The onstage graphics material was conceptualised by Oasis’ lighting designer Mikey Howard, and designed and created by Richard Turner and Claire Oxley, working closely with Howard. As the band’s artistic director and lighting designer, Howard wanted to create an integrated visual scheme that mixed both lighting and video medias. The show’s camera design was undertaken by live video director Dick Carruthers and his company Cheese Film & Video. Carruthers employed Dave Wright as Cheese’s live producer, to deal generally with all necessary video logistics, and effectively acting as the band’s video liaison officer.
The video specification came to XL via the Oasis production. XL’s relationship with the band dates back to 2000, soon after the company’s launch, when Oasis became their first stadium tour that summer. XL’s Des Fallon has worked with Oasis previous to that - ever since they’ve had a video production! For the three sold-out Finsbury Park shows, XL supplied a GVG4000 control system, PPU and 6 cameras with wide angle and long lenses, plus two side screens, and all the onstage LED panels, hard disk recorder and control.
The onstage pre-recorded footage was output via 96 panels of Lighthouse 10 mm SMD LED screen, arranged in three columns onstage. Sources were stored on a Grass Valley Profile 4-channel hard disk recorder, triggered using a Magic DVE, run via Dataton, controlled by Richard Turner. The live camera shoot was principally beamed onto the two 35sq.m Barco D-Lite 10mm side screens, occasionally zipping over to the onstage panels. The black and white, pre-recorded graphics-style video - some of it created using material from the Oasis photographic archive - was ‘fitted’ to the onstage LED panels, so the whole dual video concept worked together both technically and aesthetically.
(Lee Baldock)
