GIRLS ALOUD SAY A FOND FAREWELL AFTER A DECADE OF HITS

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1 ON THE ROAD: Girls Aloud GIRLS ALOUD SAY A FOND FAREWELL AFTER A DECADE OF HITS THE LATEST OUTING FROM GIRLS ALOUD WAS ALSO THEIR LAST, WITH PERFORMANCES THAT WERE MORE VISUALLY TECHNICAL THAN BEFORE. THE POP STARS DELIVERED A CELEBRATION OF 10 YEARS OF SMASH HITS WITH THE HELP OF A TEAM OF COMMITTED PRODUCTION EXPERTS. TPi S ZOE MUTTER CAUGHT THEIR PENULTIMATE PERFORMANCE AT NOTTINGHAM S CAPITAL FM ARENA. There were multiple reasons why Girls Aloud s 10 tour needed to excel in production values to impress the fans. As their celebratory run of shows drew to a close, it came to light that this had not just been a 12-date reunion, but a goodbye to their loyal supporters. This tour has been an amazing experience and the perfect chance to say thank you for being on this journey with us through a decade, a tweet posted after the show in Liverpool - the last time the stars would perform together as a group - said. WORKING WITHIN PARAMETERS Production Manager, Iain Whitehead has worked on the band s first theatre tour through to their grand finale touring production. This show is bigger than they ve done previously, certainly in terms of things like the amount of video screen used, he commented. They ve done flying gags and had B stages before. There s a bit more been spent on video, 32 stage set and the Schnick-Schnack-Systems lightboxes through the stage set and around the downstage edge. Initially the production team used Girls Aloud s previous tour as a platform, giving the crew an understanding of the anticipated outcome. We expanded things from there, adding things like extra dancers. The girls wanted to rehearse in London, so we rehearsed in Earls Court 2, involving spending a bit more on rehearsals than in the past, said Whitehead. Pete Barnes, our show designer, is great at working within certain parameters so he ll have a good idea of the limitations in terms of the stage and the amount of money they want to spend on an LED screen and from a build point of view, the time it will take to get it in and out. When they re six tours down the line you have to come up with something that doesn t look like a previous show. Beth Honan, the show producer wanted the girls to come out over the audience on a Girls Aloud sign that the letters have depth to, rather than just being flat. The Girls Aloud sign and stage set was made by Production North, with some elements rented from LS Live such as the sub structure on the B stage and the rolling leg frames. The band wanted a clean looking set, but not just flat with nothing on it. They wanted to be able to make it come alive so for different parts of the show we needed something that could change colour, flash and add excitement, said Whitehead. FEMININE BUT EDGY Peter Barnes, the designer of the stage set and lighting rig, has a working relationship with the band that extends back to their formation. I have always lit Girls Aloud since their first What Will The Neighbours Say tour In 2005, which was a theatre tour that started at Rhyl Pavilion as did so many pop bands first tours in their day and still do today. I first rehearsed with Boyzone there back in 1995, said Barnes, who has lit shows for nearly four decades. Barnes opted for a feminine but edgy set

2 ON THE ROAD: Girls Aloud Opposite: The band made a grand entrance standing on a 3D logo that flew over the audience. Below: Visuals created for the set design and concept by Lighting and Show Designer, Pete Barnes; The 10 tour was the last time Girls Aloud would perform as a five-piece; VER supplied LED screens in the form of 240 panels of WinVision 9 in the main screen and 60 panels in each of the six columns; The band members wore red dresses at the end of the show, which looked incredible under the followspots, according to Lighting Director, Neil Trenell. design, following the shape of a classic diamond ring. As the saying goes, Diamonds are a girl s best friend. I thought that shape suited the show as they could hardly be described as a pink and fluffy girl band, continued Barnes. I then added the angular LED screens to complement that shape. They in turn provided lighting positions in what I feel is the most important area for effects lighting - behind the girls. Whilst all shows need to be lit so you can see the performers and so they look nice on the side screens, most of the excitement from the lighting happens between stage level and a height of around eight metres. When it comes to lighting a show like Girls Aloud s, most effort goes into attractive beam effects, the lights in the stairs from the rear and following the dancers around the stage with the wash lights on the front truss, explained Barnes. That is where a video camera becomes an important tool at rehearsals; to note where the dancers are at each section of the song. The main priority was to create different performance levels and areas as well as entrances. Barnes continued: I think it is important at times to separate the group and the dancers, so whilst it is one big show it is obvious who the stars are. Having the staircase and ramps in the set allowed this to happen easily. A COMPLETE VISION Working alongside Barnes was Beth Honan, who has been a show producer and choreographer for nine years, during which time she has produced all of Girls Aloud s tours and hundreds of their TV performances. I wanted the show to reflect how I saw the girls - as very glamorous and beautiful. It had to be a pop spectacular to showcase their massive amount of hit singles, she explained. I was very influenced by the Victoria s Secret shows in America, which always have fabulous catwalks and lots of sparkle. As the set design was based on a diamond shape all the LED was placed on diagonal lines, which made it look much wider than the usual vertical. The set design needed to be huge, but at the same time, slick and open. Honan wanted an area that could hold 11 dancers without them being blocked visually. The large staircase made from lightbox worked perfectly for this. I loved the way I could instantly alter the feel of the stage by simply changing the colours on the staircase and the catwalk, said Honan. The B stage was also created using lightbox so it was a complete vision when looked at as a whole. Honan wanted a huge 3D logo created that could fly over the audience. She elaborated: I wanted them to stand on top of it for the reveal and when it flew to the B stage. The challenge was working out how to get them off it due to the height without introducing stairs. It had to be as slick as possible. The band opened the show with a routine featuring five mic stands, which Honan did not want pre set when the kabuki dropped to reveal them. A scissor lift was therefore built into the start of the catwalk, which was dropped with five male dancers on it with the stands. At a set point in the song after revealing the girls we rose the dancers to stage level, while at the same time the logo was dropping to the floor, continued Honan. The dancers placed the mic stands in the correct positions, the girls unlocked their belts and the dancers lifted them off the logo onto the main stage. The logo then flew up in the air. It took a little time to get the timings correct but worked great as an opener. When the band landed on the B stage Honan had to make sure the male dancers would move from the main stage to the B stage halfway through a performance to get to the band. They had a set time to do this, which never changed. The band s Head of Security, Mark Dawson, worked with the dancers at every arena to guarantee they knew the path to be taken. To allow Girls Aloud to get back to the changing area after the B stage section a route was created through the audience and down the arena corridors in blackness. This was a big challenge, but worth it, said Honan. I brought the attention back to the main stage with a dance break as they ran through. They were then revealed on the main stage by five man lifts. LIGHTWEIGHT AND PUNCHY To create a lighting design with wow factor, Barnes chose 52 Clay Paky Sharpys on the LED screens and on the B stage for their light weight and punchiness. Further Sharpy fixtures were placed around the B stage. Clay Paky distributor, Ambersphere Solutions, also visited rehearsals to show Barnes the new Sharpy Wash 330. The LD also used 30 Philips Vari-Lite VL3500 washes as wash lights because of their brightness and reliability and 24 Martin Professional MAC IIIs as profiles, believing them 33

3 Below: Monitor Engineer, Jon Lewis; The video, projection and LED team; Lighting Director, Neil Trenell. to be the brightest profile available offering large break up gobo effects. When I designed the set for Girls Aloud, knowing that the Sharpy s tight bright beam would make small work of cutting through the brightness of the LED screens gave me more freedom in how the finished set looked, he said. On the Girls Aloud stage I wanted to mount the lights directly on to the LED screen to avoid adding another six trusses and a bunch of motors to lift them - along with all the associated extra work. As the Sharpys are so light I was able to mount them directly on the existing frames for the LED screen. LED played a sizeable role in the design and all the stairs were internally lit with Schnick- Schnack-Systems LED strips to give them a bright internal light. Then, of course, there were the LED screens, which always play a large part in most music shows these days, said Barnes. Under the thrust and the B stage - decked with frosted perspex - I used 20 Robe Cityskape Xtreme LED floods to create a bright under lit floor. This illuminated the catwalk for the audience viewing it from high up in the arena. SHAPE AND FORM With a wealth of experience behind him working on a variety of styles of production, Neil Trenell was brought onto the tour as Lighting Director to bring Barnes designs to life. It might have been his first tour with Girls Aloud, but the LD had already lit Cheryl Cole s solo tour and some of the band s one-off projects. Pete s design was very modern, angular and with a lot of shape and form. Many angles are repeated in the lighting rig, set and side screens, said Trenell. The show looks great and there are quite a lot of costume changes - as you might expect. The girls wear some red dresses at the end, which look fantastic under followspots. It is all very clean and glamorous, he added. When programming Trenell makes sure lighting and video complement each other - taking a base colour from the video to use for the lighting. The mood, tone and texture visually dictates the show so lighting leads some parts and video leads others, added the LD. 34

4 Below: Stage Manager, Stephen Reeve, and Production Manager, Iain Whitehead; PA Technicians Jack Murphy, Bill Laing and Ralph Smart. The Sharpys always fill an arena and the Robe Cityskape Xtremes are great for lighting the LED perspex and give a really nice glow. While HSL supplied all lighting fixtures, Trenell s company FIX8 Group provided the lighting control package for the show along with a Green Hippo Hippotizer media server, from which he also took direct control of the footage appearing on the LED screens. My little office at FOH doesn t change too much. I always use an MA Lighting grandma2 for controlling lighting - I m pretty spoilt, said Trenell. The MA2 is a very strong console and we had multiple users on the programming side, with only four days to programme alongside Fraser Walker. The latest features added to the console make a massive improvement when working with timecode - now everything is at your fingertips. GO WITH THE MUSIC While Trenell provided all content playback onto the LED screens via the Hippotizer media servers, Ray Moose Shaw [Catherine Jenkins, The Beach Boys, Seinfeld] directed cameras with his team from XL Video and technicians from VER. We ve all had to work very tightly, commented Trenell. The lighting guys worked with the video guys to build the LED screen because there are lights on the side. LED is a big part of the overall visual look and we re using WinVision 9, which is really strong on camera. Video is integral to the tour and it s a fastmoving show, with the girls constantly dancing and moving around the stage, said Moose. There are three of us from XL Video - myself, Jeroen Marain and Darren Montague - and we re providing projection and cameras. VER are supplying LED screens in the form of 240 panels of WinVision 9 in the main screen and 60 panels in each of the six columns along with three crew - Gary King, Ray White and Robin Toye. Projection supplied by XL Video came in the form of a pair of Barco SLM R12+ projectors and two AV Stumpfl 16ft by 12ft IMAG projection screens. Flexibility being one of their advantages, the Barcos were hung upside down on the truss with four hanging brackets, said Moose. The trusses were angled to enable a better view in the taller venues, the keystone software allowing this to be possible. Three Sony D50 cameras filmed the show - two on track and dolly in the pit and one long lens at FOH. During the show the band moved to the B stage, at which point one of the pit cameras was positioned at FOH and the other moved to the front of the thrust. The girls sing alternate lines so you have to go with the music, continued Moose. You can t catch all the words as they move around so much and we only have three cameras. Moose operated a Grass Valley Kayak desk, which he has used on numerous occasions. Trenell s feed from the Hippotizer was sent to Moose, comprising a selection of clips from Blink TV in between the support act and Girl Aloud s performance. The Kayak is my favourite mixer and I find it very ergonomic. I have big fingers so it really helps me, commented Moose. Content from the Hippotizer is displayed the whole time on the middle screen. At the top of the tour Neil told me when he would fire the grandma2 so when I know it s coming I cue them up. There are only two VTs during the show just on the side screens and then on the back screen there is video all the time. AN EXTRA DIMENSION Adding to the show s visuality, Pyrojunkies provided a wealth of pyrotechnics throughout the tour - flame units, low smoke machines, gold and silver confetti squares from Stadium Shot cannons and custom red and white feathers out of its vapour blowers. Kevin Bullard started off as a theatre lighting technician 10 years ago before moving into special effects and pyro four years ago when he started working for Pyrojunkies on projects such as Download Festival and the 2012 Olympics. Pyro makes a production more dynamic and gives the audience more to look at, he said. For this show it gives an extra dimension whilst working in the audience s peripheral vision. A decision was made for pyro to feature in eight songs from the set, not including those with low smoke effects. Bullard used a Galaxis control system from German company, Pyrotech, which was chosen because it is robust, simple to use and programme and above all, wireless. The old methods saw us running hundreds of individual wires over the stage to trigger various effects, explained Bullard. With the Galaxis system, we can place several wireless modules around the stage and keep cable runs to a minimum. Galaxis allows you to find faults easily and programme the show rapidly. We can now load in and set up much quicker. Safety throughout the pyro sections of the show was paramount, with three metres clearance between any pyro pods and the audience needed at all times. When it comes to pyro, it s mainly down to rehearsals so all the performers know when everything s meant to be going off and where not to be. I can also see everything on stage so if anyone s too close I won t fire an effect, added Bullard. For Sound Of The Underground the show opened with low smoke - smoke that clings to the floor and produces a watery effect on stage. This was followed by nine 9m half second jets - a shower of sparks that go off along the back of the stage - and then at the end of the song there were six gold flitter mines, an instant effect that fires a gold glittery effect into the air. During Life Got Cold more low smoke appeared on stage to emphasise the soft ballady number. During Jump some extra large white flashes featured, producing a bang and brilliant white light. Other effects used included large sparkle flashes at the end of Love Machine, which are similar to a white flash, but slightly more visual as sparkly elements but are fired up in the air. Coloured mines that came across from upstage and mid stage featured in Something Kinda Ooh, which are the same as the gold flitter mines but fire colour into the air. The track Something New saw more silver mines appear downstage and four confetti cannons across the front edge of the stage. We introduced more low smoke and red and white feathers were blown across the audience at the end, added Bullard. 36

5 Below: Pyro Technician, Kevin Bullard; FOH Engineer, Gary Bradshaw. FINISHING OFF TO A HIGH STANDARD The biggest lesson on this tour has been finishing off everything to a high standard, commented Stage Manager, Stephen Reeve. Iain Whitehead is eagle eyed on the finishing side of things and the girls safety is paramount. The bulk of the show is loaded in from 7am until 3pm, after which a couple of hours is spent working on the minute details to make sure everything is to the highest of standards. This is partly because the girls are running everywhere in high heels and there are quick changeovers back stage so it takes about two hours to finish everything off and then we re straight into sound checks and opening doors. We start at 7am and then work straight through to 6.30pm without a break so it is a long day, he added. While on the road Reeve started his day by working closely with Head Rigger, Paul Burke, to make sure they were working to the same footprint and have enough room backstage for the quick change area. The next department I support is set and I work closely with Si James, Head Carpenter. We talk through the position of our B stage, which has to marry up with the flying track that Rigger, Dave Jolly, is responsible for. This has to be worked out between myself, Paul, Iain and Si to get it in the right place so we can land at the right point, explained Reeve. When the lighting department enter the venue, the greatest requirement they have is for power, rigging and crew to help put equipment up, so Reeve ensures this runs like clockwork. The video department have the same needs. Their angled screens can be quite a mission to get into place. These have to be rigged vertically and then swung in and landed on stage. These screens are sub hung from the lighting trusses so as the lighting team set up their dimmer racks, sound start to set up their monitor world and the angled video screens have to be built around lots of other kit. TOP OF THE RANGE FOH Engineer, Gary Bradshaw s stellar reputation in the industry and existing relationship with Production North were key in him joining the Girls Aloud touring team. Despite having worked with Cheryl Cole when she supported The Black Eyed Peas, the 10 tour was the first time he had mixed FOH for the band. I try to specify DiGiCo desks and the SD7 is the top of the range desk so you can t get any better than this. I chose it because it s the best sounding, has dual redundancy and the on board processing is great. There are a couple of outboard effects, but it s just kit I m familiar with - Lexicon reverbs and TC delay MIDI d up to the desk, he said. For processing there is little for PA EQ, it s just the EQ on the desk. System Tech, Bill Laing, does the time aligning and we play tracks in the afternoon and tweak it manually. Bradshaw didn t need to use any special effects on the band s vocals, only some reverb on the delay, a few specific cues and chorussing on certain songs. What is very challenging with them - and I don t know any other band that does this - is that even 37

6 ON THE ROAD: Girls Aloud Below: The tour celebrated a decade of hits whilst saying thank you to the band s loyal supporters. in one line of one verse all five of them will sing bits of the line, added the FOH engineer. One of them will sing two words, another one will do one and then the other will sing four words. Especially when they re out here on the B stage; the amount of noise means you can t just leave them up. I have to follow them around word by word, so I have it all written down on the overview screen so you can have notes per song. I spend the whole show looking at the overview screen - I m glued to that and if someone comes up and talks to you then you have to ignore them or you ll miss something. When I worked with Take That there were five vocals, but they didn t swap around like this in each line. Bradshaw worked with around 50 inputs, sharing a rack with Monitor Engineer, Jon Lewis. He continued: As there s one SD rack between us he has control of the gain, but once that s set you never touch it. If you need anything there s the trim, which we have independent control over. Bradshaw was impressed by the Girls Aloud members and their touring crew. The band are great too and what s coming off stage musically is incredible. It s all very tight - drums, bass, guitar and keyboards, he added. One of the most important lessons Bradshaw learnt from the experience has been how vital doing your homework is. Before we started I looked on YouTube at who sings what and it takes some learning, he commented. There s so much to learn and it s very complicated so I needed to write it down. It s one or two words at a time - and if you miss it then it doesn t make any sense. A FLAGSHIP SYSTEM Wigwam - a regular supplier of Production North s - delivered a first class service for Girls Aloud s tour, providing control systems, mics, RF kit and PA system. We re using a 38 d&b audiotechnic J-Series - it s the system Wigwam has most speakers and experience of and is really their flagship system, said System Technician, Bill Laing, who has worked as a regular freelancer for the audio supplier for three years. It s a fairly standard Wigwam PA - 60 cabinets, with a sidehang left and right to cover the sides of the show and some d&b Q10 frontfills and 20 J subs. It works beautifully. Bradshaw was also a fan of the audio quality achieved by the PA set up: The d&b system we re using is the best you can get and it s what I d choose. This tour is all about the girls vocals - it s nice and warm, not harsh. The sound is smooth and the sub is controllable and works really well. A NATURAL CHOICE Monitor Engineer, Jon Lewis, [ACDC, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton] became involved in the 10 tour before Christmas when Girls Aloud were doing promo work for the greatest hits album. When mixing this band they all have specific ideas of what they like because they ve gone off into their solo careers over the years, he said. So coming back together, it s like mixing five solo artists. It s a busy show and there s a lot of time spent watching them because there are a lot of cues for each person so across the whole show it really mounts up. Due to the audience noise some members opted for a dull, dry mix that would cope better. Others wanted a more rock n roll mix that was guitar and drum heavy because it is what they have been used to in their solo careers. Like Bradshaw, Lewis chose a DiGiCo SD7 to mix with. It s one of the few out there that can cope with producing mixes for five girls, the monitor engineer said. With all the effects that go with that - plus a band and distribution of wedges and sidefills - I needed something with a large framework so I could physically have enough outputs. This meant the SD7 was a natural choice. With Girls Aloud having been in the industry for a decade, Lewis found they could inform him of exactly what they wanted from their mixes. There s still the challenging aspect of there being five of them on a large stage, but technicians Jack Murphy and Ralph Smart are like spotters for me and help me watch what they are doing on stage, Lewis explained. It gets busy on stage and all the costume changes make it easy for them to lose a mic so Jack spends the show running after them. During their flying gag they put on wrist straps because it needs to be safe if they are flying over the audience. In-ear systems were chosen over wedges, the engineer highlighted: They are a necessity for a show like this where there s so much movement and five vocalists. By the time you have five live vocals in wedges all over the stage there s too much ambient noise. In addition to the IEMs, four d&b audiotechnic C7 sidefills - two down the front edge of the stage and two at the back - were used by the dancers for timing. The band - who were using Sennheiser s EK 2000 IEM receiver packs - made use of two d&b Q-Subs dotted around the stage to provide low end. The group used Ultimate Ears UE7 s apart from Cheryl Cole, who chose JH Audio 11 s - the model used on her solo tour. Everything is really done on just their in-ears and with a B stage out in the audience they need them or you can t really control what they listen to on the PA, he added. All vocal mics used were Sennheiser SKM 5200 Series with MD 5235 capsules and EK2000 receivers. The microphones and stands were customised with black Swarovski elements by Crystal Rocked. Elsewhere, Shure SM91 and Beta 52A were selected as kick drum mics, the Beta 57A picked up snare and AKG s K451 was

7 Below: The band opened the show with Sound Of The Underground, which involved a routine featuring five mic stands. used for hi hats. The Sennheiser e904 was selected for toms and a Shure SM 81 as a ride mic. Overhead mics on tour were AKG 41, whilst a Shure SM 57 was chosen as a guitar microphone along with an additional Audix D6 for the kick drum and three Audio- Technica AT4050 condenser mics. SECOND NATURE With 65% of its 30 million turnover being entertainment based, ET Travel has teamed up with many touring parties prior to Girls Aloud, including Muse and Killers. Girls Aloud s Tour Manager, Sean Fitzpatrick, has been a client of the company for almost 20 years, during which time a strong bond has been formed. We re given numbers for each party with details of what room types are required, budgets, location details, the itinerary with dates and list of venues, explained Managing Director, Ian Patterson. We work to that after establishing from the tour manager how and when the different groups wish to travel. Sometimes after show, overnight, on day of show or on the day off in between shows. Although the service ET Travel supplies is specialised, it now comes as second nature to the team. We ve a dedicated team of people in our Islington head office and our other office in Manchester that are experienced in booking travel for such projects, continued Patterson. On a tour of this magnitude there are often lots of changes. Security was quite important too - they are a high profile act so we needed to avoid fan attention and public exposure when arriving at or departing hotels. So what is the secret to providing a flawless travel service to clients? Flexibility is key as well as observing budgetary constraints - working with the right partners and hotels that understand the nature of the music industry - lots of changes and at the last minute happen on these kind of tours. Avoiding charges for such issues is a must, answered Patterson. NO COMPLAINTS The smooth running working environment throughout the tour was in part due to Whitehead having chosen suppliers he had worked with before. We know their abilities and the back-up they can provide us, he said. We have no complaints about bussing and trucking from Redburn Transfer, Silvergray and Nova Bussing. The service they delivered was excellent. Similarly, Over The Top Rigging have been fantastic. Head Rigger, Paul Burke, and Dave Jolly, who deals with the tracking of the platform that lifts up, tracks to FOH and lands on the B stage have worked together very well. Health and safety is of the upmost importance with rigging - they re responsible for flying everything above people s heads so it s vital that they know what they re doing. 39

8 Below: Show Producer and Choreographer, Beth Honan, wanted the show to reflect how she saw the girls - as glamourous and beautiful. Meanwhile, Production North has found Wigwam to be incredibly helpful pre-tour and throughout the production as an audio supplier. We ve needed to make changes late in the day on this and other tours and it s done immediately with them. You know if there were any issues they d be dealt with straight away, he said. The experience Snakatak have as a company and individual catering professionals resulted in Whitehead choosing them for the tour. You don t deal with the artists Snakatak have unless you know what you re doing. They ve catered for Girls Aloud before and we used them on many other tours and the Isle of Wight Festival, which is a very different type of event to this, said the Production Manager. They ve had numerous top 10 singles and out of the songs in the setlist you ll probably find about 18 of those have been top 10 so the set list pretty much writes itself, Whitehead concluded. I personally learn from every tour - just by dealing with different people and equipment makes you realise the way you ve been doing things may not have always been the best. I d like to think this business is getting more and more professional. You see some new people coming into it and some of us who ve been in the business 20 odd years can learn from those who ve been in it two years - that can only be a positive thing. TPi Photos: Sally Hayes, Dave Smith & Zoe Mutter wigwamacoustics.co.uk