Despite the fact that many venues offered house sound and lighting systems, Steve Adj, John Squire's co-manager, and tour manager Martin Herbert, persuaded fellow manager Simon Moran to increase the budget, so that a consistent level of production could be ensured by means of a touring package. Entec won the contract and supplied Herbert with equipment and crew. The latter even included some Stone Roses stalwarts like Grub and Mouse from caterers Cat'n'Mouse, Stardes trucking and the unflappable Trapper as stage manager and backline tech.
Dave Byars was asked onboard as LD by Martin Herbert. The major challenge for the visuals department was the great variety of venues. Byars designed a practical, versatile scheme, adaptable on a daily basis to fit into anything from Manchester Academy to Glasgow Barrowlands - and plenty of oddities in between! Most venues offered no flying, so the rig was designed to be ground-supported with a series of mini beam trusses and stands. Fixture-wise, Byars chose 12 Martin MAC 500s and four MAC 600s as core elements, joined by four Molefays with scrollers and four strobes. Wherever there was a house rig, he would also utilize elements of that. Byars running his own Avolites Diamond 3 controlled all the lighting instruments. Aesthetically, apart from having to think small and compact, he wanted to keep it relatively moody overall, spooky in places, and rich in saturated colours. Lights were beamed through the band from the rear, and light-sources were also arranged around a central upstage projection area, which showed visuals throughout the show.
The video content was produced by Matt Squire (John's brother), and included animations of some of Squire's own art. The video content also gave Byars a starting point for the overall visuality, and informed how he thought different numbers should be lit. XL Video supplied the hardware and Entec freelancer Simon Howarth (Boff) took care of the equipment, as well as being responsible for the dimmers and lighting technology. Entec supplied the projection surface, white sharkstooth gauze with a black sharktooth in front. They elected to use this method rather than screens because there were no guarantees of available space for projection each night.
FOH engineer is Simon Dawson, a studio engineer who mixed the Stone Roses, and worked with Squire on production of his album. Entec supplied a d&b rig, consisting of C4 enclosures and B2 subs, with Dawson mixing through a Midas XL4. A major audiological difference between the live show and the album is that Squire also played lead guitars on the album, whereas live, he plays rhythm and sings, leaving the lead to band member George Vjestica. So getting the right balance between the two to replicate the album sound was an interesting challenge for Dawson.
To achieve a loud, clear and as natural as possible sound, he used Summit compressors on Squire's vocals and dbx160s on the BVs, Drawmer gates and some basic effects - a couple of reverbs and a delay. Working alongside Dawson was monitor engineer Graham Blake. Squire's onstage system was straightforward - a Midas Heritage H3000 desk, KT DN360 graphics and no gates, compressors or reverbs - all are banished by Squire. "It's about as raw as it gets," says Blake. He also likes it extremely loud onstage, so Entec APW wedges provided the volume where it was needed, augmented with two d&b C7s for sidefills.
(Ruth Rossington)
