Depeche Mode

If there were to be a TPi Award for ‘Friendliest Tour’, then there’s no doubt that Depeche Mode would win it hands down. They say that a good vibe comes from the top down, and on this tour it rippled from the good spirit of the band and key production staff, led by Tony Gittins and Helen ‘Hels Bells’ Smith — from the pink and fluffy production office which light-heartedly disguised their incredible organisational and logistical skills.

Gittins commented: “Hels Bells and I did the 2006/07 tour and it was a great experience so we were really looking forward to doing this one, they are probably the best band we’ve worked with — very grounded and great performers.”

“Depeche Mode are a really nice bunch of guys,” added FOH sound engineer Antony King. “They sit in catering with us and are very down to earth, which is good considering they’ve been doing it for so long.”
Our trip to Geneva’s Palexpo Arena on November 10 proved that Depeche Mode’s phenomenal 30-year live performance career shows no sign of waning. In fact, the Tour Of The Universe, so named after their 12th studio album, Sounds Of The Universe, raised the bar once again with an innovative set design underpinned by a sophisticated application of LED visuals and technology.

Rehearsals kicked off in April in New York and the tour, orchestrated by tour manager Tim Lougee, began with a European leg of stadium gigs launching in Luxembourg on May 6, which required eight trucks from Stagetruck and four buses from Beat The Street. Rock-It Cargo handles freight, Music By Appointment manages travel and Eat Your Hearts Out provides catering.

Production rehearsals in Luxembourg were attended by Simon James, a director of The Event Safety Shop (TESS) who trained the crew for the SPA’s Safety Passport and carried out an audit of technical and other risks, after the company was approached by Gittins and advance site co-ordinator Chrissy Uerlings to develop safety management system for the tour. James commented: “This was part of an overall plan from Tony and Chrissy to nurture a positive and proactive safety culture on the tour. What this means is that touring crews adopt safe working, look out for each other and try to spot risks before they become accidents.”

Back in the TESS office Tim Roberts was busy developing a range of documents to help the tour navigate the requirements of various countries, venues and enforcing agencies. “Chrissy and Tony had a really clear idea of what they wanted to achieve with various briefing sheets and sign-offs,” added James. “For a tour where a lot of the production is sourced locally (including stages, roofs and electrics), it is critical for the tour to be able to explain clearly the technical standards and crew competence they require of suppliers, and that the tour has done everything it reasonably can to ensure the whole set-up is safe and secure.”

Although gigs had to be cancelled between May 12 and June 7 due to lead vocalist Dave Gahan’s bout of gastroenteritis and a leg injury, it pushed on and headed for the U.S. in July for more stadium gigs. We caught the show shortly after it arrived back in Europe for the latter stint of arena dates that will finish in February 2010.

Gittins said the main challenge, besides the logistics of doing nine stadium shows in 17 days in South America, was the practicalities of building a stadium show that could easily be cut down, but create the same effect, for the arenas. To achieve this they designed the show to fit arenas and used scaled down arena stages supplied locally, then added side screens and some synchrolites for the stadium shows, for which they also used local stages, with many supplied by Stageco.

The only other elements of the set they toured with were Total Fabrications’ bespoke designed risers and the large demisphere of MiTrix LED from XL Video. For arenas, the number of trucks was reduced from 10 to eight.

It must be hard work to make a big barn like Geneva’s Palexpo feel intimate and personal, but for Dave Gahan, it seemed an effortless challenge as he strutted his stuff, paraded his spectacular body art and belted out hit after intricately-worded hit.

Depeche Mode’s visuals have always been edgy and innovative, with much of it down to the fertile imagination of their long time creative director, photographer and film maker Anton Corbijn. They were one of the first bands to tour a large scale video set up on 1993’s notorious Devotional tour, which is sadly more remembered by most mainstream sources for nearly ending in shreds of mental instability than as an aesthetic and technical masterpiece.

Moving image has been at the essence of their live presentation ever since and few do it better than Anton Corbijn.

Corbijn evolves the video for each tour in an imaginatively cerebral fusion of expression and ideas, always avoiding the latest technological clichés and using it as another spatial thread of the show in which the audience can engage. Tour Of The Universe has continued in that same understated, thought-through style, starting with eight short movies produced by Corbijn presenting intelligent visuals, neither over-used or over exposed.

Corbijn also designed the minimalist stage set consisting of low level risers and instrument stands, a large upstage MiTrix screen, with a 3m x 3m MiTrix sphere flown just in front of it. The main screen literally disappears when the back lighting behind it kicks in, transforming the nature and feel of the performance area.

Joining Corbijn’s visual dream team is lighting designer Paul Normandale, video director John Shrimpton and lighting director Graham Feast who is out operating the tour. Normandale and Corbijn have worked together — on DM and other projects — for over 10 years, so they enjoy a very fluid creative dialogue and chemistry.

LIGHTING
Corbijn already had a few ideas and a very clear vision on the table for the tour when the initial design meetings between him and Normandale took place. He wanted to have the spherical “communicator” — an idea that was initiated on the Fallen Angel tour three years ago — and strong, simple aesthetics to define the space.

In pursuance of the “sparse” look, it was essential that lighting didn’t interfere with video, specifically the playback movies, but could add impact, dimension and hold its own as required. An original Corbijn and Normandale visual concept was to change the shape and perspective of the stage with both lighting and video mediums, and this was one of many memorable impressions taken away from the show, with different areas of the screen utilised throughout, together with lighting from different areas of the rig.

Normandale’s design mixes a heterogeneity of instruments, some contemporary, like i-Pix BB4s, and also some classics like Mole Richardson Molebeams, six of which sit upstage of the band — chosen for their antique filmic appearance and “wonderful” organic beams, which are pretty pokey from the 2.5kW light source.

Graham Feast and Normandale programmed the lighting during the initial production rehearsals in Luxembourg before the start of the tour back in May, cross referencing each song meticulously with Corbijn’s screen visuals.

Overhead were four upstage/downstage trusses sub-hung with bespoke curved ladder beams constructed by Total Fabrications. Each one of these was suspended in a Liftket motor and four points of Kinesys automation (operated by Dave Jolly). These glided in and out during the show, very effectively shutting down the space. The four curves were rigged with Martin Professional MAC 700 Profile moving lights.

Two side trusses (left and right) were trimmed at 11’ off the stage, each loaded with five MAC 700 Washes, used for slicing across the stage and very effective low level washing. Up in the roof on the trussing ‘mother’ grid were 10 Atomic strobes with scrollers.

Upstage of the 60’ wide by 30’ high MiTrix screen was a bespoke framework arrangement made from standard Lite Alternative one metre wide interlocking frames, totalling six high and six wide. This was rigged with a combination of 24 MAC 2000 XB Washes, 24 i-Pix BB4s and strobes. These blasted through with massive impact and disappeared back into oblivion when the MiTrix kicked back in.

The floor had been kept clear of lighting for previously stated reasons, apart from eight MAC 2000 XB Profiles behind the band. The low level risers were all fitted with custom LED skirts, and 12 i-Pix satellites were scattered around the risers and used for coloured up-lighting on the band.

No Normandale artwork would be complete without some signature Omni floods on sticks, of which there were 12, scattered around the outskirts of the stage, and then there were the six Molebeams along the back.

There was also a plethora of 4-lite moles dotted all over the various trusses. These were for audience “moments”, but had been carefully positioned to avoid the usual stereotypical blinder looks.

Feast ran the show from a Hog III console, picked primarily because that’s what lighting and Kinesys system suppliers Lite Alternative had in stock at the time. He commented that it had been hugely interesting working with Corbijn and Normandale, observing their creative insouciance and the resulting amalgamation of video and visuals.

It is also one of the best tours he’s ever done in terms of a great atmosphere and fantastic people to work alongside. “It’s a real testament to Tony that it feels like we’ve been on the road for days rather than months,” said Feast with a large grin.

VIDEO
XL Video UK is supplying all the video kit for the UK and Europe and the account is project managed by Des Fallon, who also has a long-standing relationship working with the band.

Tour Of The Universe video is an ingenious blend of Anton’s eight movies and John Shrimpton’s I-Mag mix, which was developed between the two of them.

Shrimpton worked on the last tour as crew chief and head of cameras, and was one of several candidates for the directing job, which started with an informal chat with Corbijn, including a discussion of his ideas for set, scenic and screen designs, including the ball.

He freely admitted that Corbijn was always one of his idols and said that working with him had been “brilliant and highly inspiring”. He added that Corbijn’s whole ethos is about the creative process becoming a shared experience, and the I-Mag part of the show is composed about 50/50 of ideas from the two of them.

The MiTrix screen was 42 x 42 panels in seven of XL Video’s bespoke touring frames, 28 panels high and the same width as the stage set.

The total 25mm pitch surface area was 336 pixels high by 672 wide. The 3m x 3m MiTrix ball was specially engineered by XL Video. It was constructed from 360 MiTrix tiles and was exactly the same pixel ratio as the back wall, and used for showing mainly playback footage, with some selected I-Mag. It also sometimes functioned as a block colour lighting effect. Two side I-Mag screens on this leg of the tour were sourced locally and used for the larger shows, fed by Barco R12 projectors.

The operated cameras were five Sony D50s, two with standard lenses and one with a wide angle stationed in the pit, plus two at FOH with 70x lenses. There were little Sony Robo-cams attached to beams that slotted in either side of the Corbijn-designed keyboard stands, both controlled by Shrimpton. One was used as a key on Fletch (Andrew Fletcher) and the other to do lots of reverse shots, which were used extensively in certain songs like ‘Jezabel’ and ‘Home’.

Some of the camera looks were triggered by timecode and some done live. Just as the playback for the movies was all locked to timecode, so were some of Shrimpton’s picture states. Numbers like the moody, rocking ‘Never Let Me Down Again’ featured time-coded I-Mag scenes.
Shrimpton mixed on a Grass Valley Kayak, his favourite switcher, using all 28 inputs, all 10 auxiliary outputs and all 22 macros, with four feeds being sent to the Catalyst system (which stores the playback) operated by Richard Stembridge. It was from the Catalyst that the pictures were processed and sent to screen.

Engineering was John Steel, on whom Shrimpton commented: “He’s great, specially his dry sense of humour.” The playback movies were all shot in full HD and had been precisely and beautifully crafted to add imagination, surprise, humour, suggestion and cognitive engagement into the show.

The Catalyst also applied and synched playback and the relevant camera looks to the timecode, which came from one of the band’s Radar 24 hard disk machines.

Stembridge ran the Catalyst (backup from Lite Alternative) from a WholeHog II console. He was assisted by LED techs Joseph Makein and Alan Bolland.

SOUND
A large part of the production team, on the sound side in particular, is a tried and tested formula — Tony Gittins, Hels Bells, Antony King, monitor engineer Sarne Thorogood, sound technician Richard ‘Sven’ Trow and PA tech Ben Phillips have all worked together on The Cure.

Said King: “Ben and Richard have been fantastic. Both have been on tThe Cure with me and they were personal choices of mine. I also always work with Brit Row; they have excellent gear and Bryan Grant is a great guy.”

Thorogood added: “Brit Row’s backup is great so you’re never worried about getting spares sent out.”

Keen to try out a Midas XL8 console and the new L-Acoustics K1 line array system, King requested that these form the basis of the complete touring system supplied by Britannia Row. “I like trying new stuff and with L-Acoustics you can’t really go wrong, so it was an obvious choice,” said King.

The size of the PA hangs changes depending on the size of the venue, but at the Palexpo the main hang on each side consisted of 12 L-Acoustics K1 cabinets with four dV-DOSC speakers at the bottom for downfill, adjacent to an array of six K1 subs, with an outer hang of 10 Kudo per side. The acoustics for each arena was mapped out prior to the gig online using the system’s Sound Vision pediction software.

The Palexpo is essentially a large, wide room with no arena seating, so was one of the easier venues for achieving optimum sound coverage, but the surprise addition of a VIP viewing platform 80m from stage left on the peripheries of the audience area meant a last minute challenge for the crew.

Explained Phillips: “The promoters decided to put VIPs outside of the space that you’d normally play to so we needed something else up there. We put in a delay of three ARCS so that they could hear the gig properly.

“The standard K1 arena system comes as a package, but we’re also carrying V-DOSC because DM sell so well in Europe and sometimes the promoters secure 270° arenas where you need three hangs of PA, and maybe even a fourth at the back, not including subs.”

For King, whose portfolio includes Amy Winehouse and Marilyn Manson, and Thorogood, who has worked with Depeche Mode for the last 10 years, it was their first tour using the Midas XL8 digital mixing console, so Midas sent out Jason Kelly to assist them during the first few shows. Commented King: “At the time I think we were the only ones running such a big system. We have all the recording straps to it, the two XL8s, two DPSs, stage boxes, extra support stage box and three more IOs for recording, which is all on stage.”

King had always been an avid user of the Midas XL4 and found the switch to the XL8 to be a smooth one as he explained: “I always thought that if they could make a digital board sound like the XL4 it would be perfect, which has worked out well.

“It’s a very nice sounding board. They approached it from a very analogue point of view so fortunately it doesn’t look like a spaceship! If you don’t use any automation or anything it could be an XL4.”
Thorogood also used an XL8 on monitors and he commented: “I like the layout of it because it’s easy to navigate and it sounds great, with an act like this it has to be digital and automisation.”

Depeche Mode’s live performance has more hard-edged rock and acoustic moments than their studio rock/electro mix, with Christian Eigner smashing the drums and Martin Gore playing a lot of guitar. King liaised closely with the band’s live programmer/musical director Kerry Hopwood to reproduce the DM sound.

Said King: “I’m using 72 channel outputs on the XL8; there’s lot of things going on like small synth parts that could be big on the record, but it’s a two second stab. I approach it completely as a live gig; on the album there’s no drummer as such so it’s really different live.”
The system was powered by LA8 amplifiers and matrixed through Lake processing. Digital Audio Networks and RME provided the recording set-up for the show, based around the Magic Secoya program.

Amongst King’s array of outboard is a TC PowerCore that he used to run a lot of effects through. He explained: “I use a lot of TC stuff, like the TC Helicon for thickeners and voice doublers on certain songs, and the D2 delay on Gahan’s vocal.” He also said the PCM60 was great for the old gated ‘80s reverbs! Brit Row also supplied a DN530 quad gate and DN540 quad compressor from the new Klark Teknik Creative range.

In monitor world, sound crew chief Chris ‘Chopper’ Morrison was managing the digital processing and control whilst Thorogood mixed the show. Thorogood used 66 inputs on the console and produced 24 mixes for the band, including eight stereo IEM and one mono IEM, four FX for drums and Gahan’s vocal.

The IEM were Ultimate ears UE5 and UE7 and Sennheiser ew300 transmitters and packs. For on stage monitors, DM used 24 Turbosound 450 wedges powered by 20 Crown XS700 and XS1200 power amps. There were also 12 ARCs for side fill (six flown per side) powered by six LA48 power amps, four Outline double 18” subs for side fill and one L’Acoustics 3 x 15” sub for drums. The mic set up comprised four Shure UR4D systems with SM58 capsules.

“The only outboard processing I use is a TC D2 delay for Dave’s vocal; I use all the onboard reverbs, gates and comps,” said Thorogood. “The main challenge for me is going from an outdoor venue to an indoor venue, because they’re a wedge based band, the acoustics are a big deal.”

The audio team were assisted by guitar tech Jeremy Webb, keyboard tech Paul Eastman and drum tech Iain Robertson. The lighting crew also included Oliver James, Robert Starksfield, Ricky Butler, and Alexander Johnson.

On the Eat Your Hearts Out team was Steven Bond, Michael Thomas, Christopher Girt and head chef Daniel LeFevre, lead bus driver was Garry Lewis, whilst lead truck driver was Jerry Boyes-Korkis. Head rigger was James Heath and head carpenter was Andrew Pearson.
The real ‘wow’ factor of the production had to be the mesmerising and intelligent visuals. A highlight was when the first movie kicked in during the fourth song, the classic ‘Walking in My Shoes’. The film showed a slightly aloof and grumpy crow preening himself, with a close-up and rather irksome image of its eyeball on the MiTrix demisphere in the centre; every fourth beat of every second bar, the eye blinked.

At one point the words ‘I have learned so much by Daniel Laden Sky’, appeared across the top of the screen. Intrigued, I checked it out on Google and found that each word was highlighted amongst a story at the top of the page, reporting that Dan Rather, a guest on MSNBC referred to Barack Obama as “Osama bin Laden” and no one reacted.

The article questioned whether the media would pick up on the fact that, ‘one of America’s longest-serving network news anchors referred to one of the two presidential candidates as the world’s most wanted terrorist — and no one in the room seemed to notice’.         If this was the intention of Corbijn and the band, then hats off to them for some powerful programming, and one point to us for picking up on it.
TPi