For all shows, PSL set up a 40ft wide white drop centre screen, using a Catalyst digital media server playback source, operated from front-of-house lighting control. Featuring black-and-white stills, moving graphics and effects, as well as simple colour washes, projection on the main screen was fed by PSL's new Barco SLM R12+ units.
Under the direction of crew chief Rod Martin, PSL also supplied a four-camera PPU system and operators Simon Hudson and Bruce Selkirk. Additionally, three mini-cams on the drumkit of Andy Burrows gave video director Steve Price and the PSL engineers a choice of seven feeds from which to mix a rich and dynamic visual commentary to run live on the two side screens, each 16ft x 12ft, running with Barco ELM R12 projectors. PSL's team has been recording every show of the tour, enabling the band to take away a DVD of their performance each night.
For the PA, Electro-Voice's X-Line array system has been supplied by Britannia Row, whose team has had to handle a wide variety of venues, from relatively small arenas and gymnasia accommodating 3,000 to the mighty Sheffield Arena, with nearly 13,000 seats. According to front-of-house engineer Ian Laughton, there are two reasons why they've coped so well: firstly, the flexibility of X-Line, and secondly, what Laughton describes as "the genius of Colin Burrell," Brit Row's systems engineer.
Laughton first discovered the EV X-Line system when he was working with the Manic Street Preachers. "The we used it at Alexandra Palace with Razorlight - it's one of the hardest venues to work in, but we absolutely nailed it. That was when I fell in love with X-Line and knew I wanted to use it on this tour."
Systems have varied in size from just three cabinets per side in the smaller halls to the full tour stock of 14 Xvls and five Xvlt cabinets per side. In a venue like the Brighton Centre, (shown in image) with its very wide stage, Burrell has set up main left and right arrays with eight cabinets apiece, plus additional four-cabinet side hangs for the bleachers. EV's popular Xi-1152s are used for in-fills. Razorlight's very considerable sub-bass comes from anywhere up to 24 Xsubs. "I wanted moving air," says Laughton, "everything should shake when he starts on the kick drum, even though it's line array."
Mixing the show from a Midas Heritage ("we're using 26 channels and it's taken us years to get up to that size!"), Laughton also has a Midas XL88 line level 8 x 8 matrix mixer at FOH. "We wanted that stripped-down punchy rock sound, but with a few frills."
(Lee Baldock)
