Gray wanted to ensure it was a very special show with a high impact. It was essentially a large one off preceded by a couple of festival warm ups bringing to a close the band's impressive Velociraptor! album cycle.
The whole visual concept was inspired by the stark, contrasty and quirky music video for Switchblade Smiles directed by Aitor Throup.
With this in mind Gray and Throup draped the entire stage in white velvet including the walls, trusses and both of the floor based ground support trusses. A white Marley floor was laid, complete with white risers and fascias, plus a huge white drape upstage.
At the start of the show a large silk backdrop was raised up revealing the band's backdrop - this was a heavily detailed process with white winch steels acting as the pulley system so as not to see black motor chains. The band walked on to the Old BBC Grandstand theme tune - all dressed in matt black - with the backline also wrapped in matt black, everything totally contrasting with the plain white drape
This stayed in until the end of the second number, and was then kabuki'd off revealing a "floating" 18m wide by 6m high white gloss WinVision 9 mm LED screen, supplied by Chaos Visual Productions. This was suspended in front of another white drape.
Hard Rock Calling's 'house' lighting contractor PRG supplied the winch and pulley system for flying the backdrop, all of which was also in white - right down to the trussing, steels and winch kit
PRG designed their festival lighting rig for the Saturday around Gray's spec and supplied all his overhead specials. Neg Earth provided Kasabian's floor specials rig, as featured at several other gigs and festivals this year.
Gray's flown rig was based on a very clean well-defined look and minimal amounts of fixtures, starting with 40 Sharpies and 40 Sharpy Washes. "I definitely didn't want it cluttered with lights," he explains, "So I spec'd smaller units but with plenty of punch - the Sharpy was a great choice."
An extra mid-stage truss was added, rigged with another 20 of each Sharpy fixture plus 20 strobes.
Left and right of the stage were three pairs of truss legs approx. 40' high - these were populated with 12 Sharpies and 12 strobes running top to bottom each, with the effect of widening the stage considerably.
On the stage wings floor, Gray placed eight Vari*Lite V*L3500 Washes and four Martin MAC Viper Quadray effects units. Also in the stage wings were four 21 Watt full colour lasers from ER, with another onstage.
The floor specials package comprised a custom HUD rolling truss system upstage with 8 ft high scaff pipes attached to the back rail. This was used on its sides and fitted with legs on casters, variable in height between 8 inches and a metre.
Each 8 ft long HUD truss was rigged with Martin MAC Vipers ratchet strapped to the top, with a row of Martin MAC 101s along with front rail. On 8ft scaff pipes at the back were a selection of Clay Paky Sharpies, strobes and blinders.
Lighting was programmed by Paul Kell (PK) using a Road Hog 4 console.
(Jim Evans)
