After 38 years, iconic innovators of synth-pop Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark finally returned to Australia! Celebrating 45 years in music, former school friends Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphries played their catalogue of hits that include some of the most beloved songs of the 80s.
On the first night of two sold-out shows at Sydney’s Enmore Theatre, the production crew were relaxed and in good spirits, the sign of an experienced and cohesive team.
Aaron Buck has worked as OMD’s monitor engineer for nine years, but after seven years at the console, he could feel he needed a bit of a challenge! So, two years ago, he also took on the role of Production Manager under the suggestion of their Tour Director, Ryan Westbrook.
“We did a UK arena tour back end of last year, which was very good, where I got my teeth into it,” said Aaron. “We do a lot of these fly around the world and pick up local production, which is a little bit easier. We’ve got a semi we’re travelling with around the East Coast now, which obviously has the audio control package, backline, video wall and a lighting floor package.”
ei Productions supplied this run of the tour, and Aaron was impressed by their commitment and communication.
Aaron, who also runs monitors for Travis Scott and Anastasia, decided this tour would be his last using an old faithful Midas Pro 2.
“When we finish in Wellington in a couple of weeks, I’ll put that one to bed, and I’ll upgrade,” he remarked. “I’m going on to a DiGiCo, which I use for all my other shows, so it makes sense. The Pro 2s are getting a bit old now, and the manufacturer no longer supports them.”
Aaron hadn’t had a chance to transfer the OMD show to the DiGiCo, saying the band doesn’t like to rehearse very often and doesn’t like to soundcheck. He is doing multi-track recordings on this tour, which he will take to a local sound company back home. He will run an offline soundcheck to sort and introduce the files in America.
“It’s quite a simple audio setup really, only 44 channels of audio inputs from the stage,” commented Aaron. “We’ve got eight channels of Sennheiser EW300 G3 IEMs, a couple of Martin Audio WS218X subs onstage for sidefill, we use 4ch Shure UR handheld + beltpacks for the Andy and Paul, and there’s quite a lot of electronic gear on stage. There are only seven live microphones on stage; the rest are all DI. We’ve got a Pro Tools rack and everything that comes in. It’s quite challenging to mix the live vocals in with the heavily processed DI input.”
The vocal mics used to be Shure Beta 58s; however, Aaron switched to a Shure KSM8 capsule, which has worked out very well. On digital keyboards, Paul Humphreys and Martin Cooper play Keyboards run into MainStage which are DI’d, whilst Stuart Kershaw on drums has an Audio Technica A2500 in the kick drum, which is a dual diaphragm mic.
“It’s a pretty standard setup with a Shure SM57 on the snare, Neumann KM184 on the bottom of the snare and the hi-hat and a Sennheiser 904 on the floor tom,” added Aaron.
As the band mixes and produces their records, they have a very acute ear, and, according to Aaron, the singer’s mix sounds just like the record.
“Andy’s mix is just like listening to a record, so it’s easy for me to know what he’s missing and needs,” said Aaron.
Aaron has no outboard gear and prefers to mix everything in the console, mainly for consistency worldwide. If he can’t get a specific unit and relies on that unit for the sound, it puts him in a bad situation.
At FOH, Sound Engineer Dan MacBean mixed on a DiGiCo SD12, his console of choice, mainly because you can get them everywhere. Like Aaron, he sticks to onboard effects only, and he says he has little in the way of challenges as the band is so good.
“They’ve been going since 1832 haven’t they?” he quipped. “So they know what they’re doing, which is nice. Much of the show comprises samples, tracks, etc., but a good chunk is live. I have the usual EQ and a bit of comp – nothing fancy. It’s all straight down the line with the live stuff, and the bass is a bass. It’s a great bass sound, which is good. All the gear is good, which makes my life a lot easier. And I’ve got a Shure SM57 on the snare tonight, which I’m pleased about because I’ve had one for years. It’s great. It’s not complicated and it’s hard to mess up.”
Dan was pleased that the PA in The Enmore was an L-Acoustics V-Dosc as they usually tour K1 or K2 in Europe. However, their Perth gig utilized a d&b audiotechnik KSL setup, which he loved using.
Lighting designer Paul Bird, who has been with OMD since 2018, said the Australian rig was similar to what they had for their UK arena tour last year.
“The floor package is the same, but we utilise and clone into house rigs daily,” he added. “It’s a more intimate show, but we try to make it look and feel big.”
When he started working with OMD, Paul was lighting tech for Andy Liddle, their designer at the time, and he says that he has kept the fundamentals of that design.
“This run builds on the previous UK tour design,” he remarked. “It’s the first tour that has relied so heavily on video content for most tracks. With the band producing a series of videos for the Bauhaus Staircase album, we use a few of those on the screen. Lighting often takes more of a back step on those, but is there to complement it.”
The Enmore’s flown rig of 10 x Martin MAC Viper Wash DX and 10 x MAC Viper Profiles were utilized, with Ayrton Diablos used on the UK run. The floor package consists of 14 x Martin MAC Aura PXL, 4 x Ayrton Eurus, 16 x JDC-1 and 4 x LED Duet.
“The MAC Aura PXL is a great upgrade to what we used to have with MAC Auras,” said Paul. “The Ayrton Eurus’ gives us a lot of versatility on the floor upstage, super tight beams for tracks like Joan of Arc stretching up over the band, and some lovely aerial effects during tracks like Souvenir and Dreaming.
“Then we’re also still rocking the GLP JDC-1s underneath the risers with screen facades, giving us huge saturated blocks of pixelmapped colour whilst allowing us to use their strobe elements fully.”
Paul has been a long-time Avolites user, but he switched to MA Lighting MA3 for this tour primarily to help him load fixture exchanges and recipe lines when on tour.
“Coming in and just being able to exchange fixtures and use recipes as opposed to having to redo everything probably saves us a couple of hours a day in fixture cloning,” he stated. “I found the transition easy. It took a week or so programming the show in MA3 with a command wing and Depence R3 in the office.”
Video Director Pete Cross commented that screen-wise, the setup is quite simple with an Infiled Vuepix LED Screen. He says playback is also easy with a primary and backup Resolume server at front of house, a couple of laptops and a little rack that the band now owns.
“This is the first tour we’ve done with Resolume,” he said. “Previously, we were on an ArKaos system that was a bit long in the tooth, so we’ve upgraded it along with the lighting console. But it’s essentially a time-coded show, with content just playing back to time code.
“It is nice and easy on this tour – apart from the Jet lag!”
