Massive Attack

When Massive Attack hit the road for their first full production, UK tour since 2003, it was with high expectations that I headed to the new O2 Academy Birmingham to see the show. One of the UK’s seminal dance acts of the last two decades, the band’s longevity is down to its unique, ‘trip hop’ sound, creative approach to music and commitment to quality production.

    Led by Bristolian duo Grant Marshall (Daddy G) and Robert Del Naja (3D), band members have come and gone over the years, but the concept of their live shows has remained the same; to deliver a powerful and intelligent production, pushing boundaries through technology.

The 2009 tour — which involved Academy venues and live music clubs of the 3,000-capacity mark — didn’t disappoint. In typical Massive Attack fashion, the prominence of the people on stage gave way to the music and the message; the band was mostly back lit, with only the individual singers’ faces being gently key-lit during specific songs. It was a politically charged show whereby the video content for the Barco OLite back wall included thought-provoking statements, for example, comparing the money squandered on MPs’ expenses claims and what that money could buy for a poor African family.

Although the O2 Academy Birmingham offers full in-house production, Massive Attack were travelling with two lorry-loads of their own kit for the tour, which kicked off at Bestival, and O2 Academy venues in Brixton and Sheffield prior to the Birmingham stop.

Tour manager Dave Lawrence, who has worked with the band for the last 10 years on top of his projects with Madness, Manchester Versus Cancer, The Streets and Dizzee Rascal, said: “We always try to deliver the highest possible level of production everywhere we go. The band has a new album coming out in February and if we need to go big and do arenas we can because all the production is modular.”
The overall effect was a mesmerising and multi-layered integration of lighting and video elements into a tightly timed show, which evolved with each track.

Rather than feeling any particular connection to the band, a lasting impression was created by the audio and visual show. LED and visuals engineer, Icarus Wilson-Wright, gave his perception of the show: “The basic theme is borders and boundaries, and the issues they bring up in all walks of life: political, geographical, personal, financial. It’s about tension.”

Lawrence and production manager James Baseley invited back trusted suppliers that had worked on previous Massive Attack gigs: HSL supplied all lighting equipment and crew, sound production was provided by Wigwam Acoustics, United Visual Artists (UVA) designed the creative content, and Fly By Nite, Coach Service GmbH, Music By Appointment, A Bit Of A Mouthful and Bristol Executive Cars all serviced the tour.

HSL worked closely with the tour’s lighting designer Robin Haddow to supply a Robe-heavy rig. Said HSL project manager Mike Oates: “It’s great to be working with Robin, James Baseley and Dave Lawrence and their team again.

“Massive Attack have been one of the UK’s most influential and creative bands over the last two decades, and their live productions are always inventive and interesting. This one is no exception.”

Haddow worked closely with 3D and the band’s video and show designers UVA on developing the look and feel of the show, for which they did a week of technical production rehearsals at HSL’s new space next door to their warehouse facility in Blackburn.

The set featured 15 custom modules of Barco OLite 510 video screen upstage, recommended by XL Video’s Des Fallon, making a 15m wide by 3m high back wall.

Lawrence commented: “The show has evolved with the use of technology, but lighting and screens are always a major part of the show. In 2003 we used the Saco screen, then we slimmed back to Pixelbars in 2004; in 2006 we used the ChromaBlock and now we have the OLite. LED technology has moved on so you’re always looking for the next piece of kit and what is going to deliver your show.” 

Attached to the base of each OLite frame was a Robe ColorWash 250E AT moving light. A truss was upstage of the screen, rigged about a metre high off the ground on special tank traps, on which was mounted 15 Vari*Lite 3500 Washes. These were used extensively through the show shooting beams through the transparent architecture of the screen, with a dramatic effect.

Haddow liked the fact that they go from a really tight pencil beam to a wide wash. The screen produces numerous break up opportunities and is a bit like “having a giant gobo”, he explained.

FAVOURITE EFFECT
For side and front lighting they used eight Robe ColorSpot 700E ATs, four on stands for the downstage edge of the stage and four a little further upstage on flightcases.

There were Atomic strobes and 4-lite Molefays dotted around behind the band but in front of the screen. In lighting terms, the visual pièce de résistance and Haddow’s “favourite effect” involved 32 Robe REDWash 3•192 LED wash lights and eight customised sections of trussing designed by HSL’s Rupert Reynolds.

These sat on the floor upstage of the screen, and whilst the Birmingham venue didn’t have the height for it, the wash lights were normally attached via steels to a trussing mother grid up in the roof, and were flown in and out on a three-way Kinesys automation system operated by Andy Iliffe, one of HSL’s crew.

Also behind the screen, Haddow had five A&O Falcon 3kW searchlights with Flower lenses, which provided bright, multi-pinspot effects through the screen.

The show was run via three control systems, a Hog 3 set up that also drove a PixelMAD system, that supplied content to the REDWashes (which were also programmed as conventional lightsources).

UVA’s D3 video control platform, which ran all the content for the O-lite screen, also fired certain lighting cues, operated by Wilson-Wright.

He commented: “The challenge for me is that the design vision has been set by UVA and 3D together and there’s a taste applied to the show that’s coherent. I’ve got the licence to do what I want but I have to pay attention to the identity of the show.”

The trio of control options was integrated via a Luminex IP merge device. This allowed Haddow to select which source — and which individual channel — was controlled by which system.

Said Haddow: “Massive Attack are quite demanding, which is what you want. They keep up with current events and the flavour of what they want to present changes with each country; its daily maintained. The system is quite flexible so we can actually do it.”

MASSIVE SOUND
Although sound engineer Dave Bracey — best known for his work with Robbie Williams — would have been happy to use the venue’s in house V-DOSC sound system, he had specified Wigwam’s Martin Audio W8LC compact line array for the entire tour, and used a DiGiCo SD7 mixing console at FOH.

“Last summer when Massive Attack were playing festivals, it was great to hear the SD7 through all the new line arrays. Out of my favourite shows, the Martin line array cropped up a couple of times and the fact that it’s compact meant it was an all-round favourite for this tour,” said Bracey.

System tech Richard ‘Basil’ Ferneley, another long-time Massive man, who has also mixed a number of their shows, was also pleased with the Martin Audio line array from Wigwam, who have long been Massive Attack’s preferred supplier.

With a pool of five backing singers and new arrangements of old material to contend with, requiring 52 inputs on the DiGiCo SD7 desk, Bracey was challenged to transpose 3D’s studio produced soundscapes into live profiles.

“The mix is totally dependent on how they play the song,” he said. “It’s often not possible to play it the way it was recorded, and I mix it accordingly — in many cases deliberately not having listened to the recorded versions.”

Bracey added: “A lot of the time they whisper in different degrees and it has to sound powerful, but there’s a limit on how much headroom you’ve got on someone whispering into a vocal mic, so that’s also a challenge.”

Bracey was quick to embrace the digital revolution and has worked with DiGiCo on developing their products.

“When the DiGiCo D5 came out I knew that was my desk of choice because I was able to mix in a way digitally using snapshots that was sensible from a live perspective and still to this day there are no other consoles that do the things that I like. It’s infinitely more flexible in that area than any other console.

“On the new Mach 2 software version for the SD7 there are a lot of good internal effects, like tube distortion, multi-band compression, dynamic EQ, so I’m using a lot more of those.”

Basil Ferneley said they had to design the system to suit each venue on a daily basis. “I would go into each venue at 8.00am, measure the room, then with Martin Audio’s Display [predictive software], decide on numbers of boxes and array settings, including processor tweaks.”
At O2 Academy Birmingham, they flew 15 x W8LC speakers per side, with six of the d&b B2 subs. System control was handled wirelessly by XTA AudioCore.

It was the first time Bracey had used the Display prediction software. “We have been following the Martin Audio plots to the letter and we have been extremely happy with the prediction software — using their processor settings, along with some of our own logic and sometimes treating it as two hangs instead of one. The settings are always zoned in the correct manner,” he said.

MONITORS
Monitor engineer Dan Stead, who has been with Massive Attack since 2004 and also worked with The Streets, The Pretenders and Status Quo, was mixing on his own choice of a DiGiCo D5. The band prefer to use in-ears, so there was a total of 12 Sennheiser G2 wireless and five hardwired IEMs being used on stage.

Said Stead: “There are five different singers who are all quite demanding so it’s challenging; I’m using every single output. But we do a lot of rehearsals so once I’ve programmed the desk it’s quite easy as I just plug it in each day.”

Massive Attack was supported by guest singer Martina Topley Bird, and was also joined by Debbie Miller and Horace Andy. Classic tracks and a showcase of new music from their forthcoming album were communicated through a typically experimental show that was moodily atmospheric with moments of dizzying drama.

The tour’s UK leg was due to finish in October, before heading to Europe in preparation for the release of the band’s long-awaited album LP5 (which includes the current download EP, ‘Splitting The Atom’), and will continue round the rest of the world until the end of next summer.
TPi