The band's European tour took in 28 dates before its curtain down in Cardiff, with a total of 18 sell-out gigs in the UK. Having played a range of arenas on the tour, the shift up to a stadium sized show for their 'home crowd' of 52,000 meant a significant increase in the scale of the show for production manager Neil Macdonald. Where possible Macdonald stuck with the main tour suppliers for the finalé show (sound system from Capital Sound, lighting from VLPS London, catering by Eat to the Beat), however to create a visually spectacular setting for the band a specialist large scale stage was required, so he turned to suppliers Pete Holdich and Eric Porter at the Star Events Group.
The Star Vertech division of the Star Events Group modified its outdoor stage system to suit the indoor environment of the Millennium Stadium. The aluminium roof, minus the covering skins, was incorporated in the stage set up. This gave a 21m-apex height, which worked well visually in the high venue, it also presented the band with a suitable branding area at the front of the roof. Banners by Acre Jean covered the stage nose whilst the stage walls were blacked out, creating an atmospheric rock'n'roll environment on-stage.
The Star Vertech team arrived on site on 15 December, with Pete Holdich and a crew of 14 comfortably completing the three-day build ready for production build and a rehearsal day before the show. Having been proven to be highly effective, the proprietary Star Vertech stage flooring was incorporated in the 25m by 15m stage, saving time on load in and load out, (as well as being more environmentally friendly than other traditional stage floor systems). The stage incorporated a 5m x 25m production area at the rear to accommodate the band changeovers and the monitor board area off to the side. McDonald also benefited logistically from using Star Events Group by including Star Rigging for all his rigging needs. This comprised installation of the drape rigging and catenaries used to attach the blackout drapes. Six CM hoists were also rigged for video installation and three 80m runs of rope light stretched over the structure.
XTA digital loudspeaker controllers and graphic equalization were at the heart of the Stereophonics' massive, stadium and arena shows. Dave Roden mixed the seven-piece band at front-of-house on a Midas XL4 with a PA from Capital Sound. The main system, a Martin W8L line array with Martin and Crown amplification, comprised 16 cabinets a side with 12 flown W8LS subwoofers, supplemented by side hangs of eight W8LCs per side and eight ground-stacked W8SXs and 10 W8LCs per side as near and front fills. W8LC delay hangs completed the loudspeaker lineup.
In command of it all was system engineer and crew chief Al Woods' XTA system, remotely controlled using AudioCore from his laptop PC, comprising DP226 loudspeaker controllers and a GQ600 graphic equalizer. "I did a lot of walking around the venue with the laptop," says Woods, "using AudioCore and SMAART to get the system perfectly tuned - precision that's really important, especially in some of the more remote corners of the big venues."
On stage, where John Burton was mixing on an InnovaSON console, XTA DP224 processing controlled Crown-powered Martin LE700 wedges, along with W8S and W8C sidefills. Roden said: "It was a great way to end the arena tour and the audiences were fantastic. Now we're looking forward to America, Australia, Japan and then a summer of festivals."
(Sarah Rushton-Read)
