Oasis: Dig Out Your Soul Tour

After finally negotiating our way through the cast iron West Gate security cordon and into the backstage inner sanctum at Wembley Stadium, TPi’s windswept presence was acknowledged by the raised eyebrow of one Liam Gallagher as he strolled nonchalantly past the production office munching a banana.

    Perhaps he was hoping that on this night, there wouldn’t be any hint of the slip-ups that have occasionally interrupted what has otherwise been a largely idyllic year on the road for Oasis.

    Launched in Seattle last August, the Dig Out Your Soul 2008-09 tour has worked its way through arenas, stadiums and festivals in North and South America, Mexico, South Africa, the UK, Ireland and continental Europe, with some dates rated by Noel Gallagher as the greatest of the band’s career.

    It would be wrong, however, to state that the tour has passed without incident. At Toronto’s Virgin Festival in September, Noel sustained injuries when he was attacked onstage by an audience member. This led to a series of postponements and notably upscaled security.

    When Oasis played the first of three concerts at Manchester’s Heaton Park in June, part of a second UK leg promoted by SJM Concerts, a generator failure saw the band leave the stage twice and offer full refunds to the entire 70,000-capacity, beer-soaked audience — more than 20,000 have so far cashed their ‘Oasis Bank of Burnage’ cheques.

    Three days before TPi arrived on-site, the curse returned at their first Wembley Stadium show when the PA system briefly closed down, although as Noel noted: “The crowd were singing so f**kin’ loudly that I didn’t even notice at first!”

    A further audio issue raised its head on July 16 at the FIB Heineken festival in Benicàssim, Spain, encouraging some jokers to question if the reunited Blur have been plotting sabotage!

    But these were mere blips on the road to excess, and it’s been a smooth ride thanks to the confident steering of production manager Michael O’Connor and tour manager Doe Phillips, with back-up from production co-ordinator Roni Horner and assistants Yvonne Ryan and Michael Burke.

    The band came together with new drummer Chris Sharrock (Robbie Williams, The La’s, Icicle Works, The Lightning Seeds) in June to rehearse for the tour, although as Michael O’Connor pointed out, Oasis did not indulge in production rehearsals.

    “They don’t do that — it’s a case of getting the music right and then hitting the stage,” he said. “But for the stadium shows we went into Manchester two days early so that [lighting designer] Rob Gawler and the video team could programme overnight.”

    O’Connor has once again harnessed the best from his crew and suppliers, including the Oasis veterans of Britannia Row who have provided the lion’s share of the touring equipment including consoles, monitor rigs and delay systems, as well as sub-renting a d&b J-Series line array from Lancashire-based Wigwam to FOH engineer Bruce Johnston’s specification.

    “J-Series was my first choice,” insisted Johnston. “It’s given us very good continuity and we haven’t had a bad gig with it, whether we’re outdoors or inside. It always fires up the same regardless of which country we’re in.

    “We used Nexo’s GEO-T on the last tour and even though it was good for me, it was time to move on. We were looking for a very flat PA and when I heard the ‘J’ I thought it sounded exceptional.”

    Powered and processed by d&b’s own D12 digital amplifiers and ROPE management software, the main hangs contain 20 J8s and four wider-dispersion J12s, with eight flown J-Subs. The side hangs have 18 J8s and two J12s with six J-Subs, and these are all augmented with a ground row of 30 2 x 18” B2 subs, topped with Q1 frontfill boxes.

    The system set-up is left in the hands of Wigwam’s Rob Priddle and Johnston’s own system tech, Dan Lewis. “Dan’s worked with me for many years and knows just what I like. He’s learned to fly every PA on the planet — from the Nexo Alpha system I used way back, right up to now.”

    For the delay towers, Brit Row supplied its now-regular Outline Butterfly line array solution. “The Butterfly boxes have a really strong horn. I used that PA recently and found it had a very clean and precise top end,” said Johnston.

    “It’s a lightweight box and the rigging system allows you to give it a 15-20° upward tilt which helps you throw sound into the Gods. It’s something you can’t do with most other PAs.”

CONTROL
The owner of Australian-based Johnston Audio Services, Johnston had been mixing digitally on a DiGiCo D5 for some time, but this tour sees him return to the warm, fuzzy glow of analogue with the Midas XL4 that he describes as the ‘Neve of live desks’.

    “There are many advantages to the D5,” he said. “It was a very convenient, compact desk for festivals but the XL4 feels more appropriate for a big rock’n’roll band. With digital, I started to get very distracted by the screens, tapping buttons and looking at my desk instead of focusing on the stage.

    “But Oasis aren’t a complicated band to mix and that’s the point — it’s meat and potatoes, you push up the faders and go.”

    Johnston’s sane and unaffected aura belies the fact that he has mixed Oasis’ FOH sound for longer than any other engineer. “It’s getting on for 11 years now,” he grinned.

    “Over that time they’ve gradually become more refined musically. People are surprised at how massive their sound is — they’re still loud but their onstage tone is better.”

    Lifting Liam’s vocal above that wonderwall of sound isn’t quite the task one might imagine. “I use a couple of dbx 162 compressors on him and also an XTA D2 dynamic EQ, but it’s not too difficult because he’s always right on the [Shure Beta 57A] mic and never moves.”

MONITORS
A few tours ago, and after many years of refusal, Liam Gallagher agreed to use in-ear monitoring and Johnston said this was “about 50%” of the reason why the overall Oasis live sound is now much more intelligible.

    “At one point when we were playing theatres, years ago, I worked out that there were more speakers onstage than in the PA!” he commented. “It used to be brutal and, of course, that all impacted on my ability to control the FOH sound.”

    Gallagher the Younger is currently using Ultimate Ears UE-11 ear pieces with Sennheiser G2 hardware and monitor engineer Nahuel Gutierrez is doing his best to ensure that the singer will retain what’s left of his hearing.

    “I’m gating Liam’s vocal so when he’s not in front of the mic, the level comes right down,” explained Gutierrez. “He doesn’t normally have the band in his ears — there’s enough of their level around him — but I have them mixed on VCAs if he ever wants it.”

    Liam’s monitoring is backed-up with M2 wedges, the d&b model that is also supplied for the rest of the band. Sidefills are an unusual combo of L-Acoustics ARCS and Outline subs.

    This is the first Oasis tour for Gutierrez as monitor engineer, having graduated from ‘babysitter’. Aged 27, of the 10 years he has been mixing, the last seven have been spent on digital consoles and the opportunity to tour with the Midas XL8 is one he looked forward to with relish.

    “I feel I’ve got the analogue sound of Bruce’s console and the flexibility of digital all in one,” he told TPi. “I’m able to generate more stage mixes, save them and slightly amend them for each venue. I’m now running 56 inputs and giving the band 38 mixes between wedges and IEM.”

    Before the tour, Gutierrez spent five days at Midas, familiarising himself with the wide range of facilities onboard the XL8. “It’s the best digital console out there, and it’s an absolute pleasure to mix on it,” he summarised.

    The stage is managed by Pete Bell with support from Tyrone Brunton, and backline world is managed by Jason Rhodes, Paul ‘Spooner’ Heywood, Gary Hodgson and Mickey Winder.

BAD BOYS GO SUPERSONIC
This is another Oasis tour for long-running lighting supplier PRG, and another opportunity to showcase its new Bad Boy luminaire.

    Piloting the show on a Whole Hog III desk, LD Rob Gawler enthused: “The Bad Boy was just what I had been looking for — a big bright large-format luminaire, that could be used as a narrow washlight with a couple of gobos as a bonus.

    “The units worked great ‘out of the case’ and I was pleasantly surprised at how many different beam looks I could really get out of the unit.”

    When specifying the lighting equipment and working alongside crew chief Andy Mitchinson and rigger Ian ‘Tufty’ Bracewell, Gawler knew he would have to fit everything into a number of different venue formats and scale between them without compromising the overall look.

    “I knew I wanted to use a selection of contemporary fixtures but to create a look that’s reminiscent of a more progressive, psychedelic period.”

    Also included in his lighting spec are around 80 Martin MACs, plus 42 i-Pix LED BB4s and seven BB7s. Gawler needed a colour changing wash light offering a nice, even spread of high quality light that was a less energy-hungry alternative to conventional 4-lites.

    He looked at several options before deciding to go with the i-Pix products, which are used for general stage wash. The geometric positioning of the units also compliments the spatial elegance of the stage architecture which is created with the ‘fingers’ in the set.

    “The BBs are reliable, efficient and make good colours,” said Gawler. “I also really like the homogeneity of the light sources and the smooth and even output.”

VIDEO
Rob Gawler’s influence on the entire visual splendour of the Oasis show should not be underestimated. After operating the console for Andi Watson’s lighting design on the band’s previous tour, Ignition (Oasis’ management) invited Gawler to grasp the holistic design reins for the Dig Out Your Soul arena production last year.

    The next move was to pull together a team to produce video content and work alongside Gawler, who assumed the role of overall creative director.

    Ignition’s Marcus Russell asked Justine Catterall to come onboard as screen content producer and join forces with graphic artist Julian House and London design house Intro, who had created the art for the entire Dig Out Your Soul album campaign.

    For the transition to stadiums, long-time Oasis live (and DVD) video director Dick Carruthers (with assistant Tom Woodcraft) was brought in to mix live cameras and content, with screens and hardware provided throughout by XL Video  — see September’s issue.

    Others playing valuable roles on the Oasis tour are Rockdrops, supplying drapes and scrims, EST (trucking), Beat The Street (buses), MBA (travel), Robertson Taylor (insurance) and Popcorn (catering). Tour security is a collaboration between Colin Lish at Headline and Steve Allen’s Risks Contained.
TPi