MONSTER TRUCKS!!

Hi All,

Just thought I’d share a few images from the weekend’s gig, which was quite different from the usual band-stuff I tend to work on. Yesterday I was responsible for audio on the Monster Jam event at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium, which essentially meant that I, armed with something in the region of 70,000 watts of sound system, had to compete with the 2000-odd horsepower engines of 12 Monster Trucks and had to try get sound across to the 40,000 fans in the stadium. It wasn’t easy, but it was certainly fun!

As a few of you know, I’ve been having computer problems lately. Basically, I don’t have proper editing facilities since my VAIO laptop went bang, so these shots are essentially as they came from the camera, and mostly taken when my mind should have been elsewhere!

Anyway… Enough of my excuses for taking crap photos! This was certainly one of the biggest and more interesting events I’ve been involved with, and I had the wonderful opportunity to see these awesome machines being prepared for the show. Not only that, but get to see how the event in general is run. Having never worked anything like this before it was certainly an experience!

Luckily I did get the odd chance to wander round with my camera:

The empty stadium before the event starts:

The Batmobile!

So what happens when we park 5 ton Monster Trucks on normal cars? The cars get flattened, of course!

Monster Trucks even get parked on other Monster Trucks…

The guys riding these Motocross bikes were jumping probably 20 or more metres into the air above the stadium floor from ramps built onto the back of 7.5 ton trucks. Very impressive stuff.

The noisy bit of the Batmobile. I’ve worked with some of the loudest bands in the world, stood under 747’s on very short final and heard millitary jets close up, but none of them even compared with standing 30 metres from one of these things when the driver kicks open the throttle. As you can see there are no silencers, so the exhaust pipe is basically a direct link to the combustion chamber, making these Monsters ridiculously loud.

Part of the pre-show entertainment consisted of rally cars and various small vehicles with ridiculously powerful engines racing around the stadium floor.

What happens when one of the Monster Trucks looses its footing? They attach a Telehandler and pull it back over!

Maximum Destruction lost not only a wheel, but some shock absorbers as well, so, unable to be moved easily, spent the entire back end of the event sat on its side on the stadium floor while the show continued around it.

The floor of the Millennium Stadium isn’t actually grass. It’s tarmac, so when the event was over the soil that was brought in was moved into a huge pile in the middle of the stadium. The pitch for rugby and football matches here is actual turf, but is brought in by the pallate.

At the end of the event the monster wheels are removed from the trucks, smaller wheels are put on and the vehicles are driven into standard shipping containers for transportation. They don’t look quite so intimidating in this state, but I still wouldn’t mess with one!

And the aftermath! The cars that were flattened during the show are piled up outside the stadium in a car park to await collection.

All in all a very interesting event to be involved with, and one I’d highly recommend going to see if you have an interest in machines.

Hope you enjoyed!

Paul