FEATURE PRODUCTION
Uniting the Nation
Red TX
Celebrating 20 years of the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust, Unity – A Concert for Stephen Lawrence attracted a number of high-profile artists to London’s O2 arena. Jory MacKay was there on the day to see how the Red TX crew handles such a major production.
AS SOUNDCHECK ticks past the scheduled 6pm cut- off time the voices coming out of the comm system in Red TX’s Red 1 OB truck begin to overlap more frequently as show director Paul Dugdale makes the call to push back doors and continue the final few checks. Inside the truck, sound supervisor Tim Summerhayes is dealing with a last minute nasty hum that has suddenly appeared on one of the keyboard channels. “We all could have used
one more day with this one,” he says, his characteristically good-natured tone overlapped by competing voices. Fifteen acts in two and a half hours – almost doable if we’re talking about stand-up comedians or maybe karaoke but a tall order when the
28 November 2013
line-up is a venerable who’s who of the UK music industry. Celebrating 20 years of the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust’s work towards overcoming discrimination and racism in the UK, Unity – A Concert for Stephen Lawrence, attracted artists ranging from rappers Plan B and Dizzee Rascal to jazz pianist Jamie Cullum and chart-toppers Rita Ora, Emeli Sandé, and Labrinth (not to mention Beverley Knight, Ed Sheeran, Rudimental, Rizzle Kicks, Ellie Goulding, Tinie Tempah, Jessie J, and Jahmene Douglas and the London Community Gospel Choir). Each artist was scheduled
to perform two songs: one original and a cover that they found meaningful to the cause of the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust.
“Outside of our three-man crew, we all know the people on the TV side and there’s a mutual respect – we know these people are at the top of their game and we know they’re going to do their job.” Tim Summerhayes
The Red TX crew,
comprising sound supervisor Tim Summerhayes and recording engineer Ollie Nesham with Ben Summerhayes interfacing and cross-patching at the stage, were given a daunting task: load-in Saturday evening, soundcheck and fix any problems Sunday during the day, show Sunday night, mix and tidy-ups Monday morning with delivery due Monday afternoon for a broadcast on BBC One on Tuesday. Yet after a busy summer festival season including coverage of Download,
Wireless, Hard Rock Calling, as well as The Rolling Stones at Hyde Park, veteran Tim Summerhayes seems well practiced as he goes through the shows 100+ channels fed from Adlib Audio on his Studer Vista 8 console (“at a festival, the first song is the sound check”, comments Nesham). With the show’s line-up demanding the highest-level of production, Tim and his crew were set on capturing as much of the live atmosphere as possible. “We suspended eight [mics] from the catwalk in the roof and another eight
around the stage to get in close proximity of the atmosphere,” explains Summerhayes after the show. “The blend of the two made it sound just huge. “We interfaced on a
one-to-one split with Adlib so every microphone and source was split three ways. One to us, one to FOH and one to the monitors system – everything was a three-way split,” he continues. “We ended up with 96 feeds from the stage plus our 16 ambience.” Summerhayes is quick to praise the work of musical director Kojo Samuel, who
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Ed Sheeran was joined on stage by Rizzle Kicks
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