Britannia Row and Urban Audio sound out Oasis’ reunion tour

Britannia Row Productions and Urban Audio have joined forces to design and deploy the live audio requirements of Oasis' historical return.

An incredible 1.4 million tickets sold instantly for the UK & Ireland shows, followed by dates in Europe, North and South America, Australia and Asia. The task of planning, designing, engineering and mixing the perfect stadium sound has called for unfaltering teamwork, an L-Acoustics PA system, and a dual Yamaha board set-up.

FOH engineers Dan Lewis and Sam Parker are at the helm of the mix. Dan, who is co-owner of Urban Audio, began his Oasis journey in 2002, even stepping into the FOH position on their last tour. He has also mixed Liam's Beady Eye and Noel's High Flying Birds.

"When a band the size of Oasis splits, it generates its own touring entities and reintegrating that is always going to be an interesting exercise,” he said. 

“We've integrated both camps on this tour, and in the planning phase, it became obvious that if the technology and the space is available to keep Liam and Noel in a place they're happy with, doing the tour this way, with the both of us at FOH, made perfect sense. After all this time apart, they have loyalties to their crews too, and I'm in a very fortunate position in that Noel trusts me to get on with what I need to do."

"Dan's been doing this for such a long time, he knows exactly what Noel wants, but there are few precedents for having two FOH engineers," added Parker, who has most recently been mixing Liam’s solo tours. "I'm here to look after the vocal; Dan presents a very easy platform for me to throw him a couple of feeds; I buss Liam’s processed vocal and effects group to him, but Dan’s in charge of the overall show volume and complying with site limits wherever we go.”

The pair are mixing on dual Yamaha Rivage PM5s from Urban Audio's inventory. Lewis continued: "It's been really nice having another set of FOH ears, and we've also got Callum Marinho, Noel's studio engineer, doing multi-track recordings and generating a broadcast mix for socials. We do want to keep things as simple as possible, so I try to make all my effects and processing easy to translate inside a reverberated stadium."

"I keep hearing people ask, 'What have you done to Liam's voice?'" said Parker. "But I've not done anything! He's got to turn up with that voice in the first place. He's just happy to be here, he's in his element, and it's clear that he's comfortable on stage and therefore singing at his best - that's what people are hearing.

“A lot of thought has been put into how the PA interacts with what goes on on-stage. Liam's not a fan of too much low end up there, and we've done our best to try and steer that away from his position to a lower frequency and ensure we're not flooding the stage."

While the tour ships the control package worldwide, Production Manager Tony Gittins advocated that the sheer amount of PA needed for eager audiences would come from Britannia Row / Clair Global for global feasibility.

"On my part, it was a very easy decision to make, because of my long-term relationship with Britannia Row," continued Lewis. "I've known [account executive] Dave Compton and Josh Lloyd, who designed the PA, for many years. Sam used L-Acoustics products on Liam's last solo tour with Skan PA, so it all slotted into place rather quickly, knowing that Britannia Row would undertake looking after the K1/K2 system.

"Working with a team we've known for a long time, and whose opinions we trust on everything - including who they bring out on the road - makes everything easier. I'd never worked with Ben Webb, our systems engineer, before, but he's smashing it out of the park. We've got an all-star cast out here. That's been very evident during load-ins; there's no flapping, no shouting, no running. It's cool, calm and that's just one of the reasons to go with Britannia Row; you know you'll get that atmosphere.

"Plus, as Urban Audio, I don't have to worry about the PA pressure, and that's where Clair Global really swings into action. We know we're both doing a good job. I've known Dave Compton for so long that once we had the agreement in place on where the dividing line would be and what we'd need from each other for us to make this work perfectly, we’ve gotten on with it."

Britannia Row's resident system designer, Josh Lloyd, is no stranger to Oasis’s tour sound either, having been their Monitor Tech pre-split. He noted how the industry has grown up since the band’s earlier days: "On a personal level, it's so nice to be involved with Oasis again. 20 years ago, we were really pleased with what we achieved on their tours, but we know so much more as an industry now. Audio technology has really matured, and what we can design has really come a long way.

"Oasis is a pure rock & roll band, they're playing organically, with raw talent and instruments, and it wasn't until we got to the first show in Cardiff and flew the PA that we knew our design had really paid off. Being able to model everything in SoundVision, L-Acoustics' modelling software, is a huge advantage, but the reality is, we don't know how a system will perform on site with weather, venue acoustics or how it will interact in that space on the day, until we're there.

"Dan and Sam have got a great understanding of what the band are after, and it's always nice to work with FOH engineers who have a clear direction in terms of what they need out of the PA. Where it's been possible to put ring delays into venues, we have done. There was a real emphasis on the audio team being able to place the speakers as needed, and optimising the show design around the tour sound was very important. Oasis are an audio band, and that's what people come for. I think people can forget what rock & roll actually is, but there's something about Oasis that gives a live rock performance a certain exciting energy."

Lloyd's design, created in unison with Dan, has K1 main hangs with K1 side and delay hangs, used partly down to the SPL of the box being well-suited to large stadium format sound.

Lloyd continued: "We've got a lot of K1SB’s on top of the main and side K1 hangs to help extend the line length and get some pattern control into the low frequency. We’ve flown K1SB’s next to the main arrays both to get the tonality that Oasis likes as well as helping us with pattern control. The design means we can steer that low energy correctly and it enables us to get the directivity we want for both Liam and Noel. 

"As Liam likes to hear a bit of the low end from the PA, and Noel doesn't like any, so there was a lot of effort put into making sure that Liam had the right amount of energy coming back off the PA while we created a pocket to ensure that where Noel stands, he doesn't.”

He added: “We have loads of impact out front for fans and can keep the band happy on stage. We've got KS28's on the ground in a large sub arc / cardioid sub arc formation (physically and electronically arced), and various K2 boxes for rear hangs and down fills in the main and side hangs, K3 is being used as front fills and A15 for out fills."

The system is controlled and powered by L-Acoustics' LA12X's with dual redundant Milan audio transport throughout.

Lloyd continued: "It's worked out really well, having two FOH engineers, because of the busyness of certain points in their songs. On top of that, having two engineers means having two opinions to bounce off. And the results speak for themselves."

The tour is playing a variety of venues; indoor, outdoor, stadium and festival sites, but all eyes were on Manchester when Oasis came home to the city’s Heaton Park location, a greenfield site in a residential area, now with a 5db lower noise limit than the last time they played there.

"The first night at Heaton Park was what I was most nervous about," said Lewis. "It mostly comes down to system design and how you fly it, but the K1 box, I feel, suits the genre very well. With the hype surrounding this gig, there was no way that we could come out conservatively... we had to come out swinging, and the PA design is proving to be spectacular in any venue and in all conditions."

Manning the system day-to-day, Systems Engineer Ben Webb furthered: "A challenge was making sure the off-site noise was within the new level constraints at Heaton Park. I obtained the design of the ground with a LiDAR scan and verified the delay tower positions in response to the design, ensuring we were covering the entire audience zone. Dan and Sam are very good at what they do, and I know what they need from the PA system, but keeping consistency, especially with the FOH position being off centre at Heaton Park, there was an even bigger challenge to get it right. Saying that, Josh's design means that you can hear everything so well over the crowd, and it’s controlled off-site noise brilliantly."