Picture: Total Production International
It’s often the case that the most influential musicians, and those most loved by their peers, are those who never become the highest profile, household names.
Jim Capaldi was one such example. The drummer and lyricist was not only a key member of the highly influential Traffic, but he also had significant solo success and enjoyed collaborations with many of the world’s greatest musicians - Hendrix, Santana, Clapton, George Harrison and Paul Kossoff to name just a few.
Capaldi died of stomach cancer in 2005, at the age of 60, and in January 2007 a fitting tribute concert was held at London’s Camden Town Roundhouse, with all profits going to the Jubilee Action Street Children’s Appeal, a charity which Capaldi’s wife Aninha works for and which he had also helped with.
Simon Kirke, Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens), Dennis Locorriere, Jon Lord, Gary Moore, Pete Townshend, Joe Walsh, Paul Weller, Bill Wyman and, of course, Traffic’s Steve Winwood were just some of rock music’s royalty who were happy to spend an evening performing Traffic and Capaldi’s songs in honour of their former friend and colleague.
Named Dear Mr Fantasy - after the Traffic song of the same name - the show’s varied line-up and inevitable last-minute changes that such ‘all star’ gigs always throw up meant that sound company RPA would be kept on its toes. But where better to give a thorough workout for RPA’s recently purchased Yamaha PM5D console?
“It would have been a very hard show to do with an analogue console,” says RPA owner Ian Grove. “With such a large variety of acts, keeping everything running smoothly was always going to be a challenge and we knew there would be unexpected elements. We didn’t know what some of acts were going to do - for example we didn’t see Pete Townshend until the gig itself.”
He continues: “All of that made the recall side of board extremely useful. It meant we could set up at the rehearsals stage and then only have to tweak during the show. Probably three-quarters of the show was pre-programmed at rehearsals, but we still needed the flexibility of being able to mix on the fly.”
With digital consoles being essential for the show, the sheer number of artists meant that there would be a corresponding number of FOH and monitor engineers. And Ian specced PM5Ds for both positions (the latter console supplied by Britannia Row) for more than just their excellent facilities.
“The main thing was the reliability of Yamaha consoles and that they seem to be the most accepted within the industry,” says Ian. “There are engineers who swear by analogue consoles, but also those who use digital boards get used to a certain operating system, as they’re all slightly different. The combination of facilities, user interface and ease of use on Yamaha digital consoles makes them the most acceptable to the widest selection of engineers. So PM5Ds were the ideal choice for this show.”
Ian also specced a Yamaha 02R, which was used as a sidecar desk for the announcements by event host ‘Whispering’ Bob Harris and as an interface between the PM5D and the separate console used exclusively for Steve Winwood’s set.
Another of the challenges faced by RPA was that the rehearsals used the company’s d&b PA, but the show used Britannia Row’s Outline Butterfly line array system, which had originally been installed in the Roundhouse for the Vodafone Live Music Awards. But the PM5D’s recall safe facility ensured that any potential problems transferring between the different systems were minimised.
“The first time we used the Butterfly system was on the day of the show. Different systems project differently and so we had to make a few changes on the day. The PM5D’s recall safe options meant that we could quickly and easily change some elements of a particular scene, but not have to recall all the parameters,” says Ian.
“For example we could keep a lot of the EQs recall safe, so they stayed the same throughout the programmes, but we could quickly and easily change other parameters. Although I had mixed on PM5Ds previously, it was a facility I’d never really used before. But it was very intuitive, the user interface made it very straightforward. And it’s quite something!”
The PM5Ds certainly had a good workout, all 48 mono input channels and several of the stereo inputs being used as well. “We ran them right up to the limit and they worked flawlessly,” says Ian. “The snapshots and safe recall facilities were absolutely invaluable and it was a clear indicator to me that I had made the right decision to buy a PM5D.
“George (Moore - monitors) said the same - and that he’d have liked me to buy another one!”
Continuing the success, RPA has since taken its PM5D out on tour with Dennis Locorriere, the former lead singer with Doctor Hook.
“Again, we’ve worked the PM5D hard,” says Ian. “Every song has totally different settings, it’s all done on recalls, one program per song. There are eight effects used on one song alone. We’ve pushed the console to its maximum capability and it’s taken it all in its stride.”
Picture: Total Production International
