Badly Drawn Boy's LD David Farmer wanted to use two Catalyst systems, but decided on just one for a variety of reasons. Because the group is relatively new, and because shows were in a small 2,000-3,000 venue capacity, Farmer needed to keep costs down. To save where he could, he specified and programmed the Catalyst system himself, and persuaded a few of his colleagues into generating special video and still footage.
Says Farmer: "To make the tour work I needed to reduce the video costs by around 50%. I didn't take a video tech' and I rigged the projectors with the lighting crew each day. Catalyst can be driven directly from the Wholehog console, so I could manage the show alone at front-of-house and didn't need to deal with a video mixer. Saving that one crew guy made the whole project work and also made running the show easier. There is no set list so trying to explain to a new crew member which of the 50-odd tunes we are doing next can become fairly impossible. I often don't know myself until we are playing the intro."
PSL UK provided the Catalyst (the optional orbital mirror head was not needed) in the UK, and LSD/Fourth Phase the lighting gear. Farmer brought a Wholehog II and a Wing for the UK tour only, sharing it with LD Dan Hardiman (his partner in the company Total Herbal Confusion), who needed it for Moby's tour. "My company purchased a Hog II with Hog III upgrade option last year," Farmer explains, "so I am a big fan of the Hog."
As for Catalyst, Farmer notes: "Catalyst is a dream piece of kit. It does exactly what I expected it to do and it never crashed once. I have never toured with video before so I was a bit nervous about getting the whole show together in the eight-day time frame allowed between US and UK tours. Catalyst performed as only High End kit does. It acted just like a moving light so programming was quick, easy and accurate."
And, Farmer adds: "As I predicted with touring a video system, everybody - even the catering department - appeared at front-of-house at some point during the day asking if I could stick an image or movie or whatever tour joke is running up on the screen during sound check. With Catalyst it's easy because it will accept almost any format or I can dump images into i-movie and make it work that way."
Badly Drawn Boy's tour started out in Europe in September, hit North America in October and November, and finished 2002 in the UK. They tour resumes in March in Australia and Japan.
(Lee Baldock)
