Australia’s foremost music festival, The Big Day Out, debuted on the 1992 Australia Day public holiday in Sydney and expanded to Adelaide, Melbourne and Perth by the following year. The Gold Coast and Auckland were added to the schedule in 1994. As of 2003, it has featured seven or eight stages (depending on the venue) accommodating popular contemporary rock music, electronic music, mainstream international acts and local acts.

JPJ Audio (previously trading as Jands Production Services and Johnston Audio) has provided the sound systems for every Big Day Out show since 1992 and 2014 was no exception. The festival usually takes place in late January and this year was held in four Australian cities: Gold Coast (Jan 19), Melbourne (Jan 24), Sydney (Jan 26), Adelaide (Jan 31) and Perth (Feb 2).

Gallery – All photos ©Daniel Boud

Fanfest Darling Harbour

While 32 nations played in the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Sydney was one of only six cities around the world to host an International FIFA Fan Fest. More than 500,000 people visited the Cockle Bay and Tumbalong Park sites, at Darling Harbour, where all 64 matches were broadcast live on four large screens.

JPS provided sound reinforcement and crew for the 31 day event.

AC/DC, Australia’s most successful rock and roll band, with sales of over 200 million records worldwide, returned home in February as part of their Black Ice World Tour. It was the band’s first Australian tour since 2001.

The main loudspeaker arrays, for the tour, were Electro-Voice X-Array while Jands Production Services provided Clair Audio I5 cabinets for the side hands and delays. For the stadium shows JBL Vertec cabinets were used ito supplement the system.

More than 2.5 million Australians tuned it to see Melbourne’s premiership triumph over Parramatta – making it the most watched NRL grand final in three years. Jands provided the audio system and staff for the day’s entertainment, including performances by Wolfmother, Wes Carr and Mark Vincent.

Sydney rock lovers took a trip down memory lane as performers from more than three decades hit the stage at the Sound Relief concert. Jands provided the audio system and staff for the Sydney concert and also sent front end equipment and crew to the Melbourne concert for Midnight Oil.

Writing in Audio Technology magazine Mark Davie interviews the team responsible for Steely Dan’s audio on their Australian tour.

Tour Dates: September 8 – 24, 2008
Excerpt:
“Steely Dan has probably played through more PAs than any other band. Well, maybe that should read been played. Walter Becker and Donald Fagens back catalogue can be heard echoing in empty concert halls and arenas across the globe Steely Dan has for some time been the discerning engineer’s recording artists of choice for tuning PAs. Given a Steely Dan gig is a rare occasion, even rarer in Australia it’s sometimes difficult to imagine Steely Dan the band coming out of the PA, and not just Steely Dan the CD. Sure enough, Walter and Donald have entrusted their live sound to one man and he’s known simply as JR.”

Download / read the complete article. [PDF – 564KB]

Live Earth took place on Saturday July 7 in Sydney with a monumental line-up
of Australian talent including Crowded House, Missy Higgins, Eskimo Joe,
Wolfmother and more at Aussie Stadium, Moore Park.

Tour Details