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Home , BBC Music Awards, Liam Gallagher, One Love Manchester

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ONE LOVE

As a direct response to a disaster, was bought to you by singer – and now honorary Mancunian – and her management team. The goal was clear: put on a less than two weeks afer the bombing, and embody the reality that the love of live music cannot and will not be stopped. TPi spoke to some of the sound crew who brought the live and broadcast concert to a worldwide audience estimated to be over a billion.

From its inception, One Love Manchester was a team efort; as in Lititz and the support of DiGiCo Sennheiser and Shure, we were able to Clair Global’s Account Executive Toby Francis explained: “Ariana’s cover everything that was needed.” management created the event, and Clair Global / Brit Row became an As well as a professional and humanitarian interest in the show, Francis extension of the touring production team, helping to arrange whatever also had a personal one; having worked previously with Grande, whom he was needed audio-wise for rehearsals, as well as for the show. The tour’s mixed for three years as she matured as an artist. He’s also worked closely FOH Engineer, Simon Thomas, and Monitor Engineer Vish Wadi took on with several of the concert’s guest acts including Justin Beiber, Miley huge roles, assisted by the Clair UK & Brit Row local crew. [TPi Award- Cyrus, and his current day job, mixing FOH for . Although he has winning] Colin Pink did an amazing job of organising all input and gear since vacated the mixing console seat to make room for Thomas, Francis needs for the guest acts, while Lez Dwight oversaw the gig for the Brit was keen to highlight the capability of his successor on the night: “Simon Row team. is incredible. He replaced me afer three years and he does a fantastic “Toby Alington did the sound mix for BBC TV, and he and his team job. There was a very consistent sound from beginning to end and it was could not have done a better job. Between Lez and Andy Walker at Clair very rewarding to watch this show; I’ve mixed over 5,000 shows in the last UK, Ariana’s touring sound crew, the engineering department at Clair’s HQ 40 years of my career and I hand-picked Simon to take over. I’ve heard

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enhancements with his mix that I’d never heard before! I know for a fact show and we have all worked together extensively before. This familiarity that I picked the right guy. One Love was such an emotional experience for means we have a ‘shorthand’ that was essential for us to be able to get the everybody who worked on it.” show together in three days.” Thomas gave an insight into the technical side of his duties: “What As if the tight deadline was not strenuous enough, One Love Manchester began as a benefit gig using our production and house band expanded came at an extremely busy time of the season for the production industry rapidly, into duplicate DiGiCo SD7’s and additional amounts of Clair’s CO-12 as festival season was about to take of, meaning that sourcing crew and PA for delays and side hangs. The principle remained the same and that equipment was a real challenge. Brit Row’s Lez Dwight commented: “As the was to use Ariana’s band and crew for the majority of acts; other than the week went by we devised a plan. We had duplicate SD7’s at both ends of the speeches, Marcus Mumford, , and , who snake, much like the model we use for shows like The BRITs and EMAs; we had their own control set up and also accommodated ’s also increased the SD Racks to up the channel count from 56 to 112. requests. Initially, we thought that the best way forward was for me to mix “The house band rehearsed until Saturday night while we arranged all artists performing with Ariana’s band. extra Clair Cohesion CO-12 PA to be added to the PA. On the Saturday “However, since we had a specific control set up for the band, we morning, we loaded in our control followed by tests and checks on site. decided we needed an additional FOH control, which was operated by Sunday morning started with an early planning meeting then it was Colin Pink. He dealt with the overflow of artists not using Ariana’s band, artist rehearsals right up to the point when doors opened. In fact, we still which fed additional vocals / instruments to my console for the visiting rehearsed the afer the doors opened! If you think that artists.” was tight, Liam Gallagher’s band played with no rehearsal at all. They just Pink was approached on the Wednesday before the show - which took turned up and played, much like one of those ‘throw and go’ appearances place on Sunday - to oversee and coordinate the guest artists and show at a festival. Fortunately, they shared the self-contained Coldplay control integration with the broadcast. His experience of designing shows like The and monitor rig which made it a little less nerve wracking!” BRITs and the EMAs meant that, as well as having a good knowledge of Dwight added: “The show called on all our experience with multi-band how this type of hybrid show works, he had also worked with most of the shows, but even so it was tough. We scheduled in key people like Colin artists and their engineers before. These prior relationships made planning who had a couple of days of in the middle of Hans Zimmer’s world tour. much faster and helped the team get a head start on putting the system Everyone stepped up and got stuck in. [For tech support] DiGiCo sent Mark together. He explained: “It was still very much Ariana’s show and her band Saunders and Dave Bigg while Sennheiser sent Jonas Næsby to the site. acted as the house band. Her team and engineers did an amazing job, and I even got my hands dirty! The industry rose to the occasion and it was a I felt privileged to be able to work with them, and take the pressure of really great team efort from everyone involved; Clair even flew over Jim by dealing with the guests and broadcast needs, which allowed them to Bowersox, a member of the Clair CO-12 design and engineering team, to concentrate on their normal setup during such an emotional time. help tune the Manchester system; that’s classy.” “From a broadcast point of view we treated it in exactly the same way Thomas discussed how the system performed: “When you have a stage we do other large scale shows. It was great to have familiar faces mixing the thrust involved there are always potential issues with feedback. Luckily,

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the Clair CO-12 system we used is great for reducing this, and the system channel strips rather than just a central section, are a huge bonus. You can design by Jim Bowersox proved to be both amazing and accurate. Systems crawl around the C200 and work faster than any other desk I know, while Engineer, Jerrell Evans, also had a big part in this, as well as the rest of the it is a fully digital work-surface allowing essential snapshots and recall touring audio crew and the additional Brit Row crew. With all this in mind, capability. I also had my favourite outboard toys on board: TC System 6000, it meant we kept a clean sounding stage, which no doubt helped Toby Lexicon reverbs, EL8 compressors and dbx902 de-essers for vocals, and a Alington in our broadcast dept achieve what was a great-sounding show.” handful of other bits and pieces.” If you watched the show, which no doubt many of you did, you’ll know Alington concluded: “The reaction and praise from around the world that Alington’s experience was worth its weight in , having worked in was very lovely, not just for the amazing concert and artists, but for what live music broadcast for 25 years and spending much of his time looking we achieved with the sound. We were possibly helped by expectations, with afer many of the large multi-artist shows such as The BRITs, the EMAs the audience knowing how last-minute the preparations had been, but the and AMAs, the BBC Music Awards, and Children in Need Rocks. One Love end result seemed to hit the right spot for the listeners around the world. Manchester was certainly in good hands. “I can’t remember five hours of live broadcast passing quite so quickly He commented: “These shows have their own peculiarities and before. Suddenly we were of air, with a realisation that nothing had gone pressures, with fast turnarounds between artists and all the thrills and wrong, we hadn’t had any output issues, and that actually it had sounded spills of live television. I generally work in a music mobile, mixing all the live pretty good. Meeting up with Simon Thomas, Colin Pink, Lez Dwight and the music, adding audience and mastering the output for whichever medium Brit Row / Clair teams, the Coldplay crew and so on, we all felt very pleased we’re broadcasting to. I am very dependent on the PA company for what that such a monumental efort from everyone had delivered what turned is supplied to us by way of stage feeds, and most of the time we work out to be such an amazing show.” alongside Brit Row, who are wonderfully sympathetic at understanding how Guy Freeman, Editor Special Events for the BBC, said post show: “As important our wider audience is. I reflect on the week, I am quite overwhelmed by the way in which every “As with any show, the first thing was to understand exactly what single person approached, changed plans and dropped what they were would be required for the broadcast and then to choose the kit and crew doing - in half-term week - to muck in and do whatever was required to accordingly. This information comes from the production company, the PA get the programme on air. On top of that, what was really striking was the company and the artists’ own engineers, and we try and piece together the degree to which seemingly insurmountable problems were quickly solved true picture from these various sources.” through determination, patience, goodwill and phenomenal collaboration He continued: “I got the call on Bank Holiday Monday, just six days between ourselves and partners. I can’t think of any other combination of before the event, asking if I’d be available for the show the following Sunday, broadcaster and production unit that could have come close to achieving and whether I could put together a broadcast audio solution. Thankfully, what [they] all did.” the Floating Earth mobile, my first choice for multi-artist shows in the UK, As much as many of the hardened roadies involved in this show would along with my A-team crew of ‘the Mikes’ - Mike Hatch, Michael Gerrard insist that this was just another gig, it was undeniably an emotional time and Mike Cox - were all available. When I discovered that Brit Row, with Lez for all involved, particularly the original touring crew who had, like many Dwight and Colin Pink would be overseeing the PA side of things, I knew it others, endured the shock and pain of what happened. was going to be great!” “It has been a whirlwind of emotions since the tragic events in A rapid sequence of phone calls gave Alington the information he Manchester and it has had a lasting efect on all of us,” said Thomas. needed: it would be 96 lines for Ariana’s band and guests, plus 48 channels “Situations like this certainly make you think of the people around you from Coldplay. With a few extra feeds of audience and extras, the broadcast more than ever and we have bonded even stronger as a team. I think we crew were using around 156 inputs to mix the live broadcast. are building lifelong friendships as a result. Not getting back to work never Alington continued: “The main issue, flagged quite early on, was that we seemed like an option, and as a crew we didn’t really have time to think too would have very limited soundcheck and rehearsal time. Where we’d hoped much. We were straight back into the ‘work mode’ of preparing a gig - One to have some soundchecks on the Saturday before the Sunday show - in Love Manchester was no diferent - and we were determined to do the best fact we only got going around 11am on Sunday morning and it was clear job possible. I also have to extend special thanks to Toby Francis, he’s an we weren’t going to hear every artist before we were live to air. This meant amazing person and has shown huge faith in me throughout this time.” setting some of the snapshots by the numbers, and I’m glad to say my In fact, it wasn’t until the fans were in and the music could be heard guesswork did work out on the whole!” that the enormity of the event became apparent to the crew. “But, it was The Floating Earth mobile had an SSL C200 console on board, which show time and all we could do was get on with our jobs. It was our way Alington chose due to its ease of use on fast-moving, high-pressure gigs of honouring the victims and the whole city of Manchester. Our strength such as this. He said: “With limited rehearsal time on most shows, and and determination came from a desire to prove both the force, and the indeed no rehearsals for some of the artists on this one at all, the SSL’s full importance live music will always have.”

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CLAIr global & Britannia Row BETTER TOGETHER ONE LOVE MANCHESTER

Thomas again underlined the importance of Monitor Engineer Vish forward and coming out as a stronger force than ever before. Myself and Lez Wadi, as well as his Tech, Matt Patterson, and the rest of Grande’s crew will be close friends forever because of this show. I’d met him a few times under the leadership of Production Manager Omar Abderrahman. Francis, during the merger but I hadn’t had the pleasure of working with him before whom TPi spoke to last month, initially afer the attack, also gave his but in just a week, it felt like I’d known him for 10 years. Everybody who appraisal of the incredible results of the One Love Manchester show: “There participated in One Love Manchester will have a bond for a very long time.” was total elation and yet there was a total sense of reality, that this concert, TPi this huge, globally watched, star-studded concert was in response to such Photos: Kevin Mazur (Getty Images) & DiGiCo a horrific disaster. This show was all we could do. It was incredibly trying; www.arianagrande.com as the guys on the road, we were physically and emotionally exhausted, www.tobyalington.com but both Sennheiser and DiGiCo helped us out immensely; they bent over www.colinpink.co backwards with whatever we needed and they couldn’t have done any www.clairglobal.com more to ensure we got the sound right. Of course, this was also the first www.solidstatelogic.com project that Clair and Brit Row had done together since the two companies www.britanniarow.com merged. So what better way to show the power of what they can do, than to www.shure.co.uk help pull of something like this? www.digico.biz “Like everything else that has come out of this tragic time, we’re pushing en-us.sennheiser.com

On behalf of everybody at TPi, thank you to every company, crewmember, organiser and security personnel who made One Love Manchester such an incredible success. Your dedication to our incredible industry helped give the smiles and the swagger back to gig-goers of all ages; thanks to you, live music will continue to incite joy, not fear.

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