Cohesion supported Avril Lavigne’s most recent “Greatest Hits” tour across 66 dates in North America. The tour was a culmination of two decades of groundbreaking music for the Canadian-born artist, who has sold more than 40 million albums and has received eight Grammy Award nominations. The pop punk pioneer showcased her unmistakable voice on some of her career’s biggest hits, such as “I’m With You,” “Head Above Water,” and “Complicated.”
Vocal intelligibility was of paramount importance on the tour, and the Cohesion PA was selected in no small part due to its clarity, as FOH Engineer Paul David Hager explained: “Getting that vocal to sit right and to be warm and clear—if the vocal doesn’t connect, the rest of it almost doesn’t matter. Cohesion is clear, it’s flexible, and it’s powerful.”
Production Manager Adam “Cutlets” Richards described how Hager specified Cohesion for this tour. “I trust his judgment above all. From the moment I heard it, it was dialed in. It sounded great from day one.”
The PA, deployed by Clair Global, featured sixteen CO12 per side on the main hangs with sixteen Cohesion CO10 on each side hang. Three to six Cohesion CP218 subwoofers were flown per side in cardioid configuration with an additional three to six per side on the ground. An additional Cohesion CP118+ was utilized on the riser behind the drummer.
“It’s mind-boggling what comes out of a small number of subs,” said System Engineer Ted Kujawski. “They’re thunderous. They’re rock solid.”
Hager added, “You can walk behind the system, and with the rejection off the back, it sounds like it’s being muted.”
On either side of the stage, three Cohesion CO8 were used for fill to cover the energized crowd in the front sections, and two Cohesion CP6+ provided near-field monitoring.
For the 2025 edition of the tour, Kujawski split mixing duties with Hager, and Kenny Hottenstein joined as a System Engineer.
Generational hits like “Sk8er Boi,” “What the Hell,” and “Girlfriend” were received loud and clear in each American and Canadian venue, regardless of where a fan was seated. As Hager noted about mixing the vocals, “You shouldn’t be able to hear any crossover points. Cohesion has the headroom and the clarity for the people in the back.”
“Clarity and no frequency control loss at 350 feet is something I did not expect. Those horns throw for miles!” Kujawski laughed. “At Jones Beach Theater, the first SPL drop was six rows from the top. I got the same full-range spectrum, only four dB lower, in the parking lot. I’ve never had that. I’m delighted because it’s doing what I tell it to do.”
“It can throw high end farther without being harsh or brutal,” added Hager, who has a long history with Cohesion that dates to David Byrne’s “Contemporary Color” tour in 2015. “That’s kind of hard, to avoid getting harsh, but it sounded big, warm, and clear.”
The audio system benefited the production side as well. “It goes up as fast as any PA out there,” said Richards, who had previous experience with Cohesion on the Chicks’ 2023 world tour. “The amount we had fit perfectly in one single truck.”
“It’s repeatable,” added Kujawski. “I’m using the same filters each night in different arenas and venue sizes. We do a lot of prediction ahead of time, and if you’re accurate in the predictor, it’ll sound good. Sometimes we have to get the PA time-aligned and tuned in a twenty-minute window so Paul can get line checked. I’ve gone from not powered up to show-ready in fifteen minutes in an arena. When it’s measured and deployed right, it’s one of the most user-friendly PAs.”
That dependability is priceless, as Richards noted: “Day-in and day-out, you just know it’s going to work and sound great every day. I like it when the PA is hung quickly, and there are no issues. It’s solid for both the engineer and production.”
The “Greatest Hits” tour sold out dozens of arenas and amphitheaters across North America in 2024 and 2025, and the Cohesion PA delivered Lavigne’s trademark songs with clarity.
“It had to sound intimate to 20,000 listeners in the room, and it had to sound good even at the back of the arena,” said Hager. “You can cover a lot with less. It feels louder without being any louder. It’s pretty impressive.”
“Sound is always first and foremost,” summarized Richards. “The show should be fun to watch, but for me, sound drives a concert.”
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