The concert was shot for a BBC TV special, which went out the following Friday, and also for a DVD release on BMG. Directed by David Mallet with Al Gurdon as lighting designer and Bill Laslett providing set design, the Audio Logistics team, headed by founder Toby Alington, provided the audio recording, production equipment and crew. The feeds from Rod's band's standard set-up was taken 'as is' by the team, while for the orchestra, Alington specified the microphones and placements including DPA microphones for the strings.
The team followed the soundtrack through from recording to final post production, using the audio facilities of two Sanctuary mobiles to record - one was required for the orchestra, the other for the band, because of the large number of channels coupled with extremely limited rehearsal time. The show was then digitally mixed in Abbey Road Studios' Penthouse on a Neve Capricorn, followed by mastering and dubbing in Richmond Studios' Sadie suite using B&W monitoring.
"We had to follow a very tight delivery schedule for both the TV show and the DVD as BMG scheduled a pre-Christmas release," notes Alington. "During the mix process, BMG in America were keen to approve mixes as they were created, which we achieved via our high speed FTP server, which delivered uncompressed WAV files to key people at BMG for their comments."
Alington added: "I've recorded Rod many times over the last decade, but this was undoubtedly the slickest and most enjoyable performance I've seen Rod deliver - and with a fantastically enthusiastic audience."
(Lee Baldock)
