George Strait: The Cowboy Rides Away with L-Acoustics K1After 40 studio albums and an unprecedented 60 number one country music singles, George Strait, the "King of Country", has now wrapped up the first half of his farewell tour dubbed The Cowboy Rides Away. With the second leg of dates set to take place in early 2014, the final in-the-round performance of his 2013 trek took place on June 1 at San Antonio's Alamodome in front of a record-breaking sold-out crowd of more than 73,000 fans. For touring sound reinforcement, Strait has long turned to front-of-house engineer George Olson and Dallas, Texas-based Onstage Systems, which furnished the artist's standard L-Acoustics V-DOSC and KUDO package for most of this year's tour stops. However, given the sheer size of the Alamodome concert in Strait's hometown, the company chose to deploy its full inventory of K1 enclosures, which it augmented with additional cabinets from fellow Rental Network provider Clearwing Audio for an impressive total of 120 K1. According to Onstage Systems' K1 audio tech Eric Thomas and systems tech Jason Chamlee, the concert's eight flown arrays were evenly spaced in a ring above the perimeter of the circular rotating stage. A total of four hangs of 16 K1 with six KARA downfills addressed the longer north and south ends of the room, while the east and west sides were covered by four hangs of 14 K1 plus six KARA, each topped with two K1-SB filler enclosures to maintain visual continuity between all arrays. To power and process the K1/KARA enclosures, Onstage positioned three LA-RAK touring racks -- each containing three LA8 amplified controllers -- on top of every array, significantly minimizing the copper cable runs. Down on the floor level, four more LA-RAK were deployed to drive 16 dV-DOSC front-fills and 24 SB28 subs set up in an asymmetrical cardioid configuration around the stage. "Even standing at the very back of the Alamodome's nosebleed seats, the K1 arrays sounded like they were still right in our faces at more than 360' away," says Thomas. "The indoor throw capability of the system is insanely impressive." "K1's rigging is also absolutely incredible," he adds. "Once we had the points straightened out, we were able to rig the entire system in four hours, which is just amazing. And utilizing LA Network Manager to group individual boxes and adjust a few FIR filters as needed, the system sounded fantastic right away. Although I love V-DOSC and KUDO, trying to load in and fly those boxes for a venue of this size would literally require a couple of days, so from a logistical standpoint, K1 is totally the best option out there for stadium sound." For his final The Cowboy Rides Away stop at the Alamodome, which sold out within an astounding six minutes of going on sale, Strait performed a two-hour concert following sets from the tour's special guests, Martina McBride and Miranda Lambert. For more details on the 2013 leg, which kicked off back in mid-January, visit www.georgestrait.com. 
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