?) where a journo rang a promoter for their opinion on our Stadium. The promoter expressed surprise about being contacted and pointed out that when other Stadiums were being considered as music venues their company would be consultants and offer advice. They had not heard anything from our stadium's promoters!