Front of House engineer Gary Bradshaw, who also engineers for Take That, opted for a DiGiCo SD8 to take into account the restrictions on space presented by the tour's choice of venues.
"The gigs were very varied in their size," Bradshaw explains. "The biggest being the Brighton Centre, going down to a tiny seaside theatre in Scarborough where there's not much space at all. So I went for a nice, compact package, for which the SD8 fits the bill perfectly. I only have a couple of outboard effects in addition to the console and I utilise a MADI playback system, which means we can be sound checked before the band even arrives."
At the monitor position, Steve Lutley, also a Take That veteran, has opted to use DiGiCo's flagship SD7.
"I've been working with Gary since his first solo tour," he recalls. "I use the SD7 because, in my opinion, it's the best monitor console currently available. It's extremely versatile and it gives me complete redundancy, so I know I have a failsafe system.
"I need a console this big because, although the venues are smaller, the size of the band is actually slightly larger than on Take That's Progress tour. I've got 14 stereo mixes for the Sennheiser IEMs, plus two wedge mixes, one for support and one for the guitarist who prefers not to use in-ears."
For more on Gary Barlow's solo tour, see the February 2013 issue of LSI
(Jim Evans)
