VERSUS CANCER

With unrepentant determination, dogged resistance, and a passion to party that is so typically Mancunian, Manchester stood up to be Versus Cancer for the third consecutive year on February 23.

The support for the cause, coupled with the formidable reputation that the event has built over its first two years, meant that the majority of tickets for the M.E.N. Arena gig were sold before the acts were even announced.

At £40 a ticket and without a Weller or Gallagher in sight, attracting 13,000 punters is no mean feat, but it serves to highlight the strength of the entertainment, the worth of the focus, and people’s enthusiasm to get involved.

The melting pot of acts on offer encapsulated the musical roots of the city, as well as weaving the cream of the NME crop in with indie royalty, before culminating in a crescendo of Manchester legends, joining to form a unique and suitably fitting collaboration.

As co-organiser Joel Perry said, this year’s show “diversified and moved away from the Manc-centric ideology a little”, building on 2007’s gig, which raised £250,000 for various charities and organisations. The profits were also pumped into the cancer awareness campaign that is ongoing throughout the city.

Young upstarts and winners of the Versus Cancer Unsigned Competition, The Sticks, kicked off proceedings, tearing through some ferocious future hits, making way for a set spiked with classics from The Farm. The Inspiral Carpets kept the North-West torch lit with countless, ‘did they do that?’ tunes, before The View took to the stage in typical, cheeky Dundonian style, offering up ‘Same Jeans’ as a contender for the loudest sing-along of the night.

Athlete’s intelligent blend of poetic melody provided an enjoyable chill-out, which continued with Fun Lovin’ Criminals’ funk-driven capers, before the Happy Mondays played a hometown set laden with baggy anthems — punctuated by jovial quips and brotherly tussles between Shaun Ryder and Bez.

The Fratellis showed exactly why their reputation continues to flourish, as that second album becomes ever-anticipated and The Enemy followed on to confirm their status as best new band of 2007.

The stage was set for the unconfirmed, yet eagerly-awaited finale, which didn’t disappoint. Joy Division and New Order’s Peter Hook, Andy Rourke of The Smiths and organiser of Versus Cancer, and drumming legend Steve White formed a supergroup, headed by Damon Gough (Badly Drawn Boy) and backed by the entire crowd. They worked through a mixture of poignant beauties and crowd-pleasers — ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, ‘Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want’, ‘Let The Sunshine In’ and Lennon’s ‘Instant Karma’ — for a truly euphoric ending.

Said Perry: “Thankfully, we have a pretty decent reputation now. I was talking with Jimi Goodwin from Doves recently and he said it’s incredible how Versus Cancer has now become a real date in the touring calendar. That’s flattering and means a great deal in terms of growth for us; it brings it home that we must be doing something right. But in turn it brings with it its own set of difficulties — we’re not ones to rest on our laurels, so we're happy trying to overcome them.”

Manchester’s biggest musical event was inspired by the lives of Nova Rehman’s sister and father, who were diagnosed with cancer. Sadly Nina Rehman has lost her battle with cancer since the event began in 2006; another reason to strengthen the event that raises awareness of the disease.

The management team comprises James Ward, Katherine Mainprize, ex-Smiths bassist Andy Rourke, Nova Rehman and Joel Perry of Mondiale Publishing’s Mondo*DR magazine. They were also blessed with the support of Embrace singer Danny McNamara who worked tirelessly in approaching the bands and spreading the good word.

“He’s a true gent in this industry,” said Perry. “The event would also not happen without the support of Shan Hira, James Allen, Miriam Stone, Sarah Hodson, Andy Yates, Shelley Wiggins and John Knight.”

LED VIDEO DEBUT
The production team, headed up by David Lawrence who worked once again with Adlib’s audio and lighting divisions, were determined to develop the show this year to reflect the surge of interest in the event. The main difference visually this year was the introduction of LED video screens to the set, which released the potential for visuals, adding an extra live element to the show.

Lawrence said a huge bonus to the stage design was getting XL Video and HSL involved for the first time. He commented: “Des Fallon and Mike Oates are good pals of mine, so within a few phone calls we were able to bring a vastly superior set design involving LED, projection and ColorWeb for this year’s event. We had both Mike and Des on-site and their crew made it so easy for all of us.”

XL Video’s team consisted of Wolfgang Schram at the helm, Cath Edwards co-ordinating the graphics and Steve Maziere as vision mixer. XL worked in tandem with the lighting crew — Adlib’s Peter Abraham and lighting designer Andrew Liddle — and UK One Production’s DVD lighting co-ordinator Dave Reason.

The lighting team agreed that the backdrop should be a focus for development in 2008. “We decided to surround the back and sides of the stage with ColorWeb [supplied by HSL],” explained Abraham. “In front of that we hung nine drops of Barco I-12 screens at different heights [supplied by XL Video].”

The screen also provided a barrier behind which crew could function on stage without being seen. All the video equipment was run through Adlib’s Catalyst and controlled by XL’s Hugh Davies-Webb on his Wholehog II.

Two XL screens in 16:9 format were flanked left and right to provide the audience with an accessible view of what was happening on stage. They were run by a separate console from XL, with a different vision mixer and graphics team positioned outside the Arena’s bowl. The side screens portrayed graphics between sets and close-ups, and any band could provide material during performances — Jon Shrimpton crew-chiefed this facility whilst working as projectionist.

LIGHTING
Andy Liddle used a Wholehog II to control the main lighting system, and was helped by lighting crew chief Tim Spilman and crew members Charlie Rushton, Neil Holloway and Richard Babbington. Back and side trusses were flown in a flat ‘U’ shape and dotted with 20 Martin MAC 700 profiles, 20 MAC 700 washes, 16 Martin Atomic Strobes and 16 four-way Linear Molefays. The front truss featured 12 High End Studio Beams, 16 MAC 550s and six four-way Molefays. There were eight MAC 2000 Profiles on the floor and eight MAC 250 Washes fitted behind the ColorWeb to shine through.

Dave Reason used an Avolites Pearl Expert console for separate control of 48 PARs, which were hung over the audience on a separate truss at FOH, and 12 floor cans to create lighting effects suitable for the DVD.

Adlib Group, UK Rigging, GLD, STS Touring and Handball Crew have been involved with Versus Cancer since the first event. Original co-founders Stephen Chapman and Tom Smetham returned to the event under their new guise as UK One Productions, dedicated to producing music video and radio. Both had organised the filming element of Versus Cancer from the beginning.

Smetham explained: “Because we had such a star line up we knew that we could make more money for charity by doing a DVD. We did it very cheaply the first year but have taken on more and more as the budget has changed. This year we wanted to produce great lighting and give it more width visually.”

With the introduction of UK One Productions came new resources for filming. Chapman and Smetham put forward legendary music TV producer Chris Cowey, known for producing Top Of The Pops, to direct the filming for the DVD.

“We met Chris a few months ago and got chatting about ’80s pop/rock TV programme The Tube, which was close to all our hearts. Chris said the principles we had put in place for Versus Cancer were the same as he did on The Tube,” said Smetham.

Cowey brought a four camera crew from London and four from the North West, led by Mark Cruikshank. Said Smetham: “Chris brought a new element onboard as director; he vision mixes himself live. He sat through all the soundchecks and made a note of where all the band members were on stage. He communicated this to the camera crew so that everyone worked together and the DVD was easy to edit.”

Sound recording provider Sound-Moves brought Arena and XFM on board to help record audio and visuals for broadcast. Managed by Julian Mills and James Bonnar, Arena provided a talkback system for producers, the director, camera operators, lighting, the vision mixer at FOH and the vision mixer for side screens.

Arena TV had an outside HD OB broadcast unit this year where Steve Williams of Sound-Moves took a mix of the sound for the OB truck. There were eight cameras in total, including a new 360° hot head operated by Dave Jenkinson. “In the second year we had so much going on in the central FOH area that we compromised on seats so this year we moved some of it to the back,” said Smetham.

AUDIO
While it was the third consecutive year for Adlib Audio, it was the first for Tony Szabo as system designer. James ‘Ringo’ Baseley, who assisted David Lawrence in production and looked after technical artist liaison, said: “We had good results in 2006 with the JBL VerTec system, but both David and I are long-standing fans of V-DOSC having used it extensively over the years with Massive Attack, so we were pleased to see Adlib add this to their hire stock.”

Lawrence added: “We used Adlib’s V-DOSC and dV-DOSC systems because it has never let us down and when you see Dave Kay come walking in it makes you smile!”

Adlib specified 14 V-DOSC units flown a side, with four dV-DOSC per side as downfill. There were also 12 L-Acoustics SB28s per side, 12 dV-DOSC as side hangs per side and four Arcs per side as front fills. At FOH there were two Soundcraft Vi6 digital consoles and two Yamaha PM5D consoles for monitors.

A total of six Dolby Lake Processors were used for control — two on stage for monitors (run by crew chief Marc Peers and monitor engineers Ben Booker and Richie Nicholson, assisted by Walter Jaquiss, Otto Kroymann and Laura Davis) and two at FOH in an A-B flip configuration, one as a matrix mixer and one as a spare.

Around 32 L-Acoustics LA8 amplifiers powered the system. Szabo helped Dave Kay at FOH who mixed one band and assisted the bands’ sound engineers, and Declan Fynanf helped with the PA.

Lawrence worked with James Baseley and backline manager Nick Sizer to co-ordinate performances by nine bands in just five hours.

Baseley and stage manager Richard ‘Wez’ Wearing had the difficult job of bargaining with artist management about the amount of backline kit, audio desks and lighting they could accommodate and swap on stage in such a pressured environment.

Said Baseley: “Between Wez and I we managed to talk in advance with many of the technical guys from the bands to pre-warn them of how things would work on stage. There were a few obstacles to overcome, but generally everyone was very accommodating. On the day, Wez, along with co-stage managers Rik Benbow and Nick Sizer, had the monumental task of getting nine bands on- and off-stage within the five hour show. They managed to pull the whole thing together without it affecting any one artist’s performance.”

Lawrence added: “The fact that this is a charity event meant that pretty much all the bands and managements accommodated our requests. If they do not fully understand the picture, they do once they arrive on-site, so with a bit of co-operation here and there we make it feasible for everyone.

“Last year we made allowances to our production to accommodate Noel Gallagher's acoustic set, but this year from the start we were talking to artists who would be doing full on electronic sets. All bands want to play for longer but we prefer to keep them to a 30-minute set. This enables us to give the audience a festival line-up in an indoor setting and we hope that we are giving something to everyone who kindly bought a ticket.”

Wez worked on a generic stage plan prior to the gig that involved two drum kits and a collection of bass and guitar rigs to be used by all artists. Rotating risers, supplied by SSE, were kept to a minimum with the emphasis once more on sharing rather that bringing in band-specific equipment.

Together with a very well worked-out audio plot from Marc Peers and his Adlib team on stage, this ensured that changeovers remained within their 10-minute maximum slot. Hell Yeah Productions provided Michele Thomson, Kate Doyle and Gina Hewitt for artist liaison and Matt Cheshire and Gaz Gray for artists’ needs.

Also supporting the event were Jake Piper for health and safety, GLD who handled dressing room furnishings, Pete Dutton who managed backline on behalf of STS Touring, local crew Alex Knight and Ryan, Matt Richards working for Event Communications, UK Rigging headed up by Harry Box, caterers A Bit Of A Mouthful with Giles Broe and Andrew Donaldson at the helm, and the Robertson Taylor insurance company led by Fiona Flynn.

David Lawrence, who was also assisted by Cally Harris and Cameron Farzad, rounded up the night: “It went absolutely perfectly; we over-ran by 10 minutes, which for nine bands is pretty good, and as always all the bands enjoyed themselves.”

When asked why Versus Cancer has become so successful in just three years he replied: “It's about the team, it's about the bands, it's about the charity, it's about co-operation and it’s about cancer. I think each individual working on the event brings a good amount of experience to it, so we are not easily fazed by the enormity of it all. Also, in the first year we set it all up in a day, but now we have a set-up day before show day.”

Lawrence hopes that next year’s bands will find the time to make a commitment to the event much earlier so they can look into the possibility of extending it over two nights and give more artists the opportunity to perform in front of 12,000-14,000 people. “This would change the demographic of the event slightly to reach out to a younger audience and a more dance-orientated audience. Cancer has no prejudice, it can affect everyone, so the event should be accessible to everyone,” he said.

This year’s DVD features highlights from the show as well as footage from three cameras, which operated backstage doing interviews with all the artists and production crew, including The Enemy, Peter Hook and Athlete all talking about why they were there.

We asked Joel Perry about the future of Versus Cancer. He replied: “Well we can't not do another gig — and there are already some names being tentatively banded about to join us. Our DVD is currently in production, which is really exciting, but in terms of the brand we just keep on going. The infrastructure of the charity is firmly in place now, which helps free up certain components of the team to concentrate on their respective skills in what they bring in.

“In terms of events. the possibilities are endless. We are shaping up nicely in terms of sponsorship, too, which is an incredible help and shows we're going from strength to strength. We'll keep you posted!”
TPi

Photography by Jim Ellam
& Karin Albinsson
www.versuscancer.org