Queen and Paul Rodgers

“Is this the real life, is this just fantasy?...” It was all of 33 years ago that Queen’s monstrous epic ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ dominated the No.1 spot for virtually the whole of winter. Arguably the band’s creative peak, it showcased every trick in their canon — tight, multi-layered vocal harmonies, symphonic guitars... and more camp than a field of tents. But times change.

    The tragic loss of frontman Freddie Mercury in 1991 — and the subsequent resignation of bassist John Deacon from the line-up — may have presented an impossible obstacle to overcome. But fuelled by the wave of interest generated by the success of their West End musical We Will Rock You, Brian May and Roger Taylor began to accept more and more invitations to perform live once again.

    The dilemma, to paraphrase Lloyd Webber, was always ‘how do you solve a problem like Freddie?’. TPi was in the audience at the UK Music Hall Of Fame concert at Hackney Empire in November 2004, when the pair teamed up with ex-Free/Bad Company singer Paul Rodgers to perform a one-off medley of Queen classics along with the likes of Rodgers’ own ‘All Right Now’. The highlight of that evening, their set provided the template for the following year’s première Queen + Paul Rodgers world tour.

    Of course, Rodgers is far too much of a ‘hard lovin’ man’ to ever come close to Mercury’s peacock-camp style, and sometimes the contrast often doesn’t work for the die-hards. But when it does, it does in spades, serving as a reminder of the powerful chemistry that Queen’s music often beheld.

    The 2005-6 tour gave Q+PR the confidence to work together on their first album of all-new material. The Cosmos Rocks reinforces the previous observations. The results are patchy and sometimes very un-Queen, but tracks such as the melancholy ‘Say It’s Not True’ and the typically bombastic ‘C-lebrity’ — a wonderfully-timed slice of cynicism — make it well worth the wait.

    On September 12, Queen + Paul Rodgers kicked off the European leg of their three-month The Cosmos Rocks world tour in Kharkov’s Freedom Square, Ukraine, under the leadership of production director Robbie Williams, production manager Albert Lawrence and tour manager Trip Khalaf.

    A more experienced and knowledgeable trio would be hard to find, although gentle giant Williams was modest enough to recently insist that “after 40 years, I’m still learning”. They are assisted in the production management department by co-ordinator Liz Holden and Lizzie Adshead.
   
LIGHTING
With keyboard player/musical director Spike Edney, bassist Danny Miranda and guitarist Jamie Moses reinforcing the famous trio, the show features a stunning lighting design by Baz Halpin, who also worked on the band’s previous outing... and the current Tina Turner tour, in case you hadn’t realised!

    Supplied by Bandit Lites, Halpin’s rig features over 100 moving lights from Coemar, Martin, Clay Paky, Syncrolite and Vari*Lite, a 48-way Kinesys automation system and some specially fabricated custom trussing commissioned by Bandit.

    Halpin and lighting director Trent O’Connor used Bandit’s MSD pre-programming suite for a week prior to the two weeks of production rehearsals at Elstree Studios.

    The principal creative goal was to create “massive dynamic rock show looks”, and Halpin — most definitely the LD of the moment — has risen to the occasion in great style with a classic design, filled with bold colours, fluid movement and full-on rock moments.

    Seven variable length raked ‘finger’ trusses run upstage/downstage forming an elegant architectural ‘roof’ over the main performance area. All of the truss moves on Kinesys motors and the centre three have hinge-down sections at the front. Bandit specially purchased the Lo Pro trussing and custom hinges from Total Solutions for the tour, adding some modifications made by Bandit’s Dizzy Gosnell.

    “This is a band that has always pushed the technical boundaries, and Baz’s design called for lots of strong truss pre-hung with all the moving lights,” Gosnell commented.

    “The lamps needed protection up and down ramps, and with no time to fiddle with handrails and such, it had to stack/un-stack easily and securely, and be instinctive for stagehands all over the world to work with. The V-shaped castor frames we designed keep the heads safe and the truss flying quickly.”

    Seventy-seven Coemar Infinity Washes are dotted all over the rig, including nine per finger truss, arranged in groups of three. These were newly purchased by Bandit for the tour. On the downstage edge of each finger is a Syncrolite — a 10kW in the centre and 5kWs on the rest. There are also Martin Atomic Strobes on the fingers, along with a total of five Vari*Lite VL3000s, used for band key lighting.

    Behind the fingers is a ‘Syncrolite truss’  — also on Kinesys motors — containing seven 5kW Syncrolite units and eight Martin Atomic 3000s along with 10 Martin Professional MAC 2000 Washes used for punchy back beam looks. In all, Bandit supplied a 24-way vari-speed Kinesys hoist system for video and a 25-way for lighting.

    Four Lycian M2 follow spots are top mounted on another truss just in front of the screen at the back of the stage. Six Space Flowers are positioned on the floor in two clusters of three on either side of the stage, and used for big aerial effects. A 4’ diameter large facet mirror-ball is flown directly above the B-stage at the end of the thrust.

    On the floor along the back wall of the most upstage riser are six Martin MAC 2000 Performances. The fascia of the riser is constructed from perforated aluminium, and inside is a grey wool drape. In the cavity between the drape and the fascia is a row of Pixelline LED battens which back-light the fascia and skim the drape, contrasting with the Performances lighting the front.

    On top of this ‘bunker’ is a row of Clay Paky Alpha Beam 300s used for mid level forward-shooting beams, which Bandit purchased specifically for this tour. Bandit has also supplied four Lycian Xenon FOH follow spots.

    The downstage 1.5m of the stage, its front, thrust and B-stage are all covered with frosted Perspex and highlighted from underneath with Pixellines.

    Two Martin Maxxyz control desks were programmed by Halpin and O’Connor. Both Martin Maxxyz consoles were upgraded to Maxxyz+ for this tour.

    Bandit’s crew is chiefed by Nick Barton with Gareth Morgan on dimmers and Kinesys operator Barry Branford. Technicians Tom Crosbie, Ben Hammett, Joe Simpson, Mark Pritchard and Chris Davis complete the line-up with Bandit’s chief executive Lester Cobrin project managing the tour.

    Halpin said: “It’s great to be working with Bandit again. As always, they pulled out all the stops to ensure we had everything we needed, and chose a brilliant crew.”

VIDEO
A sizeable package of screens, cameras and control is being provided by XL Video UK, whose project manager, Phil Mercer, commented: “This is the first tour for us that has taken a high definition camera/PPU/recording package for its duration, and so it’s a significant milestone for everybody involved.”

    The show’s visuality is clearly defined by an 85m2 (17m wide, 5m high) upstage screen which opens and closes horizontally. It is made up from 2,500 Barco OLite 612 blocks in asymmetrically populated panels with a solid block of OLite in the centre, giving 1278 x 396 pixels across the whole surface.

    Designed by Mark Fisher, the screen weighs seven tonnes and also contains 304 ACL bulbs strewn randomly across it, but symmetrically patched at the dimmers. The screen is split horizontally by a Kinesys Elevation 1+ automated drive system.

    “Barco’s OLite 612 fitted our design perfectly,” explained Fisher. “We wanted to present the audience with a spectacular video and light experience befitting a band of this statue. OLite’s modularity once again enabled us to create something very special with a unique mix of video and lighting effects.”

    The screen frame, custom made for the tour by Brilliant Stages (with integration by Barco’s Innovation Designs), houses a creative mix of high and low resolution and combines elements of both video and traditional lighting into one screen.

    In the centre, Barco’s OLite modules form a high resolution elliptical screen which delivers the main show video. Fanning out from the circle’s edge, the OLite modules are spread apart giving a unique ‘checkerboard’ effect during the visual elements of the show.

    A number of PAR 64 lighting fixtures are built in amongst the OLite modules on each side delivering a special mix of video and lighting effects. Thanks to an ingenious cabling system, the massive screen also splits into different sections during the show.

    XL is supplying six GV LDK 8000 cameras, two positioned at FOH, two on hot-heads in the pit, one focused on drummer Roger Taylor and the final one hand-held onstage.

    Show content — which once again includes time-synched archive footage of Freddie Mercury — was produced by Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell; playback is via a Catalyst digital media server and is output to screen by live director/vision mixer Stuart Rowsell.

    Rowsell cuts the mix using a GV Kayak switcher, engineers are Wolfgang Schram and Dave Rogers, and there are six ISO and TX HDCam records of each show. The touring camera operators are Saria Ofogba, Sacha Moore and Gordon Davies, and LED techs are Stef van Besien and Chris Isaccson.

    For the first show in Kharkov, a second HD PPU and seven extra cameras were integrated into the touring system for a shoot directed by David Mallet for Serpent Productions and broadcast live on Ukrainian TV.

FOH AUDIO
In his now-familiar double role as tour manager and FOH engineer, James ‘Trip’ Khalaf has returned to the Queen + Paul Rodgers touring family. It was 30 years ago, on the Jazz tour, that he first pushed a fader for the original band and he’s remained a key part of the team on every tour since.

    As was the case on the last Q+PR outing, he is partnered by systems engineer Bob Weibel, and on these dates he receives support from PA techs Pascal Harlaut and Falko Knuppel.

    How does Khalaf, a man who has worked in pretty much every venue the world has to offer, rate the O2 Arena? “I love this venue,” he told TPi at the start of an interview that was always destined to go off the rails. “This is the best-sounding hall in Europe. It’s big and I can make a lot of money — but that’s the tour manager side of me.

    “OK, the reverb decay times seem to be very homogeneous, although Manchester’s [MEN Arena] not bad either. Just don’t make me go to Wembley!”

    Represented in Europe by Audio Rent, Clair Brothers Audio is again Queen’s international sound vendor — the U.S. rental giant has been supplying the band’s tours for around the same amount of time as Khalaf has been mixing them. This time, however, Clair Bros is fielding a prototype version of its next generation proprietary line array, the I-5 — a system that Khalaf was reluctant to discuss in detail.

    “It’s not completed yet,” he said. “There are things that we’re going to do to it that I can’t tell you about yet.”

    We did discover that the I-5 relies on Lab.gruppen’s PLM 10000Q amplifiers which Clair Bros has been buying in large amounts recently.

    “The amps are proving to be exceptionally reliable but that decision was more about space-saving than anything else,” explained Khalaf.

    “The trade-off these days is that if you’re an international corporation you have to be able to move your equipment around, and the less weight you move, the more attractive it is to the client. These amplifiers are really powerful and lightweight, and we’re saving 30% by shipping them.”

    Monitor systems engineer Thomas Gahwiler gave a little more insight in the new I-5: “With the I-4 system, the basses were linked, but we now drive them separately with the new amps and crossovers, which provide greater control and more energy in the low spectrum.
    “We’re also flying more bass cabinets than we did before simply because the additional system power allows it.”

    Currently mixing on his favoured analogue console, the Midas XL4, Khalaf didn’t pull any punches about his disdain for digital. “Digital consoles sound like hell — every one of them. They put more bangs and whistles on and go, ‘hey, ain’t this nice, we can make this do that...’. But it still sounds like hell.

    “An analogue band is an analogue band — why would you need a digital console? If I’m mixing someone like Madonna, and you get a different kick drum out of a hard disk for every song, yes, I’ll go along with it to keep up with all this stuff they throw at you which doesn’t sound very good anyway... because it’s all off a hard disk.

    “You get guys who convert signals to analogue, then convert back to digital, then back to analogue, and about 20 minutes later the actual sound comes out after you get rid of all the A/D convertors. And there’s no loss of any sort of information at all is there? No!”

MONITORS
Having worked on the 1986 Magic tour, the last of the Freddie era, monitor engineer John ‘Grubby’ Callis has also seen both sides of the band’s live career.

    Taking over from Steve May on the last Q+PR tour’s open air dates, Grubby restored monitor world to analogue with the band’s blessing after a not altogether happy experience with digital.

    “Like Trip, I prefer analogue — I used it in the old days and it’s still better for this band,” he said. “It’s more of a direct, in-your-face sound, and they didn’t like the [digital] latency. I haven’t been convinced by digital consoles. There isn’t that much difference in size anymore once you’ve added the control element.”

    Fresh from his one-offs with Paul McCartney earlier this year, Grubby is using a pair of Midas Heritage 3000 boards to cater for a total of around 72 channels. These are split between the main and B stages.
    He explained: “Forty-five minutes of the show happens down on the B stage, with the various solo cameos and the acoustic set, and we ran out of room on one board. So most of those channels are on my left-hand H3000.”

    Crown-powered Showco SRM wedges proliferate on stage while May’s traditionally large guitar fills incorporate Martin bins with Clair M4s on top. “The band don’t reach thrash metal levels, but we do battle against Brian’s guitar which is always loud, plus a drummer who’s been around for a long time and needs his wedges to be two feet away from his vocal mic. So one of my main challenges is getting the vocal above all this.”

    In-ear monitoring would seem to be the best solution, but the only customer is Rodgers who uses a Shure PSM 700 system... on an occasional basis. Said Grubby: “It’s on and off, depending on how he’s feeling. That change can occur at anytime during the show, without warning, so that keeps me on my toes!”

    Much to the audio department’s joy, Rodgers has returned to a Shure 58 for his vocals. “He was using his own mic for a while [a Bob Heil PR22 capsule on a Shure wireless body] which tended to pick up a lot of ambience so this is an improvement,” informed Grubby.

    Each show on the tour is being recorded by long-time Queen associate Justin Shirley Smith using equipment supplied by Germany’s Remote Recording GmbH. The sound recording team also includes the company’s Peter Brandt, Jan Saueressig, David Dohrmann, Sina Amman and Georgi Gogov.

REGAL POWER
Since The Cosmos Rocks hit the road, Pete Wills, the MD of Power Logistics, has been there to ensure the electrical supply is entirely reliable and smoothly delivered, from country to country. For this tour, he’s providing two 6kVA UPS sets, plus cabling and distribution.

    In the role of head electrician, Wills is another ‘long-timer’ with Queen, having remained on call since he provided the site and stage power for their UK Magic stadium tour, 22 years ago. Back then — in the days before Templine, Showpower, GE and his eventual founding of Power Logistics in 2001 — Wills worked alongside his brother and Mike Goode.

    One of the most experienced professionals in his field, Wills celebrates his 30th anniversary in the industry this year. His industry debut was at the now-legendary Blackbushe Aerodrome concert in July 1978 — headlined by Bob Dylan — followed the next year by The Who at Wembley Stadium and the first Monsters Of Rock at Donnington in 1980.

    Wills credits his involvement in the Q+PR tours to his long association with production director Robbie Williams. “I’ve done quite a few large projects with Robbie at the helm, including the last Floyd tour, and it’s always memorable,” he said.

    Another of Wills’ main responsibilities is that of a troubleshooter. He explained: “Brian’s Red Special guitar was built with single wound pick-ups which are prone to picking up interference. So I spend time at each venue carefully analysing the stage area and keeping cables away from Brian’s side of the stage in a bid to limit noise.”

    Other key crew members include stage manager Pat Daly and backline techs Pete Malandrone (for Brian May), Jules Bowen, Steve Prior, Bob O’Brien, Nigel Burchett and Markus Wolfe.

    Steve Armstrong heads a rigging crew that includes Amos Cotter and Steve Walsh (video wall). Meanwhile, Jem Nicholson, Jon Carmichael, Paul Bissoni and Julian Back handle the stage carpentry requirements.

    The production vendor team is completed by Beat The Street (buses), Redburn Transfer (trucking), Eat Your Hearts Out (catering — led by Marcus Jones), NRB (radio hire), Rock-It Cargo (freight), Infinity Travel and Rima Travel, and Premier Aviation (charter flights). 

TPi
Photography by
Louise Stickland & Mark Cunningham