Quirky UK actress-turned-songstress Paloma Faith descended on London’s Hammersmith Apollo last month. The three-time BRIT Award nominee is currently in the midst of an extensive tour promoting her second album, Fall to Grace, reports Paul Watson
IT WAS 2009 when London- born Paloma Faith first broke into the UK music scene. Three hit singles and a platinum debut album is never a bad start to a pop star’s career; and at the end of last year, Fall to Grace followed suit, also going platinum, peaking at number two in the UK Album Charts, and catapulting her to super- stardom in the process.
For her latest tour, everything audio was supplied by SSE Audio Group. FOH engineer Huw Richards is using an L-Acoustics KARA system for the first time, and it’s proving particularly versatile, he reveals. “We needed a flexible system
that still packed a punch, as the venues on the tour are all so different,” he says. “I’m impressed by KARA – it’s a very
Paloma Faith played to a capacity crowd in Hammersmith
compact and lightweight system, and although we’re pushing it to its limits here, because of the way we are able to configure it, it actually covers the room better than an [L-Acoustics] V-DOSC or K1 system would.”
Praise, indeed. Two hangs
of 18 KARA along with three hung L-Acoustics SB18 subs per side were deployed, and power was via several racks of L-Acoustics LA8 amplifiers.
“The system has exceeded all
my expectations,” Richards insists. “I haven’t had to ground-stack it once as the hung sub is powerful enough; and in terms of rigging, the boxes are usually down before