ARCTIC MONKEYS

At the 55,000-capacity Lancashire County Cricket Club in Manchester, the Arctic Monkeys' invitational mini-festival is struck by a unusual meteorological condition for summertime Britain — bright blue skies, warm sunshine and a gentle caressing breeze.

But, as the blameless PA continues to pump out indie rock anthems from The Coral, Supergrass and the Monkeys themselves, all is not well with the audience. Ultimately, the Monkeys will have to stop their set three times, with lead vocalist Alex Turner trying to cool down a surging, aggressive crowd. How can this be the finale of a day that began with a Japanese Macca-soundalike singing 'Yesterday'?

We like the Arctic Monkeys and especially their no-nonsense production team of mainly Sheffield chaps, refreshingly free of self-importance despite a steady day job working for the greatest indie success of this century. We’re impressed that tour manager Timm Cleasby has to juggle club gigs for 1,100 people one day and stadium shows for 55,000 the next, and we love the fact that this band gets equally pumped for all of them.

Having polished up their act in pre-tour rehearsals at LiteStructures Studios, the headline act sounded extraordinarily good; FOH engineer Johnny Ashton is truly a talent, harnessing the huge power of SSE's Nexo GEO systems to his will, layering a devastatingly rich delivery of the Monkeys' signature drum-and-bass with precise, musical, yet ringing clarity on the detailed lyrics. New LD Rob Gawler, having started his assignment working with designs by Vince Foster, is now doing his own thing, which is as straight and uncompromising as his young clients.

With two shows in two days at the LCCC, attendance approached 110,000, with ticket price fixed at a good value £28.50.

What that ticket bought you was essentially a one-day festival with a line-up hand-picked by the Arctic Monkeys themselves, including Japanese Beatles tribute band The Parrots, Amy Winehouse, The Coral and Supergrass. The concept has also been used at Malahide Castle in Dublin and Cardiff International Arena, with different invited artists.
According to Timm Cleasby, both band and management worked closely with promoter SJM Concerts to seek out venues which had substantial standing capacity rather than confining the audience in seated arenas.

Two years ago, the Arctic Monkeys made British music history with the fastest-selling debut album ever. In Manchester, they stood before us, winners of last year's Mercury Music Prize and with an unprecedented consecutive nomination for this year's, to boot, with their mantelpieces cluttered with BRIT Awards, and a critically acclaimed second album selling very nicely thank you. The band toured last year in small theatres; in June 2007, they headlined the Pyramid Stage at the Glastonbury Festival.

Interestingly, in this time, they have made almost no changes to their production team, apart from the addition of Rob Gawler as lighting designer. Timm Cleasby and production manager Scotty Sanderson keep the show on the road, a show that has gone from a two-truss tour to a seven-truss tour.

"We’ve brought in PRG to provide lights," explained Sanderson. "I used to work for them as a crew chief, so I have first-hand knowledge of their attention to detail."

All the other key suppliers from 2006 remain in place — Stardes for trucking, Popcorn handling catering, and Phoenix providing the buses. ShowSupport supplies the video systems, and SSE Audio Group the sound.

AUDIO
SSE Audio seized the opportunity at LCCC to try out some new loudspeaker purchases. The PA is Nexo GEO T, SSE's long-established line array festival system, augmented by new powerful side hangs (GEO S1230s) which are just the job for the asymmetrical design of the LCCC ground.

Not surprisingly, SSE's system tech Matthew Kettle and project manager Dan Bennett kept a close eye on the ‘noise police’ officers, Vanguardia Consulting.

"One of the main factors in our sound design was making sure that the sound pressure was even throughout the stadium. Ironically, one of the first buildings you come to outside the ground is the council offices,” said Kettle. “We were not to exceed 80db at two critical listening points just outside the arena which we did comfortably whilst running over 100dB(A) all day at FOH.”

Comfortably within the limits of the GEO T system, the lean 26-cabinet silhouettes of which could be seen behind the stageside scrims. Thirty-six of Nexo's CD18 super subs did justice to Ashton's outstanding drum sounds, mixed on a Digidesign Venue D-Show digital console.

"I only started using a digital console this year," confessed Ashton. "I've been quite resistant to it, but we've been recording all the gigs, and being able to use D-Show with Pro Tools makes it all much easier. It does have a high usability factor, and the best sound quality of any digital desk; the plug-ins and FX are also very good."

So good that, unlike the band who have increased their hardware by splashing out on a new stack of vintage amps, Ashton has actually reduced his equipment spec. “They've all got two amps each so, as a band, they've got phenomenally louder. Me, I've just got my digital console and iPod."

Having played a diverse range of festival dates in the UK, in Europe and in the USA, Ashton has had a chance to sample almost every sound system available. “We've had an inconsistent touring programme, so I haven't had the opportunity to experiment in depth, but I have used a lot of systems throughout Europe. I infinitely prefer using a line array, and have been quite underwhelmed by some of the other high-profile systems.

“We used Nexo's Alpha system on our last tour, but the last time I used this big GEO T festival system was at Reading. SSE has implemented the new NXstream software since then, which gives a lot more lo-mid. I can get the vocals crystal clear really quickly. I’m able to get Alex's vocal defined enough without just making it louder, and then bring in the guitars behind it, which makes it much easier to get the balance. The end result is that they occupy their own space in the mix without fighting each other."

Sennheiser 900 Series microphones are Ashton's key weapons for vocals and drums. "With the guitars, I'm back-miking every combo as well as in front to give it a bit of body. Jamie Cook [guitarist] says just make it loud! I'm also trying to get some of the effects from the studio album, such as the slap echo on some vocals."

He makes it sound so simple. I guess it is, since there are only 29 channels lighting up on his D-Show, despite doubling up on things. "We want to see the audience singing along as well as having a dance — it is a simple enough premise even if it is sometimes complicated to achieve."

Ahead of the biggest show the Arctic Monkeys have ever done entirely in their own right, Ashton was so laid back, I thought about taking his pulse. But Scotty Sanderson assured me that all the crew are like this. "The temperature never rises. Whether there are 1,000 or 50,000 people, every gig is the gig of the year. Here, we've built a show for 100,000 from the grass up and everyone is relaxed and calm."

Even when, on the first night, a power fault temporarily took out the PA, caused problems with the video and blew several moving lights, solidarity was maintained amongst the technical production team. It was no one’s fault, “just one of those things”, but the system engineers took every precaution to ensure it didn’t happen on the second show.

VISUALS
Under the leadership of ShowSupport’s Andy Mayneord, video imagery was sent from a four-camera PPU to two landscape-format 4:3 ratio Lighthouse R16 I/O screens installed either side of the stage — in front of scrims that appeared to depict what can only be described as ejaculating penises (judge for yourself).

Live video director Jim Bennett's fast cut mix matched the jittery energy of the music perfectly, adding an edgy layer to the show's visuality for the set — much of which was in daylight.

Working closely with Rob Gawler, the ShowSupport team also supplied a Coolux Pandora's Box media server, which was run through the Wholehog III lighting console. The aim was to produce a projected lighting effect. In the third song of the set — the Monkeys’ recent hit, ‘Brianstorm’ — one of ShowSupport's Christie 20K truss-mounted projectors was lowered in at the front of the stage on a Kinesys automation system. The truss was heavily disguised in the same crushed silver fabric that made up the backdrop/projection surface.

With images and graphics from the Favourite Worst Nightmare album’s artwork loaded into the Pandora's Box, Gawler was able to pulse and strobe these on to the backdrop in time to the music. The Pandora's Box was used to split, tile and produce assorted variations of the images.

ShowSupport's racks engineer was Adrian Moore. Rupert Barnes looked after recording and projection, and other crew members were Nigel French, Matt Gathercole, Damian Watson, Dan Shaw and Toby Evans, plus LED techs Paul Barry and Gareth Manicom.

Warp Films will be using the ISO recordings from ShowSupport’s four cameras in a ‘rockumentary’ DVD being made about the band's performances at LCCC and T In The Park.

EPILOGUE
Generally speaking, the two shows at LCCC were very well organised and a major success for SJM Concerts who used the events to launch its new scheme of scanning print-at-home tickets at the gate, in its bid to eradicate touts and cut down on unnecessary printing, paper and carbon.

That said, it wasn’t all roses for everybody. There was a minor contingent within the crowd who made standing in the field an unpleasant experience for some of the well-mannered, genuine music-appreciating majority.

The Arctic Monkeys appear to have attracted an evolved version of the earlier Oasis concert guerilla species, circa Maine Road ’96; the kind of Neo-Neanderthal who is hell-bent on having a wonderfully riotous time at anyone’s expense. The kind who would shamelessly urinate in a pint cup and dispense it skyward over his neighbours in the middle of the crowd, whilst others were more polite and pissed up against the nearest wall.

It’s all about perception. While some people have been moved to register their negative feelings about how the hooligan element spoiled their day, as well as complain about long waiting times for the bars and toilets, there are others who — possibly hardened by similar experiences — accepted it all as perfectly normal and implied that anyone shocked by the behaviour of the idiot minority is lacking in a bit of earthy gumption. Perhaps not every customer is right, after all.

Nevertheless, it would take a lot more monkeying around than this to prevent us liking Alex Turner, his fine band and their crew. The band turned in a great performance that was made possible by their crew's usual laid back way of just getting it done without any of the fuss or ego one might normally expect with a band of this stature.