"I don't have posters on my bedroom walls, I have framed platinum discs..." so says 18 year old Canadian Avril Lavigne, whose debut album, Let Go, has already earned quadruple platinum status along with this year's five Grammy nominations.
If she was a talentless, over-marketed upstart, such cockiness would be irritating. In truth, she's a fine, confident singer who projects herself with a professionalism that belies her tender years and experience - not that there's much tenderness about her live performances.
She's taken the punk label to her heart and won the attention of skateboarding youths all over the world with her hits 'Complicated' and 'Sk8ter Boi', although her appeal is already broadening with sensitive tunes like 'I'm With You'. It's no surprise that she's by-passed support slots to headline her first tour which, true to the image, is titled Try To Shut Me Up.
Parents who fondly remember the New Wave era are also approving of the young Avril, and have not been slow to accompany their worshipping kids to gigs such as the Brixton Academy show (yes, I took my daughters!). Whether or not Avril's lyrical tantrums form a appropriate soundtrack to my own offspring's teenage years remains to be seen, but their enthusiasm for this gig (over and above sanitised Pop Idol alternatives) filled me with a warm glow, it has to be said.
Try To Shut Me Up is a classic case of a tour being booked before the full commercial potential of the artist has been realised! Although it was possible to upgrade venues in some cities, the promoters were stuck with a list of dates which didn't quite meet the demands of the new Lavigne phenomenon.
As Production Manager Paul Runnals explained: "We were stuck with a few venues that we wished we'd skipped, but Brixton was always a room we wanted to play because it's a fantastic experience for Avril. Fortunately there have only been two shows where we couldn't get all the production in."
In Europe, the tour was transported by two artics and a 17 tonne truck, whereas the follow on American leg required four trucks plus a merchandising wagon. This is symptomatic of the increased production over the pond, where a Nocturne-supplied video system was added (I-Mag and a central set of three LED screen panels), along with more staging and an expanded lighting design. "We're selling 270 degrees so the audience are spread around the wings a little," said Runnals, who like most of the core crew is Canadian. "Avril's only about five feet tall so the video will help keep the audience connected to her."
BLUE BOXES & DIGITAL SOUND
Having production managed Avril's fellow punksters Sum 41's recent tour, it was assumed that Runnals would stay with Capital Sound for the European PA supply. So why the switch to Britannia Row? "I have a good relationship with Martin Connolly and his team at Capital, but for this it came down to system familiarity and [FOH Sound Engineer] Mark LeCorre was looking to use the Turbosound Flashlight/Floodlight combination, so Brit Row became the obvious choice for us. They have a connection with our North American vendor which was formerly Jasonsound and is now Soundart, based just outside of Toronto."
LeCorre, who numbers the fabulous Dido among his most recent touring credits, elected to use the Yamaha PM1D digital console at FOH. After mixing on it during the BRIT Awards in 2002, this is his first opportunity to use the PM1D on a tour. He commented: "It seems the way to go. Everything's there - the on-board dynamics and effects are excellent, it's a good sounding desk. I just thought the time had come to venture into a new territory and it's been a worthwhile move.
"Getting familiar with the PM1D isn't too difficult. Probably getting round the input and insert patching is the most challenging aspect, although the actual operating of the desk is surprisingly quick to learn and easier than an 02R."
Would LeCorre happily return to analogue? "I'd probably be more comfortable working on an analogue desk like an XL4 or H3000, but only because I've spent so many years on that type of desk. However, the good thing for this tour is that we can rent another PM1D over in America and simply insert a card. My settings are then instantly loaded from the Europe leg and I'm about 97% of the way to reproducing the mix from the last show. Fortunately, the PM1D has fast become a standard for digital mixing over the world, and it's pretty easy to find one to rent in most territories."
Monitor Engineer Dave Pallett shares the same appreciation. "It's a wonderful piece of kit," he said. "Like Mark, I just plug in the card and straight away I have eight stereo monitor mixes ready to work with for soundcheck."
As is the norm with digital desks, the usual rack effects are integral, but for Avril, LeCorre is using the same vocal chain as he had for Dido. "It's a Focusrite Session Pack which includes a high quality mic pre-amp, compressor and EQ, plus I have a de-esser, tube compressor and a BSS DPR-901 dynamic EQ. The majority of your audience will be listening to the vocals more than anything else, so that vocal chain is pretty crucial to me and I prefer to keep it all in the analogue world."
Pallett is also impressed with the desk's space-saving benefits: "I'm loving the fact that I can process the in-ear mixes within the console. Apart from some sidefills and a drop sub it's a complete Sennheiser e 300 in-ear situation on stage. Normally I would insert Aphex Dominators on the in-ear mixes for protection but I find it's not necessary with the PM1D - all the internal processing does the job well."
SUPPORT
Sennheiser has fully sponsored the tour and both LeCorre and Pallett have been more than satisfied with the consistency of the mic and IEM performances, as well as the manufacturer's support. Avril is using a Sennheiser evolution ew 565 wireless microphone with an 865 capsule, of which LeCorre said: "I suppose it's more at the economy end of the range, but I think it has a better sounding compander circuit than the more expensive models. It has a nice tight pattern which is ideal because on the occasions when she's singing softly, the crowd are still very loud and there's enough mic rejection to get us through.
"There are lots of frequencies to chosse from, too [nearly 1,300 switchable UHF frequencies], so we've never had any problems from drop-outs."
Somehow, a few Shure SM57s have crept on to the stage. "I have a prototype of a new, updated e609 on Evan Taubenfeld's Boogie guitar rig, and a Shure 57 on Jesse Colburn's Marshall stack, which is a classic pairing of mic and amp. We also have a 57 on the snare, and the rest of the mics on the kit are all Sennheiser - an e602 on kick drum, e604s on toms, Neumann KM 184s on overheads, plus hi-hat and ride. Evan uses a Neumann KMS 105 for his backing vocals and Jesse uses a Sennheiser e835." Sennheiser evolution e100 wireless systems are also used for guitars and bass.
LeCorre's choice of the Turbosound system was primarily influenced by the nature of the venues. "We've played a lot of weird rooms on this tour - 8,000 seaters one day, and 1,200 the next! I would have liked to use a line array rig but I doubt if it would have been right for a lot of the venues. I think the Turbo rig is better suited, coverage-wise, to Brixton Adademy and it's sounding good in here. It's a fairly rocky and raw sound, and there's no point in taming it too much."
Being Avril's first tour, it's also her first experience of stage monitoring, therefore going straight to in-ear monitoring was a cinch. "Her band are almost as inexperienced as she is, so for all of them IEM is a normal state," advised Pallett. "The trouble with in-ears is that the isolation that a singer feels means that they are less likely to project their voices powerfully, because their voices sound so close in their head. When it really notices is when the frontperson is addressing the audience, and talks very quietly!"
TEAMING UP ON LIGHTS
Reflecting their association on the recent Sum 41 tour, lighting suppliers Neg Earth Lighting and Christie Lites have carved up the duties for the European and North American legs.
The lighting was co-designed by Kurt Wagner and Graeme Nicol, who originally specified Martin MAC 500s, 600s and 250s, none of which Neg Earth had in stock. In their place, Dave Ridgway offered some new MAC 2000 washes and High End Studio Spot 250s. In the States, they are staying with the Studio Spots but reverting back to the original MAC specification.
While Wagner remained in the States to liaise with video producer Chris Hooper on video inserts for the American dates, Nicol became the on-the-road operator. He said: "We were originally going to bring the gear from Christie in North America to Europe, but that didn't work out. Fortunately, the MAC 2000s have been very reliable - we haven't lost a single bulb. The 2K for this show doesn't do a lot; it's a lot of lamp for this job. I'm not overly happy with the strobing, but the beams are great."
There's very little in the way of conventional lighting - some MR16 20-lites with colour scrollers, Atomic 3kW and Dataflash strobes, and a few Pars that come up between numbers. The only soft good props are a backdrop with Avril's red star logo and a kabuki drop at the start of the show. Truss is all Thomas A-type - a front and back truss with four 16ft satellite truss lengths with a few moving lights, an Atomic 3kW and colour changers.
"A couple of the songs are very heavy on the strobing and we are using the Atomic 3KWs in anger!" said Nicol. "The Atomics have a variety of strobe looks which range from being Metallica-like to something a lot more subtle. I have some Dataflash in there too but to be fair, I could probably do with more strobe units!
The controller is a GrandMA which Crew Chief Steve Kellaway claimed is the first to be purchased by a UK company. "Christie wasn't able to secure a deal to get Wholehogs and ended up using the GrandMA, which is interesting because Graeme is a Hog programmer!" commented Kellaway. "It's a good console and there's a lot of excellent features on it, but it's difficult to make a smooth transition from a Hog. The good thing about the GrandMA is that you can swap lamps around as long as you go from more parameters to less, rather than the other way round."
Nicol described the show as straight ahead rock'n'roll. "It's been very refreshing for me because I've been lighting some very sensitive shows over the last eight years, such as Diana Krall, Sarah McLachlan, kd lang, Sheryl Crow, Barenaked Ladies... so this is the biggest rock gig I've had in a while."
Avril Lavigne's tour started with one-off gigs in Ohio and Singapore in January, then moved to London for rehearsals at Asylum Studios in preparation for her European leg. She returned to North America in mid-April, and rumours are rife that she'll be heading back to the UK in the autumn to play at arena level. Let the teen revolution begin!
Photography by
Diana Scrimgeour
AVRIL LAVIGNE - TRY TO SHUT ME UP 2003 TOUR - KEY PRODUCTION CREW & SUPPLIERS:
Management: Nettwerk/Shauna Gold
Personal Assistant: Shannon Reddy
Agent: Helter Skelter
Tour Manager: Dan Garnett
Production Manager: Paul Runnals
Staging: Scott Fleary
PA: Britannia Row Productions
FOH Sound Engineer: Mark LeCorre
Monitor Engineer: Dave Pallett
Lighting: Neg Earth Lights
Lighting Design: Graeme Nicol/Kurt Wagner
Backline Techs: George Widule, Chris Switzer
Video (USA only): Nocturne
Lighting Crew: Steve Kellaway (chief), David Palumbi
Sound Crew: Chris Peters (chief), Tristan Farrow
Artiste Security: Joe Self
Freight: Horizon Entertainment Cargo
Catering: Snakatak
Caterers: Stuart Jackson, Helena Robertson, Luise Nealon
Merchandisers: Mikee Cusak, Alex McAuley
Trucking: Stage Truck
Truck Drivers: Terry Foggin, Andy Goddard, Ian Hendry
Buses: Phoenix Bussing
Bus Drivers: Phil Gurney, Megan Griffiths, Chris Howlett