Arsenal transforms the AB into Jungle Hotel
21-06-2023Renowned Belgian alt-pop band Arsenal, recently played a series of shows at the iconic ‘Ancienne Belgique’ – or AB as it more commonly known – one of Belgium’s leading concert venues located in the historic heart of Brussels.
Something of a departure from their usual gigs, this time Arsenal presented an immersive experience called ‘Jungle Hotel’, a venture that will form a backdrop to a book and film of the same name due out later in the year. They decided it was time to take over AB in its totality. The jungle theme was all-pervasive, with AB’s lobby filled full of tropical plants for the occasion – and then, of course, there was the audio…
Immersive sound
The transformation of the AB club into a fully immersive space was the result of a collaboration between Arsenal, Arsenal’s engineer Peter Claes, AB and Amptec – with Amptec designing and providing the immersive d&b Soundscape system.
“What we wanted to achieve with 'Jungle Hotel' was to make room for experimentation alongside a 'normal' Arsenal show,” says Arsenals’s frontman, Hendrik Willemyns. “The immersive jungle space we created in the AB was part of a search for other ways to tell a story.”
Ancienne Belgique installed d&b M4s on stands, E8 ceiling speakers and JSUB subwoofers. Amplification was via D20 and D80 amps. A DS10 and of course a DS100 Signal Engine provided signal management for the immersive experience.
Peter Claes transformed the 40-track quadrophonic soundtrack into Soundscape following an immersive experiment with the Soundscape system at CC Hasselt. “We wanted to provoke emotion with all-enveloping sounds and atmosphere,” says Hendrik. “d&b's immersive Soundscape system was the perfect tool to achieve this goal. People were in the middle of it. It wasn’t just sound, but a whole experience - a story that was being told, in an abstract way. This is definitely the gateway to more immersive experiments for us.”
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