The British musician Fred Again is best known for creating intimate listening experiences at scale. He won critical and fan acclaim for his work in 2021 Real life, where he composed original tracks using a range of audio tracks, ranging from voicemails and snippets from social media to tracks of other artists' sounds. He described the work the time like something of a calendar of the beginning of the pandemic, a time when the whole world was looking for connection in the digital space. Since then, it has dropped two sequels Real life and brought his expansive style of electronic music to massive IRL crowds around the world. You've probably seen fan-recorded clips all over social media. Entry points include: Fred Again with Skrillex performing in Times Square, Fred Again, Four Tet and Skrillex to a sold-out Madison Square Gardenthe Fred's Boiler Room Setone of the most viewed websites of all time.
The latest addition to the canon is Fred Again's first stadium show at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which took place last month. The event drew a near sold-out crowd to the 77,500 capacity venue and was Fred's biggest show to date. The elaborate set-up included more than six stages where Fred, along with musicians Romy and Obongjayar, performed in various formations. In a viral clip from the show, Fred and Obongjayar, the Nigerian-British singer-songwriter who collaborated with Fred on the single 'Adore You', perform from the stands, surrounded by frenzied fans.
The idea for a show at the historic stadium starring Pink Floyd and Metallica first came about during Fred's residency at the nearby Shrine Auditorium last year. “When we were playing those shows, someone in my band would say, 'Let's go check out this place,'” Fred recalls. “I thought it could be a really interesting creative challenge to try to do something big. They said, “This is a big space, but it looks like a space where you could make good sound.”
JULIAN BAJSEL*
“The first secret was to find a pitch without a roof!” explains Jamie Tinsley, who plays sound for all of Fred Again's live shows. “Roofs are almost always placed over the public area, primarily for weather protection and the ability to add lighting and other technology. However, they are also headphones designed to reflect the crowd's cheers back onto the pitch to create a louder live atmosphere. This is our number one nightmare when trying to manage sound reflections in large music venues.”
The unobstructed, open-air design of the LA Coliseum made the perfect large-scale venue for what Fred and his team had in mind. “Once we got there, it's so powerfully understated – just red seats. There are hardly any ads or anything. All you could see was just red seats,” says Fred. “The fact that it's this gentle incline as opposed to the seats being steep and high means that most [sound] reflections fade out instead of bouncing in.”
“Fred mentioned that he wanted nightclub sound everywhere,” explains Tinsley “In my eyes, the only way to achieve that is to bring the speakers closer to the people. I wanted to design a setup where everyone would be within 60 meters of a speaker at any point. The tricky part here is that the bleach depth around the stadium is only 100 meters!”
The solution was to add 21 cardioid speaker stacks halfway through, which Tinsley says will prevent an unwanted flapping sound effect. This was combined with a donut shape of 68 triple cardioid 21-inch subs around the stage for even coverage throughout the venue, supported by additional subs for the farthest points. “The consensus was that if we put enough thought into the PA, we could make this sound really good,” says Fred. “And then I got really excited about the premise of, 'Oh my God, we can make the best sound ever.'
Julian Bajsel*
But sound wasn't the only concern. Fred's ethos throughout his rise in recent years has been a genuine connection with fans, whether through the smaller, more intimate shows he likes to play at Corsica Studios in London or the elaborate shows that have become monumentally popular in a short time period of time. “I think the challenge for me at the Coliseum was that I really wanted to find ways that I could connect as much as possible with people in this huge space,” explains Fred. “That's why we made this thing—Lucy and I call it a moat—we built this thing all over so I could walk. That meant I could walk through the different stages.”
Lucy Hickling, Fred's creative director, didn't want to lose the essence of the shows they've done so far, which have fostered a sense of intimacy that audiences have come to appreciate in post-pandemic nightlife. “I think what makes a Fred show, and has always made it so special, is that closeness that everybody has and everybody feels like they're all together. I think it's been such a fast journey that it would be such a shame for him to lose that feeling, especially so early in the relevancy of his entire career to come,” he says. “We worked with Human Person, which is a design team, who are amazing and so great and took every idea we had so well and made it even better every time.”
An important part of the scenography was the so-called moat, which surrounded the field within the venue and allowed each artist to engage with the entire crowd. “Being able to make sure that the production surrounded everyone and everyone could feel part of the show as opposed to just watching the show was important,” explains Hickling. “It's all about being in the same room as the artist and I think people really crave that. People really crave being in the same room with an artist because we spend so much time looking at them on our phones or, especially during lockdown, when the Fred thing started, you just couldn't experience anything.”
“And then we also built another stage, which mirrored the same design, and that's where the more complex songs were played, and obviously Fred did the MPC where he fought Tony, and they used two opposite sides of the ditch,” Hickling continues. . “There were six spots where Fred played throughout as well as walking around the perimeter of the stadium.”
Theo Batterham
It was an intimate experience for the performers as well. “I think the way we set up the 'Strong' show, Fred and I start the show singing, facing each other and with eye contact and intimacy between us,” Romy says of performing her collaboration with Fred. “It kind of created this kind of intimate world where it felt like it was just Fred and me there, especially when you're listening with the ears. So it felt like a surreal dream to be in the middle of this 360-degree world of people around us.”
The singer-songwriter, who is also one half of electronic duo The xx, admits they were nervous at first, “but there was this kind of security that I feel between, the trust that Fred gives me, I feel like we have this together,” he says . “Then when [the beat] finally it dropped and I was just dancing, just taking it and just looking around and trying to connect with people and seeing different people's reactions, it was really special and something very unique to be able to perform that song in the round like that. A very, very dream scenario, to be honest.”
When it came to creating a setlist, Fred says there was no real methodology, instead he focused on making sure he could move through the various stages. “It was more like I wanted to make a setlist that hopefully wasn't too stop-start that allowed me to move around,” he says. “How could we play in five different locations and try to keep the momentum in the right place?”
The closest comparison might be the raves you usually find in the club world, full of flourishes, dynamic sound and a sense of closeness to the DJ. “I would never want to say that we are copying the culture of the club because it would be unfair to make that comparison,” says Hickling. “However, I think there are a lot of Fred fans who don't know much about dance music, and to be able to introduce little elements of dance music to people who might never have been to a club or a deep rave is nice. thing that needs to be done. Musically, the show offers so many different styles of music that it's not really any kind of show. It's just a unique musical experience. I don't think you can put it in a box.”
Jenn Yacoubian, Executive Vice President of Goldenvoice, who has worked with Fred for several years, says it was unlike any other event she's seen in her career as a promoter. “I think it was so intentional about the sound from the first presentation. We did further descriptions and brought in different sound engineers and experts like, 'okay, how can we make it sound and have that experience sound as incredible as it would in a room with a thousand caps,'” he explains. “It was unlike any other large-scale show I've seen, where even being so high up you felt right in the middle of it because of the sound.”
With this latest feat now behind them, Fred and his team are taking a well-earned breather, but the wheels are already turning on what kind of challenges they might want to tackle next. “We did this show two days before the Coliseum for about 150 people in the stands at the Coliseum, I just played really stripped back music for the OG people who were at the early shows and stuff,” says Fred. “We all found this show eye-opening. That was a really beautiful energy. So I'm thinking of finding a way to do that vibe even more.”
from our partners at https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/fred-again-first-ever-stadium-show-behind-the-scenes-1235046459/
