JEFF WAYNE'S THE WAR OF THE WORLDS: Live 2006 / TPi Magazine

jeff wayne’s musical version of

the war of the worlds

HIT RECORD PRODUCER JEFF WAYNE HAD DREAMED OF STAGING A LIVE SPECTACULAR OF HIS MASTERPIECE ALBUM SINCE ITS RELEASE IN 1978, THEN FINALLY, TECHNOLOGY CAUGHT UP WITH HIS VISION — IN APRIL, AUDIENCES IN THE UK & IRELAND WERE REWARDED WITH AN OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD PRODUCTION MARK CUNNINGHAM REPORTS FROM BEHIND THE SCENES EXCLUSIVE PHOTOGRAPHY BY DIANA SCRIMGEOUR 36 TPi MAY 06

Harnessing all the intricacies of a theatre musical, rock opera, pop concert and computer generated imagery (CGI), this multimedia live production has thrilled and delighted audiences that have waited decades to see Jeff Wayne’s evocative musical interpretation of H.G. Wells’ classic novel spring to life.

Promoted by Live Nation and SJM Concerts, the April tour of the UK and Ireland featured Wayne conducting the 48-piece ULLAdubULLA Strings, along with the 10-piece ‘electric’ Black Smoke Band that included such session greats as bassist Herbie Flowers and guitarists Chris Spedding, Hugh Burns and Laurie Wisefield. Despite his death in 1984, the irreplaceable Richard Burton was preserved in his original narrator’s role as George Herbert, The Journalist, thanks to digitised footage of an actor, projected on to a 10ft high 3D sculptured rendering of the Welsh movie legend.

At the time of the album’s original release in the summer of 1978, disco and punk were at their respective heights, and both styles perhaps subtely influenced the production of Wayne’s classic, although as he has always said, composing and producing a 96minute continuous work wasn’t exactly following a ‘commercial formula.

"However, in the two compositions that I constructed around ‘grooves’, there’s no doubt I chose the beat of the day — disco — to drive them," said Wayne. Hence, there are recurring themes built around ‘four to the floor’ drum patterns — assuring live drummer Gordon Marshall of a major aerobic workout every night — while a spikiness emanates from edgy guitar riffs provided by Spedding, who was already a chart artist in his own right (‘Motorbikin”) before he produced the Sex Pistols’ first recordings in a break from Wayne’s album sessions.

Two of the vocal stars from the album were reacquainted with Wayne for the tour. Providing 'The Sung Thoughts of The Journalist’, Moody Blues frontman Justin Hayward excelled with his live performances of the dynamic ‘The Eve Of The War’ and timeless ‘Forever Autumn’, while The Voice of Humanity, Chris Thompson (the soaring voice of Manfred Mann’s Earth Band) was outstanding on ‘Thunder Child’. They were joined for the tour by opera star Russell Watson as Parson

Nathanial, Tara Blaise as The Parson’s Wife, Beth, and Alexis James, who convincingly took David Essex’s album role as The Artilleryman.

Although there are some subtle differences between Wells’ novel and the script written by Wayne’s stepmother, Doreen, the Musical Version is considerably Jeff Wayne

more faithful than either Orson Welles’ notorious 1938 radio broadcast or the 1953 movie. And unlike the more recent Tom Cruise ‘Americanised’ movie blockbuster, Wayne’s version resolutely remains set in Victorian England during the late 19th century.

The two-act show began with a brand new CGIanimated ‘Prequel’. Set on Mars, it explained why the Martians chose to invade Earth, needing to find a new home after their own ecological destruction. “After a meeting of the Martian Elders, the first cylinder leaves Mars and heads to Earth, then the stage fades to black, ushering in Richard Burton’s commanding introduction,” explained Wayne.

If you haven’t seen the show, all this talk of a 3D Richard Burton head and a Martian Fighting Machine might give the impression that this was one small step away from a Spinal Tap concert. Did such fears dominate

seasoned set designer Jonathan Park’s thoughts when he was invited to join the project? “Well, I’ve never been one to do Spinal Tap-ish things but I was originally told that the head would be 20ft tall, and I pointed out this would be totally out of scale to the Fighting Machine,” said Park. “I then re-ordered the plans to fit the venues we’d be playing.”

Although the promise of a full-scale Fighting Machine set the creative bar, it was the inclusion of Burton’s physical presence that particularly worried Wayne. “The Richard Burton head gave us severe problems... and not for the first time,” he said, referring to his original plan for this show in 1984, when Burton died just a fortnight before he was due to be filmed performing his entire original role.

“Our first attempt to make a 3D head for this tour resulted with a head that looked like Miss Piggy with a stroke! We very quickly realised where we went wrong and wound up now with something we’re very pleased with.

“We have Richard in a character that H.G. Wells wrote about — a journalist in his mid-30s. His face is built around several images of Richard, but ultimately concentrating on one of him when he was aged about 35. When you seem him at that age you realise what a handsome and charismatic person he was, and with a most wonderful voice.

“The first actor we worked with initially for this didn’t work out at all. Everything was really wrong — the preparation, amount of studio time allocated and his age.

By last December, we were very worried having just wasted some four months doing it all wrong. But from failure came success. What we did wrong initially, we righted and our research as to how to ‘produce’ Richard Burton was corrected. So when it all began again we were ready. We were delighted when we tracked down Aaron Robson in L.A. — ironically he was a Geordie actor residing there, but had known the album for many years.”

Prosthetic masks were made for Robson and tests with make-up, contact lenses and a wig helped him look as close to Burton as possible. He was then filmed miming to Burton’s narration with his head clamped against a wall to prevent any head movement. “It was a 06 MAY TPi 37

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Top: Set designer Jonathan Park; production director/LD Steve Nolan; FOH engineer Gary Langan with producer Damian Collier; orchestra engineer Richard Sharratt; Major Tom system technician Ali Viles; creative director Micha Bergese. Above: The XL Video crew... and a clutch of legends: Herbie Flowers, Jeff Wayne, Chris Spedding and Chris Thompson.

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serious makeover and pretty uncomfortable for Aaron,” commented Wayne.

“The end result of seven days of preparation and 10 days of filming was the merging of the filmed footage and the image of Richard himself, and then projected on to the 10ft glass fibre head structure, for which we tested everything on smaller prototypes before building the large production version.”

A further dimension was added to this composite image, said Wayne: “With the aid of CGI, Richard’s face changes according to the mood of each part of the script, reflecting the terror, sadness or hope of The Journalist’s story — hence the raising of an eyebrow, the occasional blink or frown, or wide-eyed disbelief. It’s pretty spooky!”

CREATING THE TEAM While Wayne had played live as a musician, MD or conductor during his career, being one of the producers (the others being Damian Collier and Ray Jones), he had little experience of producing a large-scale touring production of the scale of TWOTW. Wayne was naturally nervous that bringing together so many different skills and technologies to make an integrated live work might not come together on time, or at all. However, they brought in world-class talent with CVs that would impress anyone and as a creative and administrative team, slowly and surely, they built their production.

Jonathan Park’s mechanical skills were brought in as set designer and, later, art director who began his designs from a storyboard given to all the production team by Wayne, that detailed all the key elements and ideas for the show.

But it wasn’t until mid-December that the production truly began to come together, when production director/lighting designer Steve Nolan of Chromatic Productions joined the team. “Before then, there wasn’t a production manager appointed," said Park, "and I was a little concerned that no one had questioned this!

“Once the production schedule kicked in, the whole team agreed that because this was a multimedia show in every sense, it was important that every department had an awareness of the other departments’ work so that they worked together.”

As the tour dates approached fast, Nolan decided not to introduce a new ‘creative’ and undertook the show’s lighting himself, working closely with his associate LD, Ben Cracknell.

Knowing that Wayne wanted to produce a note perfect reproduction of the album live on-stage also indicated to Nolan that there would be a click track and therefore the chance to timecode and sync the lighting cues (as well as every other element including the Burton head, CGI, and the Fighting Machine). This enabled the lighting design department to do a lot of advance planning and programming, and also gave Nolan the confidence to simultaneously undertake the two very

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Justin Hayward performing ‘Forever Autumn’ — an evergreen classic in its own right. Its romantic sentiments come alive during the show with the help of CGI footage featuring Anna-Marie Wayne (Jeff Wayne’s daughter), cast as Hayward’s character’s fiancée, Carrie. demanding roles of LD and production director.

Nolan brought in creative director Micha Bergese to direct the guest artists and integrate them with the orchestra at stage left and the band at stage right, as Wayne conducted in the middle. Wayne felt that his score mostly reflected the strings representing ‘humanity’ and the band the more aggressive Martians, so the idea of two musical ‘camps’ was borne from a visual point of view.

After previous tenders failed to meet the budget, Bristol-based engineering company Steel Monkey was commissioned by Nolan in January to construct the Fighting Machine, head structure and a bridge device that would descend to the stage during Act Two. As bad luck would have it, the firm was already busy and couldn’t begin until February 14 — just two months before the tour was to start.

“But when they did,” said Park, “their creative engineering was astounding and I have nothing but glowing praise for them. They brought it off and made it work in what was probably record time.”

Wayne was equally delighted with Steel Monkey’s

contributions. “Frenchie and his team are brilliant and so dedicated to their work. They are very proud of their results and rightly so, because the Machine truly looks like it’s jumped out of Michael Trim’s painting on the original album cover and on to the stage. Until you see something like this in its complete working form, you can’t be sure it’ll be what you hope for. But we were just knocked out when we finally saw it.”

Nolan also asked Sven Knight from Knight Rigging Services to deal with everything that needed to be lifted, hung or moved. “The biggest challenge,” said Nolan, “was trying to realise the aspirations of Jeff who has been contemplating staging this show live since the album first came out.”

Not surprisingly, another huge challenge was the 30 foot tall Fighting Machine, which came complete with three pneumatic rams that pumped up the legs, winches that wound them down and a series of integral lighting fixtures that also had to be squeezed into its body.

Said Park: “The mechanics of the CGI Fighting Machine wouldn’t have worked as a set piece. So in

order to make it work mechanically, I re-designed it internally so it all pivoted around one point and did everything required of it in the show.”

A whole Health & Safety chapter in its own right (naturally, it was fitted with load arrests), the Fighting Machine was flown from a mother grid and animated using five Kinesys motors and a Vector automation control system supplied by Summit Steel. Another eight motors also ran on the Vector system to control the bridge.

LIGHTING Cracknell and Nolan have worked together on many different shows and share a fluid creative chemistry and style. Cracknell explained that Wayne and Park had already mapped and timelined the show, so they had a solid framework with which to work. From there, it was a case of coming up with a series of specific visual effects. Several were pre-programmed in lighting supplier PRG Europe’s WYSIWYG suite, such as the three Space Flowers in the “whee-oo” sequences — part of ‘The Eve Of The War’, indicating when the

BACK TO ‘78: THE ALBUM Recorded between 1976 and 1978, Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War Of The Worlds (TWOTW) featured the vocal talents not only of narrator Richard Burton, but also the Moody Blues' Justin Hayward (whose 'Forever Autumn' single provided a Top 10 trailer), Manfred Mann's Earth Band frontman Chris Thompson, David Essex, Thin Lizzy’s Phil Lynott and Julie Covington.

On June 9 1978, the lavishly-illustrated TWOTW double album was released by CBS with a spectacular multi-media launch held, appropriately, at the London Planetarium, after which it stayed in the UK charts for six years, reaching multi-platinum status.

Worldwide sales are currently estimated at six million copies, including those of special versions in other languages for Latin America, Germany and Spain, for which 40 TPi MAY 06

Anthony Quinn and Curd Jürgens took Burton's part. The alien war cry 'Ulla!' appears to have remained intact on all versions!

Interest in the album has been maintained over the years by a spin-off computer game and a variety of alternate CD releases, such as the ULLAdubULLA Remix Album (with contributions from the likes of Apollo 440), the recent 5.1 surround sound SACD, and the comprehensive seven disc Collector's Edition box set, featuring outtakes.

Next in line is the DVD release of the TWOTW tour, filmed at Wembley Arena, and there’s even talk of a TV series and CGI-animated feature film based on the album.

The success story continues.

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Martians are communicating with one another.

They specifically wanted an ultra-bright, fat-beamed lighting fixture to provide the Fighting Machine’s Heat Ray weapon, and after trying out a few options, chose one of the new 3kW Novalight High Ground searchlights that PRG had just purchased from Lightfactor. At Bray Studios for production rehearsals, they could concentrate on programming the general mood and environmental lighting for each scene, not to mention accompanying the chest-beating “Ulla” cry, again from Wayne’s original composition.

In addition to the Heat Ray, they put four additional Novalight High Grounds along the rear truss, used to illustrate distant Heat Rays, zapping everything in their path as the Martians decimate Earth during their invasion.

Designing the overall lighting rig entailed consideration of three major elements. Firstly, the projector positions (on their own front of stage trusses) dictated a lot in terms of lighting positions. Secondly, they also had to allow for the positioning of the 3D head and Fighting Machine... and thirdly, when lighting the band and stage, they had to be meticulous about containing light spillage on to the screen.

The rig was hung on two straight trusses — front and back, and a U-shaped mid truss that wrapped the stage upstage and along both sides. Fixtures on the rear were 10 Vari*Lite VL3000 Washes and 10 VL3000 Spots. On the ‘U’ truss there were another 10 VL3000 Washes, 12 VL3000 Spots, 20 VL5s, 10 VL6s and four ZR33 smoke machines with fans. These were joined by five Martin Pro Atomic strobes, two VL1000 ARCs and four Novalight High Grounds.

On the front truss were eight VL1000 ARCs, 20 VL3000 Spots and two Washes plus six Atomics with scrollers. The flown bridge also contained five VL2000 Spots. On the floor, downstage left and right were six VL2000 Spots and six Washes, along with 16 VL5s on the floor lighting the ramp linking the front and rear of the stage, which was extensively used by the guest artists. These fixtures also illuminated the belly of the Fighting Machine. Along the back of the stage were six more Atomics with scrollers and the three “whee-oo” Space Flowers.

Inside the Fighting Machine was a Novalight High Ground, two Atomics, four SGM Palco LED floods, two Pars, a ZR33 smoker and a High End Catalyst DL1 from XL Video, fitted with a camera to scan and record from the ‘Martian eye view’ of the audience both during the appropriate moment of the story, but also as an intermission feature, which drew applause from the audience as they saw themselves on the wide screen. With pyro effects also added to the Machine, it’s a wonder there was any room aboard for some actual Martians!

By the time the show was fully programmed and its true intricacy revealed, there were over 1,000 lighting cues in the WholeHog II console, so the timecode control option was invaluable.

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VIDEO XL Video UK provided all the tour’s video requirements, and the medium was absolutely central to the storytelling. The visuals were beamed on to an 80ft wide x 15ft high ‘letterbox’ screen, front projected by eight (four double-stacked) Barco R18 machines, relaying two hours of minutely detailed, high resolution CGI narrative visuals created by Mediastation, and integrated at times with original Victorian footage and still imagery — the daily precision line-up of which fell to Clarke Anderson.

The CGI material and edits of old film stock were specifically made for this tour and new pieces were arriving all the time during pre-production. It all amounted to an intense amount of work and it was impressive how sequences were re-used during the show, without appearing obvious.

“What the audience sees as an overall production was intended to appear simple,” said Wayne, “but the processes involved have been very complex — involving the animation, Victorian imagery, stills, and a three-day film shoot on a blue screen at Hendon Studios, taking 20 actors who then appear like 20,000.”

Above the screen was the imposing Fighting Machine, and to stage right was the large flown 3D head on to which Burton’s image was projected by two Barco ELM G10s.

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productionprofile “I don’t think we ever used the full width of screen, which was designed to be 100ft wide,” said Jonathan Park. “Even at Wembley we were only at 80ft. Fortunately I designed the film in two ratios — 5:1 and 4:1 — so that all bases were covered.”

The tour was project managed for XL by Paul Wood. On the road, XL’s chief engineer Dicky Burford worked with video director Nick Fry and a team of five video technicians to realise the video visions of both Park and Wayne himself. Both were very involved in the process and brought a series of clear directives to the visual mix.

All playback visuals — including the narration — were stored on four twochannel Grass Valley Turbo IDDR hard drives (two pairs run live plus back-up devices) and synched to the audio track via SMPTE timecode. Overall show control was run by one of XL’s new Barco Events Managers.

Nick Fry was brought in by XL’s Chris Mounsor to sensitively direct and overlay playback visuals on to the narrative footage. He cut the mix on one of XL’s Sony DFS700 systems and this was mapped on to the large screen using a Barco Encore system, overseen by Burford.

Throughout the show, there was 28 minutes of what was technically I-Mag. Fry worked with two Sony D50 cameras in the pit, and concentrated on weaving live camera images of the five principals into the action using a maximum of two ‘windows’ at any one time on the main screen. This looked incredibly tasteful. “The brief was to make it look totally unlike standard I-Mag,” said Fry. “We start the show with a third camera on Jeff, who we relay to the centre of the wide screen, just to show the audience who he is because, as the conductor, he has his back to them for most of the show! There was talk of the cameras picking up the musicians on the big screens as well, but when it was tried, it proved too distracting with the animation and footage content already on screen."

Said Wayne: "The way we chose to feature them was by spotlighting each when one was playing a solo or featured part, or with the strings, at given moments as an ensemble unit."

Fry continued: “We mask the I-Mag images in an oval window, positioning them over the CGI sequences on the main screen. The I-Mag images in their raw state would look a little startling when placed over the CGI, so we put them through a filter to soften them down so that they work sympathetically as narrative picture-in-picture insets.”

Mediastation’s skilful merging of actor Aaron Robson’s lip-sync to Burton’s narration on to a stock image of Burton himself tricked many audience members into thinking it was produced by holographic magic rather then a simple video projection, having generated reams of discussion on Internet bulletin boards. “The image is very good, and as close to a hologram as you’ll ever get,” said Fry. “We’ve had a lot of trouble with the lip-sync but Dicky Burford has magnificently sweated over it, adjusting and tweaking, and getting it just right.”

XL also supplied the High End Catalyst DL1 digital moving head fixture mounted in the Fighting Machine, explained Fry. “The DL1 acts as a surveillance camera at certain points in the show, where it picks up roving images of the audience as ‘seen’ by the Machine’s occupants, and we project them on to the wide screen.”

While the live production requires only three hand-held cameras for I-Mag of the highlighted performers, the David Mallet-directed DVD shoot at Wembley imported 22. “That’s the way he likes to do it,” smiled Fry, offering no further opinion!

GOODBYE 'SAFE'... HELLO 'DAUNTING' In charge of the audio mix is Gary Langan, a Grammy Award-winning record producer and engineer who quite literally helped to shape the pop music soundscape of the 1980s and beyond. Working with the renowned Gary Lyons and Roy Thomas Baker, he contributed to Queen’s biggest-selling albums of the ‘70s before playing a key support role to Trevor Horn in the making of classic recordings by ABC and Yes. A founder member of ground-breaking band The Art Of Noise (Horn’s first signing for his ZTT label), Langan also helped to launch the illustrious Metropolis Studios in Chiswick and has continued his enormously successful record production career through to the present.

Few producers have made a successful transition from their safe studio haven to the live FOH mix position, and Langan would be the first to concede that this was not easy. “Jeff’s Musical Version of TWOTW is an original masterpiece of epic proportions and coming out of the studio environment to mix this show live has been a very exciting experience, although it’s taken five or six shows to stop being a rabbit in the headlights and start relaxing into the mix,” said Langan.

“It’s not a normal gig by any stretch of the imagination; it’s a faithful re-creation of the album, and to do this you need to know the album inside out — how it was written and constructed. Because I mixed the latest stereo and 5.1 versions of the album, the task fell to me, even though I kept my head down for a while!

“I’ve done a little bit of live mixing in the past, but nothing on this level, and it’s been daunting. Having said that, pretty much every project I’ve taken on in my life has been daunting — from building Metropolis to working with Trevor Horn — and I enjoy rising to those fast learning curves. So I felt that as long as I found myself a really good team, I’d be OK. I spent about three months researching who could support me, and eventually recommended the guys from Major Tom who are superb.

“Ali Viles [system engineer] and his colleagues are very supportive and I run an open shop, so that if at any time one of them thinks that something could be improved in the mix, they are free to let me know.”

His team included Richard Sharratt, whose long and wide experience with orchestras made him the perfect engineer to mix the strings and guest artists, while Langan concentrated on the band, effects and The Voice of Burton. “I saw Richard mixing La Bohème at the Albert Hall and asked him to partner me on this tour. He’s got the strings sounding absolutely fabulous. His mix feeds into my master desk, and I effectively do a ‘final edit’.”

Like Sharratt, and indeed monitor engineer Robin Fox, Langan’s personal choice

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Top: Jeff Wayne on the big screen; Alexis James as The Artilleryman. Opposite: Tara Blaise and Russell Watson as Beth and her husband, Parson Nathanial; Chris Thompson (The Voice of Humanity) and Justin Hayward (The Sung Thoughts of The Journalist), during afternoon rehearsal. of console was the DiGiCo D5 Live, although he admitted it wasn’t originally at the top of his list. “I considered using the Digidesign Venue,” he said. “I needed a digital console and some form of total recall, that’s for sure. If Jeff had done this 10 years ago, we’d have needed three or four analogue consoles and it would have been an unruly mess.

“We’d had great 24/7 support from Digidesign when I mixed the album and did it all on Pro Tools. So I took a serious look at the Venue but from my point of view, the D5 gave me wider scope for this particular kind of show. I went down to Major Tom in Salisbury for a few days to play around with the D5 using the stems from the album, and quickly decided that this was the desk for the job.

“Because we’re recreating an album that’s thick with overdubs, I need to be able to pan certain instruments otherwise it all sounds clogged up in the middle. In order for the audience to hear a good audio picture wherever they sit, I get round this in some of the venues by running a reverse stereo on the side PA hangs, and the D5 gives me the output matrixing functions that are crucial in this respect.

“I also thought the sound of the console was very clean and it has bucket loads of headroom. The dynamics work really well, EQ is good and it’s all there.

It even beats some studio consoles so I’ve become a real fan! Unlike Richard and Robin, I haven’t delved into the internal effects, which is why I’m still relying on some studio favourites, like Lexicon reverbs, PCM delays and a TC Finalizer.”

SURROUND SOUND To some extent this was a 5.1 surround sound show and it was set up as such, although due to the sizes of some venues, Langan didn’t put too many instruments into the surround because the delay factors from front to rear would have been too vast. However, all the pre-recorded signature effects residing on five channels of the bank of four Tascam MX2424 multitrack playback machines, like the “whee-oos”, were in surround. Depending on the venue, Langan also panned some of the guitars and played with Burton’s voice when he was in dialogue with the artists on stage, to preserve a sense of distance.

Whereas Langan presided over 143 inputs, Robin Fox’s monitor input count totalled 112, keeping both at full stretch, as system tech Ali Viles noted: “All inputs pass through 168 channels of Klark Teknik active splits which distribute the necessary channels to the three D5s. We’ve got 48 tracks of playback, 48 live inputs from the band which come into Gary’s console, we’ve then got 48 strings mics which come into the strings console at FOH and the eight vocal mics come into Richard’s desk as well.

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“Robin takes a split of the 48 live inputs and the eight vocals and then they get strings sub mixed into their D5 on the stage. There aren’t many mixes, but it’s a lot of outputs, and Robin is having to push the console pretty hard. At FOH there are analogue outputs that feed the PA, and we’re also taking 64 tracks direct from the master D5 straight into Pro Tools and recording shows via a MADI split of the 48 live inputs.”

Major Tom supplied a comprehensive Meyer Sound PA package, comprising of 48 MILO and four MILO 120° cabinets, usually flown as 16 deep L/R main arrays and 10 deep side hangs. These were augmented by eight Meyer 700HP subs, flown four per side next to the MILO. Front fills were all Meyer UPA-1Ps and 12 Meyer 600HP Subs were often used as floor and effects subs. The surround system comprised of three hangs of six Meyer Sound MICA cabinets flown left, centre and right at the rear of the arena.

System EQ and delay was handled by two t.c. electronic EQ Stations, allowing the flexibility to deal with the nine flown hangs of PA, along with front fills, outfills, effects subs and so on. These output through three Meyer Sound LD3s from where the signal was distributed around the room for the respective PA positions. Acoustic measurement and analysis was handled by a Meyer SIM3 system, inserted across every channel of the EQ Stations, enabling comprehensive measurement of the entire system.

“Because the Meyer system is self-powered, it reduces the rigging time by about 90 minutes, and that was very important due to the short amount of time we have between shows to set up,” said Langan. “The system has a great warmth and I’m very happy with it.

It seems to be doing the job. And the more boxes I can put together the warmer the whole thing gets.”

“At times — especially when the soundtrack featured mighty explosions — one was aware of an enormous, fat bottom end. Langan commented: “Musically, there are so many elements that are in the lower spectrum. There’s a huge 40" orchestral bass drum that is virtually subsonic, then some very low synths, and cellos and basses in the orchestra, not to mention Herbie’s bass guitar. Even Richard Burton’s voice is quite bassy, and all are vying for space in the bottom end, so I have to be very constructive about how I manage it with the D5’s onboard compression and not let go of the reins.

“Richard’s voice is the most difficult to control because the recording wasn’t designed to project clearly over a band in a 100 metre arena, so I have six EQ presets that I fire throughout the show to make sure I’m getting the best out of him — he’s kind of like the lead singer.”

HEADSETS The likes of Justin Hayward and Chris Thompson have rarely, if ever, performed with headset mics. But TWOTW, leaning towards the theatrical as it does, saw them and their fellow artists forced into wearing them.

Commented Langan: “It’s been a bit of a learning curve for both of them, particularly, because they’ve spent their whole careers working a regular mic. But Jeff’s position was our artists were playing ‘characters’ within a story, and not performing within a concert environment, so hand-held mics simply weren’t appropriate. Justin and Chris responded positively and that issue was resolved.

"The mics are all wireless and come from the AKG 4000 series system, and they’re wearing the DPA 4066 omni headsets apart from a couple who are using the new DPA 4088 cardioid headset.”

Drums, percussion and the orchestra were the only other items that were miked — everything else went through Klark Teknik or BSS active DI boxes.

Langan uses AKG 414s on cymbal overheads, clip-on Shure B98 mics for toms, SM57s on top and bottom snare, an AKG 451 on hi-hat, a D112 on bass drum, 414s for percussion, and a Schertler on harp.

Schertlers of different types were also used on all 48 of the orchestral instruments and the amazing Persian Tar, performed brilliantly by Gaëtan Schurrer on ‘Horsell Common & The Heat Ray’.

All the performers were either using wired or wireless Shure or AKG in-ear systems in place of any form of on-stage monitor wedges. The ‘silent stage’ was aided not only by the absence of monitor wedges, but also a backline-free zone. Microphone spill was also further minimised by a perspex drum kit screen.

With the keyboards, mandolin, bass and acoustic guitars all going through Klark Teknik or BSS active DI boxes, the two electric guitarists played through Line 6 processing systems that helped to perfectly recreate the original album sounds, and send direct signals to Langan.

Conventional music stands for the written score were replaced on this show by MusicPad Pro Plus electronic music pads by Freehand Systems. Being a continuous play work, the amount of physical page turns for each musician would have proven a nightmare. Wayne had been told about a couple of different electronic ‘paperless’ systems by his musical associate, Richard Ihnatowicz, and it was agreed this was the only way to go.

"They are simply elegant and reliable," said Wayne, with Langan quipping: “As if we haven’t got enough technology on this tour already, Jeff decides to eliminate all paper parts! But they are a great invention — it’s an A4 size screen with a black surround, and the musicians ‘turn’ the pages either by pressing the touch-

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sensitive screen, on the right to go forward, or the left to go backward, or depressing a foot switch. You can modify your own parts, highlight them in any colour you wish and even link them to a ‘slave’ monitor, which we also did employ.

"The people who loved them immediately were our string players, which was unexpected because we thought if there would be any opposition it might be from them, but they really fell for them.”

As Langan confirmed, this show could not have been performed if it were not for click tracks, and with Gaëtan Schurrer (an associate of Wayne's for 18 years) he came up with a very modern solution to an age-old problem. He said: “Every take of each composition was different and the BPM timings wavered simply because of the ‘live’ approach Jeff took to the

recordings. But using Pro Tools and a software program called Beat Detective, Gaëtan was able to derive a metronome click from the original album, which took him several months of work.

The clicks come from the Tascam machines and there are two types plus a vocal count-in track. That supplies the timecode basis for the whole show, although I won’t run from the timecode, because I think it’s dangerous. I know the D5 can do it, and there’s a side of me that says this would help me so much, because I do have so many cues to run through, but it’s too scary for me so I run the board manually!”

Has this tour given Langan a taste for the live world? “The bigger the venue, the more I love it! I didn’t think I’d enjoy it. It was scary at first because it’s like a big, unwieldy beast that you need to tame, and

you can’t stop and do a re-take. It makes you realise how much of a comfort zone the studio is. I had to be disciplined, and not ‘fanny around’ like I would normally do in a studio, where I can spend hours tweaking EQs. “With this, I just have to get stuck in, and once the show is running and the Tascams are rolling, it doesn’t stop for 48 minutes until the end of Act One. It can get exhausting, but yes, I have developed a taste for this. I might even have to place an ad in the back of Total Production... live engineer for hire!”

COMMITMENT Tour rehearsals overlapped each other. On the music front, Wayne spent three weeks routining the band at Music Bank in London, before moving to Bray Studios

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productionprofile for three days where the production elements were waiting. Then the ULLAdubULLA strings arrived on the second and third day for complete runthroughs... literally from scratch.

“We were then ready to move to Bournemouth’s BIC for a dress rehearsal in front of around 300 people. That helped us gauge what the audience response would be like the following night when the tour opened there on April 13.”

Without exception, everyone in the crew gave 120% on this tour, said Jonathan Park. “They’ve been so keen on the project and wanted it to succeed.

But, with constant back-to-back shows and very long working hours, that commitment was also necessary.”

The April tour spanned just 14 dates in total. Perhaps booking the show into the likes of the Royal Albert Hall was rather akin to putting a size 10 foot into a size 6 boot, because in every sense it was designed for larger arenas, like Wembley, Birmingham’s NEC and Manchester’s MEN. Such experience will hopefully govern future plans for the production because, as Wayne informed us: “We’ve already had a variety of international interests and a

proposal for an expanded tour of the UK in late 2007, including the new 20,000seat O2 Dome in Greenwich.”

And so, having lived with his own personal visualisation of a live production of his album for the last 28 years, how does Wayne now feel? “It’s wonderful — literally a dream come true,” he said, with a wide grin. “I’ve always loved conducting anyone’s music live, be it orchestras or bands. But, of course, I’m conducting my own musical work with TWOTW which is a terrific bonus.

“Fortunately I’m working with worldclass people in every department. The musicians and guest artists are incredibly talented as well as warm individuals, but it’s the people you don’t see on stage who have also made this production happen.

There’s been almost 200 people involved and I'm very appreciative that they've all been so dedicated to bringing this to fruition.

I think everyone’s very proud of what’s been achieved.”

TPi Photography by Diana Scrimgeour & Mark Cunningham Additional material by Louise Stickland

Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War Of The Worlds 2006 UK & Ireland Tour — Key Personnel & Suppliers: Promoters: Live Nation UK/SJM Concerts • Musical Director, Producer & Conductor: Jeff Wayne • Producer: Damian Collier • Executive Producer: Ray Jones • Creative Director: Micha Bergese • Set Designer/Art Director: Jonathan Park/Studio Park • Production Director & Lighting Design: Steve Nolan/Chromatic Productions • Production Stage Manager: Kevin Hopgood • Production Co-ordinator: Susie Jolley • Costume Designer: Rachel Walsh • Make-Up Designer: Fred Letallieur • Orchestral Manager: John Langley • PA: Major Tom • FOH Engineer: Gary Langan • FOH (Orchestral) Engineer: Richard Sharratt • Monitor Engineer: Robin Fox • Systems Technician: Ali Viles • Sound Technicians: Martin Walker, Malcolm Giles, Rob Hughes • Backline Technicians: James Breward, Barrie Evans, Allan Terry • Lighting: PRG Europe • Associate Lighting Designer: Ben Cracknell • Lighting Crew Chief: Gavin Norris • Lighting Technicians: John Henterton, Phil Sharp, Lars Christiansen • Video Screens, Cameras & PPU: XL Video UK • Video Director: Nick Fry • Video Engineer: Paul Maddock-Jones • Video Technicians: Richard Burford, Paul Barry, Clarke Anderson, Gavin Thompson, Mark Cruickshank • CGI: Mediastation • Set Construction: Steel Monkey Engineering • Rigging: Knight Rigging Services • Head Rigger: Sven Knight • Riggers: Andy Bella, Omar Franchi • Carpenters: Ollie Brown, Gurney Peterson • Wardrobe: Emma Bull • Catering: Eat Your Hearts Out • Caterers: Chris Desmond, Jolene Desmond, Scott Findlay, Sean Leitch, Adam Ireland • Trucking: Redburn Transfer • Truck Drivers: Herbie Bayliss-Smith, Neil Pettitt, Davey Forbes, Robert Atkin, Andrew Barr, John Ward • Buses: Silver Gray • Bus Drivers: Ron Tasker, Paul Robinson, Karl Nolan, Andy Saunders, Geoff De Valliere • Publicity: LD Communications

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