It's hard not to like Busted as a concept or as a band in the current popped-out planet in which we exist. An eclectic mix of styles - art school to thrash, AC/DC, Offspring, Sum 41, Ash and Blink-182 - packaged in rock 'n' roll attitude and sonographic delight. Assorted and wide ranging sex appeal (the gorgeous, the photogenic geek and the party animal) traverses the fanbase's lad/ette gender divide.

With character and individuality to appeal to most teen and sub-teen tastes, it's also great to see a few more boys in the audience, and there's enough musical credibility to pull in a healthy array of gig-going parents. Consequently, there were plenty of guest list requests for the current tour from mums and dads within our industry!

A breath of fresh air, Busted do play their guitars, they sing live, there's no dancers, just Charlie, James and Matt, a three piece backing band, an explosively energetic show and shed loads of entertainment value. But most of all, it's definitely a rock show.

Busted have been nurtured and brought on over the last 18 months which has seen a meteoric rise to stardom, a number one single, two top 10 hits, a double platinum album plus a BRIT Award for Best Breakthrough Act, without as much as a pause for breath. And now they can add a sold out UK arena tour to their list of achievements.

On the live front they've aligned themselves with the capable and experienced gurus of pop shows, Production North. The tour is production managed by the rock steady Iain Whitehouse, and in keeping with the company's ethos, a chilled, friendly on-the-road atmosphere merges seamlessly with quality production values.

It's the second Production North tour with Busted. The first was last year's excitement-stoking sold out theatre foray, during which their third single 'You Said No (Crash & Burn)' stormed to number one.

This gave Busted an invaluable grounding in the art of live performance, learning how to use a stage set and play the audience, and also how to respect the more mundane requests like turning down at times, without dampening the copious enthusiasm. The theatre tour also allowed Production North to get a good percentage of the crew in place before it all went supersonic.

When the band walked into production rehearsals this time around and saw the set, they were blown away. The band themselves had some input to the show, explains Whitehead, and their comments about the staging and video content were taken onboard. Designed by Whitehead, in consultation with Prestige Management's Richard Rashman and Matt Fletcher, and built by LiteStructures with drapes from Hangman, it's based around a myriad of access ramps, so Busted can zoom around stage safely at breakneck speeds. The stairs are all also designed to be double depth to facilitate being climbed easily while on the run.

For 'big rock show' look, Whitehead chose grilled walkways allowing plenty of light and smoke to permeate from below. Naturally, there's a couple of gags in the show - person lifts at the stage edges and a hydraulic lift upstage centre, which elevates Charlie and his drum kit for his "look I play drums, too" solo piece. There are also side walkways left and right of the stage allowing them to can get close to those grounded in the seats almost parallel to the stage.

"The basic concept with the set and stage design is all about getting The Boys out there to the fans," explains Whitehead, who knows the psychological importance of the band getting close to the audience.

They decided early on to have a large LED screen at centre stage - an imposing 60 square metres of Unitek 17mm - although Whitehead was concerned that it shouldn't dominate the show. He brought Peter Barnes on-board as video consultant and co-ordinator, to compile and collate the assorted video playback material and make sure the screen content worked for the show.

They also wanted to make it look different. Here, Barnes came up with the show-stopping idea of splitting the screen into three jagged sections for the encore, complete with sub-hung lighting trusses that flew into and blasted through the gaps. There are no themed sections to the show, but the encore change in look is truly awesome in drama and effect that nothing else much is needed. By that time, the senses are already on rock show overload.

The essence of the Busted show is to make it memorable for the audience. Although the age gap is more varied and gender-balanced than many contemporary pure pop acts, there's still plenty of very young fans having their first concert experience.

All video is being supplied to Production North by Blink TV, with XL Video supplying hardware and crew to Blink. Blink's skilful and effective pre-show videologues wind the audience up like a coiled spring of hormonal excitement till just before the band are about to take the stage. Live video director is Ruary Macphie, whose shows have a penchant for combining innovation and appropriateness. He mixes the three-camera I-Mag using a GVG Vision mixer. The three cameras are fed to the centre screen and sub-switched to the two 16 x 12ft side screens by John Steele, consuming all three Mix Effects on the GVG. The I-Mag mix is cut tight and fast to match the pace of the show.

The VT playback material is a collage of moving graphics created by the Catalyst system run off Lighting Designer Graham Feast's WholeHog II lighting console. All other (non-graphic) playback footage is also run off the Catalyst, programmed into a stack on the Hog.

Specially commissioned footage was shot and produced by The Field, including the energising triple-layered Busted montage for 'She Wants To Be Me', with playback of three girls dressed up as Busted, interwoven with band pre-recorded footage and live I-Mag. After the climactic screen split in the encore, the Catalyst is run in a specially configured mode that still shows the complete picture across all three sections.

LD Graham Feast is having a rock-tastic tour with oodles of spectacularly large pseudo-testosterised beam looks, colour and iris chases which are large, in-the-face but never aggressive. He also slips in a few sublime and moody moments where appropriate.

The kit list includes 32 Martin MAC 2000 Spots, 28 MAC 2000 Washes, 18 High End Studio Colors, 32 Martin Atomic strobes, 28 ACL moles with colour changers, three 3kW Syncrolites on the back truss, three truss follow spots and three at FOH. Climate control is from four F100s and two DF50s, all run flat out for a max-fog meteorology. All lighting gear is supplied by LSD Fourth Phase.

Feast's universal brief was to make it as full-on, edgy, raw and rocky as possible, a task in which he was delighted to indulge! "They wanted it rock'n'roll and that's just fine by me," he states with a huge grin! He worked closely with Pete Barnes in evolving the show video playback and lighting cues and effects together and formulating its base visual ambience. Feast is clearly having a good time, and the band are also equally enthusiastic about the lighting being an integral part of the statement that sets them apart as a 'proper rock band'.

AUDIO
The sound department is naturally also fundamental to creating the Big Rock Show. The tone was very much set by FOH Engineer Nick Warren and the band's Matt Jay after seeing an AC/DC show at Hammersmith Apollo before Christmas, mixed Pab Boothroyd. After this, Jay stated that was the audio template he wanted!

And loud and turbo-charged it is, with an L-Acoustics V-DOSC system from Wigwam Acoustics, complete with delays, kicking the dBs solidly and definitively right to the far reaches of the venue.

Warren mixes using a Midas Heritage 3000 console with a stretch, all of it consumed in running the 54 channels coming offstage. Outboard features XTA dynamics control, and effects include a Lexicon 480 reverb, two Yamaha SPX 990s, an Eventide H3000, TC 2290 and a dbx 120 sub harmonic synthesiser. The latter is applied to the floor tom to "scare people" during the video intro, he says, with impish smirk and raised eyebrows! The V-DOSC is system managed by Sid Rogerson. They run 12 V-DOSC a side, three dV-DOSC and eight L-Acoustics ARCS a side on the front hangs, and six d&b B2 subs per side on the deck. The delays are 12 stacks of d&b C4s, and it's all powered by Lab.Gruppen amps.

Busted's voices are generally good and strong to work with, says Warren. Charlie can be a little 'gravelly' at times, necessitating a few elements of "weird" EQ-ing, but they are all very natural and complimentary, particularly when singing together in three-part harmony.

The radio systems for the mics and guitars are all Sennheiser. The band and the Boys are all on IEMs with Shure ear moulds, and they utilise six wireless Shure hand held mics between them throughout the show, plus three Shure headset mics.

Monitor world is run by LJ, also using an H3000 console, with XTA graphics and compressors which are used minimally as he tries not to interfere. The two flown side fills are d&b 702s.

LJ says the Boys are committed to getting a great sound. They are serious about their work, and great to work with because they're all musically inclined, play well, know what they want to hear, and will listen to advice. "It's all quite straightforward really," he summates. And 'quite straightforward really' sums up the Busted show. Take three Es - energy, excitement, enthusiasm - then add fun, authenticity and some serious rock'n'roll... and it equals a production all can be proud of.

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