STEREOPHONICS PULL THE PIN TOUR '07

The chill at the MEN Arena thawed considerably as the Stereophonics stormed through some seriously hardcore rock’n’roll, captivating the crowd for a traditionally animated, enthusiastic, up-for-it Manchester night out.

Accompanied by a thunderous sound, an organically-engineered Barco MiTrix set zinging with electronics and quirky spatial effects, and with 100% rock star Kelly Jones strutting his stuff, a Stereophonic experience came right at you from all dimensions.

At the core of the visual equation is the band’s Toronto-based lighting and video designer, Brent Clark, who has worked with them since 2005. In the wake of their best-selling album, Pull The Pin, this is a brand new tour and MEN was the first of its arena venues.

The architectural elements of the set evolved with the idea of using MiTrix panels to shape it. It’s the first time that Clark has used MiTrix in one of his designs, which is being supplied to the tour by XL Video UK.

For some time, Clark had wanted to base a design on video elements that allowed light sources to be punched through from behind, so MiTrix’s semi-transparency was ideal. The perspective idea was a development from the last tour. The layers of curved trusses above give the whole space a huge dimensional integrity. The shaped metalwork also boosts the dynamics and perception of size, while giving the scope to focus virtually every fixture anywhere on stage.

The three truss layers are constructed from three-quarters of a 24ft circle in the centre, a combination of 13m and 9m circles out from that and a broken-apart 16m circle wrapped around the outside. The latter has three MiTrix screens per side flown from it. Upstage and lower down, a cable truss runs right across stage, and the five centre MiTrix screens — also the tallest ones — are attached to that.

LIGHTS
There are 27 lighting points in total and 22 video screen points (for 11 screens), all needing to be precisely positioned, a task looked after by tour rigger Sven Knight and perfected during four days of production rehearsals at Wakefield’s 17,500ft2 LiteStructures Studios, of which production manager Neil MacDonald said: “The building, staff and facilities at LiteStructures are second to none in the UK. Absolutely top notch!”

The lighting rig features 26 Martin Professional MAC 2000 Profiles and 24 MAC 2000 Washes, scattered around the curves, together with 22 MAC 700s on the floor, blasting through the MiTrix screens. Four Atomic strobes are also on the deck. Thirty-two 20-lite MR16 blinders — giving off a super-bright but diffuse burst of light — are scattered all over the trusses and on the floor, with eight Coemar SuperCycs at the back, also firing through the MiTrix.

All lighting is supplied by Neg Earth, along with crew chief Steve Kellaway, Ian Lomas, Matt Flood and Andy Thompson, and Clark is the first to praise the excellent service and top people on his team.

Fixture wise, the MAC 2000 is one of his personal favourites, and all the Wash fixtures have PC lenses for an additional ‘Syncrolite-like’ tightness. Clark is operating the show using a grandMA console, complete with three NSP nodes offering four extra DMX ports.
It’s a heavy colour saturated show with lots of light coming from bizarre angles and point sources. Although the lighting and video work very harmoniously and almost organically together, there’s also a clean visual separation between the two elements, adding an extra finesse.

Clark is running all video content from a Vixen media server — a Canadian product powered by Arkaos architecture and running off four RAID drives, which he says is, “the fastest media server I have ever encountered”.

He has four Elmo lipstick cameras strategically dotted around the stage — three across the front and one focused on the kit — which all feed into the Vixen and are then switched via the bump buttons on the grandMA — effectively allowing him to call up and run camera playback just like a light source. This fast cutting technique brings an additional visual edge to the grungy camera mix.

Clark is combining the camera mix with some playback footage from last year, plus a series of new clips made by Toronto’s In Frame Designs in conjunction with the band. This includes some stunning images like gyrating dancing girls for ‘Vegas’, park footage for ‘Daisy Lane’ and ambient effects, all of which are stored on the Vixen.

There’s an additional I-Mag mix from two hand-held Sony D35 cameras on-stage and two in the pit on dollys — also supplied by XL Video to Blink TV as part of the camera/PPU package — which are directed and mixed by Paul ‘Eggy’ Eggerton on a Kayak PPU system, with a Magic DVE for effects. This is output to two side 16:9 I-Mag screens each fed by a Barco R12 projector.

XL Video supplied Gary Beirne and Freddy Debaillie to tech the MiTrix, and they were joined by vision engineer Graham Holwill, Mark Davies, Gary Tepper, Bruce Smith and Larn Poland.

STEREOSONICS
Joining Clark at FOH is Dave Roden, who has engineered the band since 1996. Having a long-term relationship with any band definitely helps the flow of communication and creative language. Roden has cracked the fine art of combining real loudness with Jones’ gritty vocals — all clearly audible — and the words really matter with this band.

It’s all smiles in the ‘Stereosonics’ department for Capital Sound Hire and the supplied Martin W8L line array system. There are 14 elements in the main hang and two W8LDs for downfills, along with side hangs of 12 W8LCs per side. Six W8LS subs a side are on a separate hang, with an extra gust of bottom end from six Martin 218 subs a side. There are also four W8LMs for infills sitting on top of the subs which are split into four on the outside and two on the inside, each stack with two LMs on each.

Roden’s desk of choice is a DiGiGo D5 which he reckoned, “combines the best of digital and analogue worlds — it sounds and works like a standard desk, and you can mix it analogue style if you wish”. Going from an XL4 to this was a very smooth and familiar transition, he added. He also likes the look of the desk, and aesthetics are important when exposed to the audience!

He prefers to use a collection of specific outboard effects rather then rely on the D5’s onboard selection, and these include two TC D2 delays, two Yamaha SPX 990s and a TCM3000 for drum reverb. Roden uses the Yamaha’s delays as vocal effects, all changed via the MIDI patch on the desk, which he thinks is a great facility, simple and easy to use. He keeps a snapshot of settings for each song for easy recall in the library.

Amplification is via Martin Audio’s proprietary MA4.2s for the main hangs with Crown i-TECHs for the subs, and system processing is XTA DP226s throughout, used in conjunction with a wireless laptop. Roden generally sets the delays by ear and sometimes with the aid of Metric Halo Labs SpectraFoo analysing software.

Jones’ mic is a Shure Beta 58. Roden is taking advantage of a brand new Drawmer 83 multi-band compressor on Jones’ vocals which is working very well, running an XTA D2 in line with it for the de-essing. As one might expect, his voice is “very strong, definite, consistent and good to work with”.

Capital Sound has handled the Stereophonics account since 1997 — a testament to satisfaction with the service — and Roden has plenty of good things to say about the south London-based firm. Crew chief is Ross Anderson and he’s joined by Liam Tucker, Finbar Neenan and systems engineer Harm Schopman, who works closely with Roden each day to tweak the system to perfection.

MONITORS
Keeping monitor world in order is calm, quietly spoken Canadian Dave Retson, who has been onboard since 2004. He considered using a Midas Heritage at one point because the show is pure rock’n’roll, but then decided otherwise when Ross Anderson recommended a Digidesign Venue D-Show console.

Retson describes the D-Show as “very approachable sound-wise — warm, very user friendly and it has an excellent file management system”. Interestingly, The Fray’s FOH engineer Mark Maher echoed these words almost exactly, 24 hours before.

The monitor set-up consists of eight wedge mixes and four stereo IEM mixes include two ‘technical’ ones for the guitar and keyboard techs, one for the drummer and the fourth for the keyboard player. Jones and everyone else on the front line have Martin LE700 wedges, of which Jones particularly likes the tone and smoothness.

They are all powered by Crown 2400s and 3600s, with XTA 224 and 226 crossovers — a standard Capital monitor set up. Retson runs two channels of Midas XL4 pre-amp to add substance to the vocals and kick drum, and two Yamaha SPX 990s as outboard, and all other effects are onboard the D-Show.

The band are reportedly good to work with, they know what they want and understand the basic laws of acoustics... which, for soundcheck purposes, helps them appreciate the difference between the responses of empty and full rooms!

Retson says their requests are often very subtle, meaning that he’s kept on his toes and constantly engaged in the engineering job he still loves after 25 years.

Other key suppliers on the Pull The Pin tour have included Rima Travel, Eat To The Beat, Phoenix Bussing, Beat The Street and KB Event.