THE OSMONDS

I’ve said it before in print, but it’s worth saying again, even at the risk of blowing it... The Osmonds’ first-ever live appearance in the UK, at London’s much-missed Rainbow Theatre in November 1972, was also my first exposure to a full-on, major gig.Osmondmania had just hit Britain like a tidal wave, the deceptively heavy ‘Crazy Horses’ was racing up the singles chart and I’m sometimes convinced that the deafening screams still reverberate around my head... or perhaps that’s just tinnitus.

    Nearly 36 years later (ouch!), I attended my second Osmonds show during a tour that celebrates the most famous Mormon family’s 50th anniversary in showbiz. This time, I saw them in the more sanitised environment of Wembley Arena and thankfully the absence of deafening teenage screams meant that, for once, I could actually hear Donny, Merrill, Wayne, Jay, Alan, not-so-little Jimmy and Marie performing in all their line array-fuelled glory.

    To be frank, although the expected clean-cut, all-American saccharine was applied in spades, there were some major surprises. Along with ‘Crazy Horses’ (one of pop’s earliest eco-warnings), the Led Zep-esque rhythms of ‘Hold Her Tight’ were far from pop-lite, while Jay — at 53, the middle Osmond — revealed himself as a drummer worthy of any self-respecting band.

    Elder brother Alan (59) may suffer in private with MS, but only the walking cane suggests an illness. The family otherwise remain amazingly well-preserved for their middle age, especially perma-cute Donny who, unbelievably, is 51 at the end of this year.

    After previously serving as the solo Donny’s FOH engineer as part of Major Tom’s crew, Chris Marsh is operating as The Osmonds’ production manager, still under the Major Tom wing. It was five years ago that I had the opportunity of telling Donny of my introduction to the concert world. “You mean, you brag about that gig?” he replied. But that’s the kind of self-effacing guy he is, and according to Marsh, they’re all like it. Friendly to a fault.

    Major Tom was back as audio provider for this Live Nation-promoted tour and sitting in Marsh’s former hot seat, behind a Digidesign D-Show Profile desk, was Curtis Flatt. He was mixing to a Meyer Milo system which also included 700-HP subs and a distributed front fill of UPA-1P cabinets.

    With too many stereo in-ear mixes for one console to handle, monitor engineer Randy Mitchell worked with two Yamaha PM5Ds, feeding to 10 channels of Shure PSM 700 systems and and six channels of Sennheiser G2 IEMs. AKG 4000 Series wireless mics with D5 heads were also used.

VIDEO & LIGHTS
Project manager Alex Leinster and systems engineer Pat Dore took charge of the Creative Technology-supplied video system, consisting of 105 Barco O-Lite 612 modules over three screens — the central 9 x 7 panel screen and two 3 x 7 panel side screens. Two side I-Mag screens were fed by Panasonic 10kW projectors, and other kit included five Sony D55 cameras, five Toshiba Ice Cube minicams on the musicians, and a Kayak 2ME PPU. Simon Greaves was video director.

    As was the case on his last couple of solo tours, Donny was instrumental in many aspects of the current show design, not least in the collation of archive footage of group for screening.

    While EST (trucking) and Beat The Street (buses) moved everything and everybody, John Henry’s provided the set and backline, and Bandit Lites — which has serviced many other of the Osmonds’ live shows and Donny solo tours in the past —  was the logical choice of lighting supplier when the tour kicked off in the UK.

    The lighting rig was designed by Mike Frogge, whose main focus was to highlight a family affair. Based on eight trusses, the Whole Hog II-controlled rig contained Vari*Lite VL 3000 Spots and 3500 Washes, Atomic strobes, 4-lite Moles and PAR 64s. The follow spots were four 2.5kW Robert Juliat Ivanhoes and risers were trimmed with Color Kinetics ColorBlaze 48 LED strip lights.

PYRO ON THE PENINSULA
Immediately after their Wembley dates, The Osmonds headed east to the O2 Arena for which a specially-designed pyro display was prepared for the show climax on June 1.

    Backstage at Wembley, I was standing next to Le Maitre’s Karen Haddon as she communicated her design ideas to her ex-husband Tim, the company’s pyro technician.
    She explained afterwards: “We pulled it off under a lot of pressure because Tim was working across the Thames at ExCeL until the early hours that day and he had precious little time to have everything rigged and fused at the O2 before the afternoon.

    “Tim managed to set up and fire four smaller propane flames which he specifically made for the B stage on Take That’s last tour. There were two at each side of the stage that Tim pulsed during ‘Crazy Horses’.

    “Finally in the song ‘Goin’ Home’, we did a chase of 25 gerbs from the centre outwards (on both sides) and when they got to the outside edge, we fired a cue of 16 of our new 25-30' blue mines and gold glitter mines across the stage, all at once.

    “Tim and I spoke to Donny about the cue and as we’d had no rehearsals at all, Donny said he’d cue Tim. He timed the chase and hit of mines, and told Donny that it would take two seconds from the first gerb going off to the final hit. Donny suggested that when he got on to the piano and crouched down ready to jump off, this would be Tim’s cue.

    “By the time he landed on the stage, the final hit of mines and four microdets [giving a bang but not as loud as regular concussions] would go off, finishing on the last beat of the song.”

    (Smoke effects and confetti cannons were supplied by Pyritz at Wembley and other shows).

    The Osmonds were reportedly delighted with Le Maitre’s results, and Karen Haddon was rewarded with “big kisses from Donny”.

    She said: “I honestly don’t believe there’s another company in the world that, within 18 hours of seeing the show and without any rehearsal time, could have designed the pyro, organised the method statement and risk assessment, submitted the documentation necessary to obtain the Arena’s permission from the Arena, and also source a pyro crew.

    “From my point of view, I wanted this show for tour manager Mike Nachtigal, who has been very loyal to Le Maitre since we worked with him on Usher, so when he asked me, there was no hesitation. Tim was an absolute hero and worked like a slave to achieve it.”

    Ironically, we are unable to demonstrate the fruits of the Haddons’ labours photographically, as the over-zealous security at the O2 ejected Jeremy Hall, The Osmonds’ official photographer, before he had a chance to remove his lens cap. D’oh!

TPi
Photography by
Jeremy Hall
& Mark Cunningham