Blur marked their return by showcasing work from their new album ‘Think Tank’. The Astoria dates were essentially a one-off event, but lead singer Damon Albarn wanted a distinct visual feel for the show. His brief to LD Dave Byars was to come up with the essence of Morocco and Devon - warm, inviting, peaceful, positive. From this starting point, Byars designed both lighting and video (the latter supplied by XL Video) and decided to take an ambitiously large rig into the Astoria to realize his ideas - an imaginative gamble that certainly paid off.
The first part of the show saw a false ceiling formed by a drape lacerated by a series of irregular triangular-shaped holes, manufactured by Hangman. This was lit from above, sending dramatic, intense shafts of light firing through to the band below. Six numbers into the set, the roof flew out to reveal a 30ft wide upstage projection screen which carried a combination of footage and effects throughout the remainder of the show.
Byars incorporated a wide variety of fixtures into his rig. Above the roof were 8 Clay Paky Stage Scans and 8 Vari*Lite wash lights, joined by 12 VL2202 Spots around the edge of the drape box truss. On the front truss, Byars used Martin MAC 300s and 600s, Source Four profiles and Molefays with scrollers. On the floor were a further eight MAC 250s, four MAC 600s and four Diversitronics strobes, with out-front, two Pani 1202 followspots. Byars also used 12 of the new James Thomas Engineering Pixel range 1044 LED battens, specifically purchased by Entec for the shows, and now resident in their rental stock. These were used as backline ‘dressers’ to bathe the whole area in saturated colours or as chasers for the faster numbers. Coemar 2.4K Supercycs completed the line-up, with Byars’ own Avolites Diamond 3 providing the final link in the lighting chain.
With so many lights squeezed into the Astoria below the house rig (which was flown out of the way), it was essential that the show was rigged quickly and efficiently. An Entec lighting crew of five, led by Simon ‘Boff’ Howarth, and a rigging team, headed by Steve Clements, ensured Byars could maximize all available programming time on the day before the first show.
Video hardware was supplied by XL Video and overseen for the week by Toby Vogel. The clips were compiled and run from Final Cut Pro and stored on two Doremi hard drives and a Mac G4 with an external drive. Vogel mixed with a Snell & Willcox Magic DVE, and the image was beamed onto the screen by two Barco G10 projectors, rigged on the Astoria’s balcony and overlaid to produce a single image.
The audio part of the production equation saw Matt Butcher working with monitor engineer Jo Beadle. Butcher used the Astoria’s ASS Reflekta house speakers, with Entec supplying the FOH desk and control racks and the full monitor system. Butcher mixed on a Midas XL4 desk, and also made the most of a TC Electronics multi-effects device and a Roland SDE3000 digital delay. Lexicons were utilized for vocal reverb, a Yamaha SPX 990 for drums, and an SPX 900 for special effects. Butcher also weaved some of his favourite off-beat toys into the mix, including a Ladyboy sub-harmonic synthesizer and a Moog filter made by his brother Jute Butcher - a BBC comms and OB engineer. On the insert front, he used his own custom-constructed valve compressors, based on the renowned Telequipment LA2, across the drums, as well as standard kit like Behringer and dbx compressors and Drawmer gates. The monitor system was an Entec APW wedge system, driven by Crest 7301 amps and Jo Beadle mixed using a Midas Heritage 3000 console. The band used their own Shure mics and also had a pair of their own Nexo drum fills.
(Ruth Rossington)
