Rat Sound Flies L-Acoustics for I Am the Highway: A Tribute to Chris Cornell posted: 01/02/2019
Held at the Forum in L.A. on January 16, I Am the Highway: A Tribute to Chris Cornell was a five-hour fundraising concert celebrating the life and legacy of the lead singer for Soundgarden, Audioslave, and Temple of the Dog
K1/K2 delivers massive-yet-intimate sound for five-hour,
star-studded concert event
The stars came out in force for I Am the Highway: A Tribute to Chris Cornell, a fundraising concert held at the Forum in Los Angeles on January 16, 2019. The five-hour show was anchored by extended sets from members of three of the bands that Cornell fronted-Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog, and Audioslave-and featured performances by Metallica, Foo Fighters, The Melvins, and others. Hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, the show also featured an extensive list of guests, including Jack Black, Brad Pitt, Brandi Carlile, Fiona Apple, Josh Homme, Miley Cyrus, Adam Levine, Chris Stapleton, and Ziggy Marley, who all paid tribute to the beloved musician that suffered from depression, which led him to take his life in May of 2017.
Rat Sound supplied all of the sound reinforcement for the night, including a full L-Acoustics K1/K2/KS28 PA
Rat was honored to be asked to participate in the benefit and has a long history of working with Soundgarden,dating back to the band's tour with Danzig in 1990. The event presented some unique and complex challenges, which we enjoyed overcoming, reports Tom Worley, account manager for Rat Sound Systems, the Camarillo, California-based company that handled audio production, which included an L-Acoustics K1/K2 line array system with KS28 subs, together with five DiGiCo and two Avid mixing consoles plus an Avid multi-track recording rig. Rat Sound spent three days at the venue and fielded 15 crewmembers to handle setup, onsite rehearsals, and the show. It was a special event for a good cause, says Worley, and we were thrilled to be a part of it.
The L-Acoustics PA comprised, per side, 12 K1 arrays over six K2 for the main hangs and eight K1 over four K2 for the side hangs. Thirteen additional K2 per side provided coverage out to 270 degrees in the sold-out arena, which seats nearly 18,000. Rat Sound also flew nine KS28 subwoofers in a cardioid configuration per side, supplemented by another 20 KS28 subs on the floor. Eight ARCS II and eight Kara II cabinets provided front fill.
A stage thrust offered space for acoustic ensembles and soloists to perform while the backline was being changed over for the main bands on the turntable stage behind them, says Worley. We had some L-Acoustics X15 HiQ wedges across the front of that thrust that handled all of the acoustic acts, he says.
Sidefill on either side of the main stage comprised two ARCS II and a pair of KS28 subs. It's a nice configuration with a low profile, so the promoters liked it, Worley says.
The main arrays were each comprised of a dozen L-Acoustics K1 over six K2, flanked by nine KS28 subs and eight K1 over four K2 for side hangs
Greg Nelson, longtime front-of-house mixer for Pearl Jam, who also mixed the 2016 Temple of the Dog reunion tour, manned a DiGiCo SD5 for full-length performances by Soundgarden and Temple of the Dog, with a second SD5 handling monitors for both bands. We took a MADI split off the SD-Rack into an SD9 for guest artists, says Worley. All the guest vocalists, and anyone that came up as a guest guitarist or instrumentalist, had a set of in-ears and a set of wedges running off the SD9.
Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl fronting Audioslave for a performance of Show Me How To Live
DiGiCo SD12 consoles at FOH and the stage were used to mix the acoustic acts as well as the production elements, such as the host mic and video segments played between performances. One of the night's highlights was Ryan Adams performing Cornell's Dead Wishes and Soundgarden's Fell on Black Days on acoustic guitar with several string players, including Don Was on acoustic bass, Worley reports.
The Melvins, who kicked off proceedings with a five-song set, ending with Soundgarden's Spoonman, and Audioslave, with guests such as Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl, Metallica's Robert Trujillo, Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath, and Chris Chaney and Perry Ferrell of Jane's Addiction, played through an Avid Profile at FOH with a second Profile for monitors.
Worley managed signal routing across the complex system using Outline's Newton multi-source, multi-format audio processor and matrix mixer, which Rat Sound has recently adopted for festivals and similar large events. We were looking for something that was bullet-proof that sounds good and is very simple and easy to use, he says.
In all, the event made use of more than 100 wireless channels for microphones, backline and IEMs, some of them on shared frequencies over the course of the night, and including spare, tech, and production shout channels. Jason Glass was our RF coordinator, says Worley. We didn't have a single issue.
Rat Sound also archived audio for the entire concert, which encompassed a total of 42 songs. The company used Avid VENUE S6L desks for the multitrack recording, says Worley, Just for the usability with Pro Tools. We had four Avid Stage 64 I/O racks, which we landed beside each monitor position, and came out of everyone's splits, analog. We picked up the stage racks as we needed them and had a main and redundant AVB stream off each desk in a production room backstage.
Soundgarden brought the night to a close with an eight-song set that saw the likes of Peter Frampton, Taylor Momsen, Marcus Durant, Tom Morello, Wayne Kramer, Taylor Hawkins, and Buzz Osbourne, among others, rotate in and out of the lineup. The concert was the first time that Soundgarden's surviving members-guitar
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
19/08/2026
As the cost of IP nears price parity with traditional SDI, Reynolds argues that ...
19/08/2026
A private 5G bubble was chosen instead of traditional broadcast RF for the race ...
19/08/2026
(L-R) Rafael Manuel and Isabel Sicat attend the Filipi ana premiere during the 2026 Sundance Film Festival at The Ray Theatre on January 23, 2026, in Park Cit...
19/08/2026
Studio owners invited to have their say on rates cuts
The Music Producers Guild (MPG) are inviting UK-based studios to take part in an in-depth survey that ...
19/08/2026
Vintage-inspired desktop interface revealed
Harrison's latest hardware offering sees them head into the world of audio interfaces, delivering a 10-in/12...
19/08/2026
Granular effect remains locked to scale and tempo
Described as your dream granular effect , Minimal Audio's latest creation is capable of turning any s...
19/08/2026
First polyphonic SWAM instrument incoming
Audio Modeling's latest physical-modelling orchestral instrument is just around the corner, and is now availab...
19/08/2026
World Cup Games Generate 84 Billion Minutes Across FOX, Fox Sports 1 and NBCU...
19/08/2026
July brought typical peak-holiday drops in viewership, driven primarily by viewers stepping away from screens and a visible decline in reach across both traditi...
19/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
19/08/2026
Henry joins BCE as the company accelerates its commercial strategy and expands its international presence across the media, broadcast and technology markets. He...
19/08/2026
iWedia, a leading provider of software solutions for connected TV devices, today announced a major milestone in Android platform optimization with the successfu...
19/08/2026
NTP Technology announces that ST 2110-30 audio-over-IP connectivity with AES67 and RAVENNA capabilities is now available for the brand's world-class audio i...
19/08/2026
Net Insight has been selected to provide its Nimbra platform by the service provider Big Blue Marble, formerly ORS Group, as the core media transport solution f...
19/08/2026
LiveU has supported Coventry City FC and several other top-flight UK football clubs through one of their most demanding live production challenges of the year, ...
19/08/2026
Nature Seekers Documentary Shot with Blackmagic URSA Cine 12K LF
Brie Clayton August 18, 2026
0 Comments
Filming endangered turtles required camera...
19/08/2026
Neyrinck Brings D-Control Consoles Back to Life on Apple Silicon with D-Control ...
19/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
19/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
19/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
19/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
19/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
19/08/2026
Riedel Communications today announced that Edith Cowan University (ECU) in Perth, Australia, implemented a comprehensive communications infrastructure that brin...
19/08/2026
QuickLink, a leading provider of award-winning video production and remote guest contribution solutions, will spotlight a major leap forward in remote guest con...
19/08/2026
Integrated platform melds media asset management, playout automation and newsroom workflows
EMAM, PlayBox Neo and SNEWS have officially launched Nuvex, a conne...
19/08/2026
Screen Australia releases the Private Investment Toolkit to strengthen screen in...
19/08/2026
Do Aussies truly value local content? Unpacking Screen Currency 2026 with Deirdr...
19/08/2026
There's an early Christmas gift for Bookish fans, as UKTV confirms the re-commission of the hit U&alibi drama, created by and starring Mark Gatiss. Viewers ...
19/08/2026
Wednesday 19 August 2026
Sky gives sports fans the chance to watch multiple liv...
19/08/2026
On Saturday September 5 Katie Taylor will step into the ring for the fight of her life against Flora Pili in front of 80,000 fans in Croke Park. A legendary fig...
18/08/2026
SportStream 2026, a free three-day virtual event, will take place September 15-17. One registration provides access to all three days of live programming and on...
18/08/2026
BeckTV will introduce BeckFlow to the European market at IBC2026, demonstrated on the Providius stand (10.F53).
BeckFlow is a web-based schematic documentation...
18/08/2026
Boland Communications will introduce a SMPTE ST 2110 input option for its 4K monitors at IBC2026, along with a new 55-inch super-narrow bezel display for video ...
18/08/2026
Dolby Laboratories and the Seattle Seahawks have announced a partnership integrating Dolby OptiView into the Seahawks' live streaming coverage, making the S...
18/08/2026
For BMG Executive Producer of Sports Production, Graham Taylor, producing live s...
18/08/2026
TMRW Sports has appointed Rufus Hack as President of Golf, a newly created role in which he will lead the company's golf businesses including TGL presented ...
18/08/2026
SMT will provide race technology for FOX Sports' coverage of the Freedom 250 Grand Prix of Washington, D.C. on August 23, when the NTT INDYCAR SERIES races ...
18/08/2026
The live, YouTube-native roundtables combine fan voices, credentialed reporters,...
18/08/2026
Behind The Mic provides a roundup of recent news regarding on-air talent, includ...
18/08/2026
The industry legend sounds off on replacing the Heat's iconic Medusa score...
18/08/2026
William F. Rasmussen, the sports fan-turned broadcaster and entrepreneur whose out-of-the-box idea of a 24-hour cable sports network, ESPN, changed forever the ...
18/08/2026
DAZN Group has completed its acquisition of ViewLift, a provider of streaming and digital solutions for sports content owners. The acquisition was first announc...
18/08/2026
The American Association of Professional Baseball (AAPB) has added SI TV, Sports Illustrated's 24/7 streaming channel, as a broadcast partner for the remain...
18/08/2026
The Esports Foundation has announced that the inaugural Esports Nations Cup (ENC), originally scheduled for November 2026 in Riyadh, will be postponed to Novemb...
18/08/2026
Diversified has announced a new Global Managed Services Practice, consolidating the company's managed services capabilities into one organization. Rob Mello...
18/08/2026
Appear has completed a proof of concept with Thoroughbred Racing Productions (TRP), demonstrating multi-camera remote live production over bonded 5G cellular an...
Rat Sound Flies L-Acoustics for I Am the Highway: A Tribute to Chris Cornell posted: 01/02/2019 
