The touring lighting elements comprised a floor-based rig which could be used in conjunction with house rigs, while two DigiDesign D Show Profile mixing consoles - also used by the support acts, complete with racks, splitters, cables and mains distro - were supplied on the audio side.
With the Beatle-esque number Nine In The Afternoon a firm Adlib office anthem, account manager Phil Kielty states, "We've been fortunate to work with the band in the UK for six years and seen them grow both on their own tours and the festival circuit. By pure coincidence we bumped into their new crew in the Summer ...and now here they are touring with us again. Everyone from production manager Tony Marino, Pavan Grewall (FOH engineer), Spencer Jones (monitor engineer) and Eric Cathcart (lighting operator) - are all really passionate about creating a fresh new live show and that is infectious."
The lighting rig was designed originally by Panic's LD Rob Jibson, and Eric Cathcart flew over from the US to operate after sending over a plot to Adlib's lighting department, which was matched as closely as possible. In addition to all the standard requests, Adlib built six custom 'LED 5ks' for the tour consisting of an empty 5k fresnel shell with a PixelPAR mounted inside. These were rigged on Manfrotto stands and positioned along the back of the stage behind the band.
There were another seven PixelPARs, used as footlights to highlight the band, plus six Martin MAC 700 Profiles, four MAC 301 LED washes, four smoke machines and a hazer, all with distro and cables.
The smoke - via a custom adapter - was channelled through scaffolding tubes resembling large exhaust pipes on stage, making for a very controlled dispersion which also looked good as a set piece in keeping with their backdrop and a miscellany of other props which give a retro recording studio vibe.
A Chamsys MagicQ console was specified by Cathcart for control. For the Brixton and Manchester shows, a front and back truss were added, with additional PixelPARs on the front and five bars of six PARs on the back, complete with the band's backdrop. Lighting was crewed by Adlib technicians Neil Holloway and Mike Summerfield, who also helped Cathcart set up all the kit at the one pre-production day at Music Bank in London prior to the tour.
The Brixton/ Manchester audio extras were an L-Acoustics V-DOSC system which was spec'd by FOH engineer Pavan Grewall, who comments, "We kept running into Adlib on all the large festivals in the summer. Working with them there was always a pleasure even though a festival environment can be hectic, and choosing them to supply production on our winter tour could not have come more naturally."
The PA consisted of seven-a-side flown cabinets plus six L-Acoustics SB28 subs per-side on the floor. These were joined by eight ARCS fills on top of the subs and two dV-DOSC lip-fills centre stage at the front. For monitors there were two ARCS and an SB28 per-side. These were all powered by LA8 amplifiers.
System processing was via one of Adlib's standard set ups of Lake LM 44s and 26s, two of each with a wireless tablet remote for EQ and time alignment.
(Jim Evans)
