Acclaimed rock duo Cairo Knife Fight have been using the F1 Model 812 Flexible Array loudspeaker system from Bose at their ongoing residency at R Bar LA.
Founder Nick Gaffaney plays drums along with a keyboard bass with his left hand and utilizes a loop station to make live vocal and rhythm loops. Guitarist and songwriter George Pajon (a GRAMMY® nominee who has played with, among others, the Black Eyed Peas, Fergie, Carlos Santana and John Legend) is also deeply engaged in live-looping guitar parts and effects.
“We take great pleasure in pushing sound systems to their limit,” says Pajon, only half joking. “Our act wouldn’t be the same without it.”
“We put a lot through the PA system when we play,” notes Pajon, a native Los Angelan who joined New Zealander Gaffaney in the band in 2014. “With the guitar, vocals and drums, plus our approach to looping, where we literally write parts as we perform, it’s all very loud – and past PA setups just couldn’t handle it. We were constantly at the mercy of the soundman at shows. They’d never mixed a band like this before. Now, employing F1 systems, we have total control. We generally put two F1’s on stage with us — at the R Bar we have one F1 behind me and facing away from Nick and another behind Nick, and the sound fills the entire room. We never experience any feedback, and our fans can hear every note and every word clearly.”
Cairo Knife Fight aren’t just users of the F1— they’ve become evangelists for it, doing clinics with the system while on tour. “It’s a remarkable sound system, and I just can’t say enough about it,” says Gaffaney, a veteran of several successful New Zealand bands. “Space is often an issue on stages, and no matter where you position it, the F1 sounds amazing and offers tremendous flexibility to let us shape the sound to accommodate the space,” he says. “And in terms of operation, it’s simply plug and play — that easy.”
Gaffaney says the F1 has become part of the band, allowing all the nuances of their artistry to be heard clearly at any volume in any venue. Pajon adds one other benefit: “When we come into a club, we just hand the sound person a stereo feed from the F1,” he says. “Then we say, ‘Go ahead and take the rest of the night off. We’ve got the sound covered.’”
