Never a band to do things by halves, Queen recently celebrated their 40th anniversary in spectacular style with ‘Stormtroopers in Stilettos’, a major retrospective exhibition held in London. Celebrating the first five albums of one of the most exciting, glamorous and influential bands in global musical history, the exhibition took place at the Old Truman Brewery with Genelec 8030A 2-way active loudspeakers playing album tracks in the background in separate, themed areas.
Created by Island Records, Universal Music and Marmalade London, a design and production agency, the exhibition takes a comprehensive look at the early part of Queen’s career, from before the band’s formation in 1971 right up to their spectacular free gig for over 250,000 fans in Hyde Park in 1976. The large 1,250ft² warehouse space was split into five zones, with graphics and music to match each stage in the band’s career. Supplied and set up by Source Distribution, thirty Genelec 8030A loudspeakers were used in all areas across the exhibition.
For Steve Fisher, Genelec Product Specialist at Source, the challenge of designing the audio installation was twofold: “First, we wanted to ensure that the speakers we supplied could do justice to the Queen’s fantastic sounding, but often highly intricate and multi-layered music,” he said. “From my previous dealings with the band I knew they would be happy with Genelec speakers as they have a much-admired ability to faithfully reproduce the inner details of the original recorded sounds. Alongside this, it was a demanding acoustic environment as we had to ensure that music from each zone couldn’t be heard in any other. With careful positioning combined with the 8030’s innovative enclosure design, we were able to keep the sound clean, and visitors could enjoy the early Queen music in all its original glory.”
Genelec has a long-standing relationship with Queen having previously been the personal choice of guitarist Brian May to provide the monitors for the launch of the double DVD Queen Rock Montreal. A stunningly restored and enhanced live recording of Queen’s 1981 sell-out show, the DVD was previewed in London in front of hundreds of press and celebrities, with Genelec 1035B monitors faithfully reproducing the sounds of the restored final mix. For Stormtroopers in Stilettos, an installed event, the compact 8030A was the preferred choice.
The 8030A is a powerful, bi-amplified, nearfield 2-way monitor system, designed for use in home studios, workstations, and surround sound monitoring applications. The company says that the model’s MDE (Minimum Diffraction Enclosure) enclosure features rounded edges and gently curved front and sides to achieve a smooth frequency response and superb imaging qualities with minimised cabinet edge diffraction.
Like all Genelec 8000 Series monitors, the 8030A features the advanced Genelec Directivity Control Waveguide (DCW) – a flow-optimised reflex port design, optimised die-cast aluminium structure with a durable semi-matt finish and acoustically optimised metal grilles. The low distortion drivers are driven by dedicated amplifiers after sophisticated filtering. Magnetic shielding, overload protection circuitry and versatile room response controls are standard. The versatile mounting features include integrated rear support points for wall and floor stands plus a further 3/8″ thread for mounting on the cabinet base.
