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CES MAKES 50 CENT LOOK LIKE A MILLION BUCKS
When a hip hop star of the stature of 50 Cent comes to Africa you
can be sure there will be a buzz, but when he chooses to do a
one-off concert at a race track on Maputo, Mozambique you can
be sure there will be some raised eyebrows.
It turns out that 50 Cent has a huge following in Mozambique, according
to journalist Nyangala Zolho: “Hip hop makes up a significant part of
the Mozambican music scene, which includes the American-inspired
genre of gangsta rap”. 50 Cent – or Curtis James Jackson III, as his parents
named him – is a controversial artist who is seldom out of the headlines.
Problems seem to follow him - and problems also dogged the footsteps
of CES Live, the Edenvale-based rental company appointed to handle the
50 Cent concert in its entirety.
CES Live senior project manager Leslie Wahl explains: “We got the gig on
the 19th of October and had two and a half weeks to arrange everything.”
Working under pressure with looming deadlines is nothing new for CES
Live – a company famous for their technical contributions to the H2O
party series.
“We had some issues with some of our Mac 2000’s and Mac 101’s and we
had to get them looked at on short notice. Renier Smit took this in his
stride and got them serviced and checked, and loaded in no time. But in
11 years of dealing with Electrosonic SA that’s what we’ve come to expect
from them.”
Apart from the 2000s and the 101s Electrosonic SA also supplied: 10 x
Martin Mac 700 Profile; 10 x Martin Mac 700 Wash; 12 x Martin Atomic
3000; and, 12 x 4 Way Molfey blinders, all operated from a Martin Maxxyz
lighting console. Electrosonic SA also contributed to the stage rigging by
supplying: 18 x CM Loadstar Half Ton Motors; 14 x CM Loadstar One Ton
Motors; an 8 Way Litec Motor Controller; and, a 24m x 14m Litec Libera
FL76 roof system, which was used in conjunction with Layher Event
System scaffolding.
"Electrosonic SA has been supplying CES with all the equipment on the
list for the past decade and we value CES's continued support highly ",
says Renier.
Still - it was touch and go with bureaucratic border officials almost having
the last say. After two days of waiting on the SA-Mozambican border,
it was only through the intervention of the client that everything was
cleared and the trucks made their way to the venue.
“Come Thursday night we were so far behind I didn’t think we would make
the show,” continues Leslie “but on Saturday – after not really sleeping for
three days - we were finished and the production crew could perform
their sound and lighting checks for the evening’s show.”
The audio system for the gig was all DAS. A single hang each side of the
stage comprising of eight Aero 50s and eight Aero 38As was configured
as the main PA; 16 elements in total per side. Since the Aero 50s are
passive boxes, four Lab.Gruppen FP10000Q four-channel amplifiers were
employed per the top section of each array that comprised of the Aero
50s. The remaining Aero 38As are all self-powered. A further 24 Aero
12As boxes configured as two arrays of ten were used as left and right
delay towers and a further four Aero 12As were used as centre-fills at the
stage. Six RF118 single 18-inch subs were used for the left and right delay
arrays. Finally, six Aero 8As were employed three-a-side as l