Lee Evans

In the UK, arena-sized comedy is only around 10 years old. It was Eddie Izzard who pioneered the now conventional — but still mind-boggling — concept of a stand-up comedian entertaining more than 10,000 people every night for several weeks. A far cry from the days of Bernard Manning at the Wheeltappers & Shunters Social Club, circa ’71.

    A decade later, 44 year old Lee Evans has broken all British comedy records with his Big UK Tour, which saw him play a whopping 59 sold-out dates to a total audience of around 650,000. That’s 59 dates with six trucks, not 12 — never mind the backline, feel the profit.

    So impressed was Wembley Arena with his five-night sell-out run that it invited Evans to have his hand prints included in the Square of Fame that fronts the 11,000-capacity venue.

    The Essex boy’s current level of fame owes much to his XL Tour of 2005 which established him not only as a supreme observational comedian and a master of the funny face, but also as a consummate performer and surprisingly gifted musician who could command the attention of arena-sized audiences. The Big Tour has gone further by potentially making Evans a genuine comedy legend before he’s old.

    Promoted by Off The Kerb Productions, with production manager Mark G. Harris and tour manager Grazio Abela heading the project, the Big Tour saw the return to the Evans camp of CoNi Ltd after a successful tender.

    Headed by MD Steve Nicholson, who founded the enterprise in 1991 after several years in business at Concert Lights with Harry Box (Evans’ head rigger) and Paul Normandale, CoNi has made its name over the years as a specialist in comedy, theatre and TV projects.

    As well as supporting opera and ballet, political party conferences, corporate events and AGMs, religious gatherings, exhibitions and (in its earlier years) music tours by the likes of Nanci Griffith and Randy Crawford, CoNi also sub-hires to other rental houses for all manner of applications including gigs by the Kaiser Chiefs.

    Although CoNi began life purelyOff The Kerb Productions as a rental source, sales and distribution have since added further weight to its portfolio — the company represents a who’s who of lighting technology brands (Martin, Jem, Pulsar, Robe, Avolites, Clay Paky and Zero 88), as well as a number of leading audio manufacturers. This side of the company is run by sales manager James O’Leary, previously of Leisuretec.

    Lighting for the latest Lee Evans tour was designed by Ian Jackson-French, who has worked in partnership with CoNi since the early ’90s on shows by Alan Carr, Frank Skinner and other comedy greats, as well as Evans’ XL Tour and the Live At The Apollo TV show for the BBC which has just begun shooting its fourth series.

    Jackson-French’s design draws upon CoNi’s industry-standard rental stock of Martin Professional fixtures, including the MAC 700 wash and profile moving heads on which CoNi spent around £250,000 earlier this year.

    Lighting operator Sara Burns used an Avolites Pearl 2008 console to run a system that included 36 MAC 700 profiles and washes, six MAC 2000 profiles, 16 MAC 600s, 24 Martin Pro 400 colour changers, four Studio Due CityColor architectural lights, 12 4-lite blinders, six Source Four profiles and four Super Trouper follow spots.

    Also featured within the spec were Jem smoke machines (very effective on Evans’ stage entrance), MTFX Confetti Storms, DF50 crackers and a pair of Le Maitre G300 low foggers that particularly impress Steve Nicholson, who was also CoNi’s crew chief. Around 250’ of TFL MD truss completed the main kit list.

    Working with set designer Colin Piggot, Jackson-French initially considered using LED options from Pulsar, PixelRange, i-Pix and Martin to cross-light the drapes, but these were vetoed in favour of a more conventional choice.

    “We did a ‘shoot-out’ between them down at Acre Jean, who provided all the drapes,” he said. “They were all very good, but in terms of colour rendition and mixing, brightness, output, spread and reliability, some items were better at certain things than others.

    “I’d single out the Martin Stagebar 54 as the one that came the nearest to meeting my criteria but its cost was prohibitive. So I was stumped for a while.”

    Jackson-French continued: “With less than a week before the first show, my solution was to revert to MAC 600s on upright truss towers. Rather than blackout the towers, I thought I’d make a feature out of them by toning them with the Pro 400 colour changers. I was so happy with the results that I extended the effect for the overhead trussing.”

    Providing a TV studio feel in the stage wings were more MAC 600s on tower stands for extra cross-lighting. “The beams are at eye level, which is very much a TV technique,” said Nicholson. “They help to achieve the required look for the video screens as indeed do the Super Troupers which use a xenon source (with a 1/2 CTO) — ideal for preserving the right type of colour temperature for Lee’s skin tone on the screens.”

    Benn Timbury joined CoNi in May as business development manager after eight years as sales manager with Martin Professional. One of his long-term aims is to further raise CoNi’s profile.

    “We’re not a huge rental company but we do want to be the best at what we do,” stated Timbury. “Maintaining close customer support and ensuring that our equipment is very well prepped are major priorities for us.

    “We don’t actively push for the big tours and events, but the fact that we rotate our inventory every three or four years means that our dry hire stock remains fully up to date and attractive to other rental companies who may need to augment their touring rigs. Above all, we want people to associate the CoNi name with quality.”

VIDEO
Creative Technology ensured that Evans’ visual comedic style reached each and every audience member, by supplying an impressive 150m2 of Lighthouse R7-ER LED screen.

    A large 16:9 aspect screen formed the centre piece for the stage set, plus two I-Mag side screens in portrait format. The average size for the central touring screen was 10.16m x 6.1m (10 panels wide, eight panels high), which closely approximated the 16:9 format initially specified.

    The look of the show was transformed at London’s O2 Arena (the largest venue on the tour) to accommodate the re-set for Evans’ DVD shoot. Spanning an impressive 60’, the centre screen was extended to the width of the stage and complemented by a 60’ x 14’ projected image set between the LED screen and the stage.

    CT’s project manager for the tour, Steve Purkess explained: “The R7-ER’s virtual resolution means we’d been able to drive it using a Vista Systems Spyder switcher, which allowed us to ‘pixel match’ to the Lighthouse LIP processor’s native resolution, getting pixel for pixel representation of the HD cameras and playback. The picture quality achieved was fantastic.”

    Production manager Mark Harris had some very definite requirements. “One of the reasons video is such a critical element of this show is the nature of Lee’s comedy,” he said. “When you put a stand-up comedian into a big venue where a large number of people are sitting far away from the stage, it’s very important that you see what he’s doing.

    “With Lee, this is even more important because his comedy is mostly physical. So to have close-ups of his face, or the way his legs are moving in the head-to-toe shots, in good definition is absolutely critical.”

    Harris and his team took a significant amount of time at the design stage of the production evaluating alternative ideas. “Our video screens aren’t just wing I-Mag screens, but a part of the stage set,” he continued.

    “CT was very helpful in demonstrating the available alternatives, what the parameters of them were, what they could achieve. We spent quite a bit of time in CT’s warehouse looking at different ideas, screen sizes, positions, shapes, different types of screen that we might use and ultimately, once we had decided what we wanted, I was confident they could deliver and at a competitive price.”

    As well as superb picture quality, another requirement of the screen was that it needed to be quick and easy to rig and de-rig. “We have a number of overnights on this tour and we also have a lot of screen,” said Harris. “Our wing screens are LED, which is unusual — most are projection solutions — and sometimes we’re in a position where we have no choice but to build the LED in pretty awkward positions. So we wanted a screen product that is relatively easy to rig and de-rig.

    “Lighthouse is an industry standard and I’ve seen it being put up and taken down pretty fast on other events. It ticked all the boxes and I was convinced that we should use it.”

    CT screen technician, Giles Conte concurred: “It’s speedy to rig and de-rig and, because it’s light, we can easily double stack the panels, which makes it simple to transport as we can get quite a lot on a truck. Add to that CT’s bespoke dolly system and it’s a good product to tour with.”

    Both Purkess and Harris have been impressed with the results they have achieved with the Lighthouse R7-ER screen. “I love the screen,” enthused Purkess. “It’s very much in demand at the moment. It’s really versatile and, because of its high resolution, small or large screen formats all look fantastic. CT bought the R7-ER panels earlier this year, and it’s been in use ever since.”

    Harris adds: “When the entire compliment of screen went up in the O2, it exceeded my expectations. I was really chuffed. It did exactly what we hoped it would and probably more. We couldn’t do this show without the screens giving off this quality image. However good the artist is, when you’ve got 14,500 people in a venue looking at one man, it wouldn’t work without them.”

SOUND
Evans’ first venture into arenas in 2005 placed enormous pressure on the tour sound production company, Capital Sound Hire, and its Martin Audio line array rig, which had to create transparent speech intelligibility and intimacy to fans sitting in every seat. In addition, it had to contend with additional FX play-ins such as ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, Evans’ mandolin on one track, and the exigencies of a camera crew.

    Three years on and fundamentally little appeared to have changed. Both Off The Kerb and PM Mark Harris were pleased to keep the faith with Cap Sound, and other than Evans swopping his mandolin for a ukulele and piano — and greater emphasis being placed on the big screen reinforcement — it was business as usual... apart from the PA.

    As Cap Sound’s account manager Paul Timmins said: “We were looking at tools that were not available three years ago, notably the Mini line array and Longbow.” ‘Big’ proved to be an apt name for this tour in every respect.

    The audio integrity for the five nights at the O2 was in the safe hands of Cap’s system tech/crew chief Matt Harman-Trick, who knows the venue intimately after working long stints here with both Take That and Kylie Minogue, and had the added advantage of having stood in on the last Evans tour.

    It was useful to have maintained some continuity, believed Timmins, noting that around 50% of the sound crew worked on the last tour. This included PA tech Finbarr Neenan with Tom Boothby babysitting at FOH — where Phil Tame was again behind the mixing desk (a Midas XL3).

Meanwhile, stage manager Neil McDonald had migrated from the Stereophonics, another Capital Sound account, and Cap tech Dan Kent was mixing monitors.

    For this tour the production company prepped three separate rig configurations — for large arenas, small arenas and one exclusively for the O2, in view of its steeply raked bowl (and consequent width).

    In 2005, Cap Sound had fielded W8LC (compact line array) as the main hangs and W8Cs for delays (with a few of its then brand new Minis providing boosted stage sidefills). This time, although the W8LC options was again considered, the commanding throw of the main W8L Longbow was a decisive factor, obviating the need for some of the delayed sound.

    The change to Longbow had been predicated by Tame, who had used a system in Europe. Said Timmins: “Phil wanted the dynamics of Longbow for certain parts of the show to create a ‘wow’ factor, and although the LCs would have been adequate, this solution places less pressure on delays.”

    Knowing that the spoken word needed to be in as close proximity to the audience as possible, Harman-Trick and Timmins considered the options. “We had spent a lot of time discussing how we would do this when we were here with Kylie and Take That,” they reported.

    At the O2 Arena, the distance from the front edge of the stage to the furthest seat is 115m and the top row of seats is surprisingly 30m above the floor. “A lot of people get caught out by this place which is deceptively big,” commented Timmins. To put this into perspective, in terms of high altitude, the top seat is still 4m above the top of the PA!

    Spanning the rear were four truss-mounted delays comprising eight W8LMs, designed to spread the sound laterally and upwards into the upper bowl. This was one of the most significant changes in the design that had toured in 2005.

    Unlike other venues on the tour, midpoint delays were deemed unnecessary at the O2, and besides it would have interfered with the audience lighting trusses. “Instead of using three rows of delays having the LMs means we can achieve the same effect from a single spine,” said Timmins.

    While the core tour rig comprised 10 W8L Longbow (and two W8LD downfills) per side, at the O2, Cap Sound rigged 16-box hangs (plus the two downfills) — and the fact that they were trimmed so high, they say, is a testimony to the potency of Longbow.

    Side fills were provided by 16 W8LCs (and two W8LCDs) per side, while a centre cluster of four W8LMs and four EM15s were added to bring the image right down to the front row and add further intimacy. A line of eight Martin’s WS218X subs along the front of the stage apron were reinforced with four Martin W2s, stacked on top as front fills.

    While Martin Audio MA4.2 amplifiers powered the system, 11 XTA DP226 processors were in control. “We have all the delay XTAs in the rack as a master unit and we use that as a matrix to drive the other XTAs which are at stage end, running straight off the multicore,”explained Harman-Trick. “It’s all being controlled by a Moxa unit and we run everything from a graphics tablet so that we can wander round the room and make any the changes using XTA’s AudioCore software.”

    As well as the considerable quota of DP226s, Phil Tame also used an XTA SiDD as a compressor across Evans’ vocal mic — an essential tool when dealing with the highs and lows of Evans’ SM58 abuse! The SiDD was Y-split to allow for a song vocal and a speech vocal. “The SiDD wasn’t originally meant to be on the tour,” laughed Timmins. “Phil found it in the warehouse and now he likes it so much he won’t give it back!”

    Harman-Trick added: “Using the XTA units makes it easy to make changes if we decided we need to do something different. We went from the O2 to the Brighton Centre, which is smaller than the floor space here and has a tiny little balcony, and on to Birmingham’s NIA, so it’s quite a diverse range of venues and we’re adapting the system for different each one. With the XTAs, we can load in a new set of presets very quickly, which works really well for us.”

    Stage manager Neil McDonald, carpenter John Gallimore, UK Rigging, Eat To The Beat (catering), EST (trucking — lead driver Dave Daniels). Phoenix Bussing (buses), MTFX (special effects) and ET Travel also played vital parts in the tour.

    For those who missed the laughs, a DVD souvenir of Lee Evans’ appearances at a large, dome-shaped entertainment complex in North Greenwich — Big: Live At The O2 — was produced by Little Mo Films and released on November 24 through Universal.

TPi
Photography by
Mark Cunningham, Damian Courage,
Live Nation & Taylor Herring