With the exception of the awesome Concert For George Harrison, 18 months ago, never has the Royal Albert Hall played host to such an atmosphere of love and deep respect as it did on the evening of April 8.

Despite being the bassist, co-songwriter and anchorman of two influential British bands that genuinely helped to define their eras - the Small Faces (1965-69) and the Faces (1969-73) - Ronnie 'Plonk' Lane rarely received due credit. All the more reason why this was a thoroughly merited testimonial, and one that was executed in good taste and spirit.

Organised by John Hellier, the publisher of the Small Faces fanzine ('The Darlings Of Wapping Wharf Launderette'), and promoter Danny Betesh of Kennedy Street Enterprises, the Ronnie Lane Memorial Concert, a.k.a. One More For The Road, followed on from a similar tribute to his '60s songwriting partner Steve Marriott, staged at London's Astoria in 2001.

Like the Marriott event, this show boasted a high quality mix of star performers who were friends, colleagues or simply fans of the late, lamented Cockney bass player who died seven years ago after a 20-year long battle with multiple sclerosis. Proceeds from the April 8 event will benefit Ronnie Lane's two sons from his second marriage. His ex-wife Kate's farmhouse in Powys burned to the ground in 2002 and his children were subsequently left with nothing.

The cast for One More For The Road was huge and included ... deep breath... Pete Townshend, Paul Weller, ex-Faces Kenney Jones and Ronnie Wood, Sam Brown, Ocean Colour Scene, Midge Ure, Chris Farlowe, Deborah Bonham, Chris Jagger, Robert Hart (Bad Company), Glen Matlock (Sex Pistols), Mick Jones (The Clash), Steve Diggle (Buzzcocks), Steve Ellis (Love Affair), plus a line-up of Lane's post-Faces band, Slim Chance.

High points a-plenty, the show's greatest moments were when Townshend sang 'Heart To Hang Onto' from Rough Mix, his 1977 collaboration with Lane; Weller and Woody were supreme on 'The Poacher'; Ocean Colour Scene's reading of Song Of A Baker' was electrifying; Deborah Bonham delivered a breathtaking version of 'Every Little Bit Hurts', and Sam Brown almost brought the house down when she deputised for P.P. Arnold on 'If You Think You're Groovy'. Watching Marriott's daughter Molly singing with tribute band 17 Black was also very moving.

However, the cherry on the cake came when Kenney Jones led his Jones Gang into a spine-chilling reproduction of the 'overture' from the Small Faces seminal album, Ogden's Nut Gone Flake - a performance marred only slightly by the notable absence of fellow Face, keyboard player Ian McLagan, due to unexplained "personal reasons". To add further authencity, John Unwin, the son of Ogden's narrator Stanley Unwin, did a fantastic job of injecting some classic Unwinese dialogue into the programme. Deep joy!

TPi was also present at the Steve Marriott Memorial Concert (now out on DVD) which sold out six weeks in advance, and its success encouraged organiser John Hellier to stage a similar event in honour of Lane, but in a venue larger than the Astoria.

Said Hellier: "We were originally offered a deal by V2 who were going to finance the gig but they found that you had to be a recognised promoter to book the Albert Hall, unless you're happy to pay an inflated fee. It turned out that the relationship with V2 came to nothing, and it was Lucy Noble at the Albert Hall who suggested that we contact Danny Betesh at Kennedy Street to help get this event on track. [Coincidentally, Kennedy Street was the promoter of many a Small Faces tour in the '60s]. "Danny was interested in the idea from day one, especially as we had a fantastic line-up of artists who wanted to perform. Kennedy Street put up the money and without them we couldn't have done it. It was never going to be a risk, and we've sold out here tonight."

The line-up of Slim Chance was representative of several incarnations of the band over a seven year period, and was put together by Charlie Hart, Lane's right hand man during those years. The band featured Henry McCullough, the well-respected Irish guitarist who was a key player in Joe Cocker's Grease Band and Paul McCartney's Wings. "Seeing that band playing together again has been the main atraction for me," said Hellier. "They've been enjoying this reunion so much that there's even talk of an album."

SHARING SIR CLIFF'S TECHNOLOGY
The Lane tribute occured during Sir Cliff Richard's run of Live And Kicking shows at the Albert Hall. The evergreen star had block booked the Knightsbridge venue from April 3-24, but in order to save his voice he performed no more than two consecutive shows. Therefore, the so called 'dark' days were made available to other promoters by the RAH, and by special agreement with Roger Searle, Sir Cliff's production manager, Britannia Row's PA, Lite Alternative's lighting and the ingenious rigging scheme installed by Summit Steel, were all utilised for the Lane event.

Jon Bray's team at Summit worked closely for two months in advance with the RAH's show management team, in particular Mark Newell, to ensure that the logistics of providing a rigging system that met the requirements of both Sir Cliff and other shows were in place. It was therefore vital that the rigging was versatile and adaptable for all possibilities.

Bray collaborated with Sir Cliff's LD Derek Jones to produce an effective cable management system. This allowed some of the house trusses used for this purpose to be freed up for use on the other shows. The cable management system utilised trusses from the gallery, and the venue trusses to feed all cables to Sir Cliff's production trusses and PA system.

On dark days, these cables were disconnected and stowed on top of the house trusses, allowing the permanent in-house acoustic canopies to be flown in unhindered for orchestral shows. The cables were easily reconnected for Cliff show days when the trusses and PA were flown back in.

Another major rigging challenge was to ensure that Sir Cliff's full lighting and sound production could be flown up out of the way and out of sight when not needed for choral events. Summit constructed and flew a 'mother' grid at 26 metres high for this purpose, allowing the PA to be lifted stack-by-stack out of view.

The grid was a combination of one of the house trusses with an additional 16 metre section added to the downstage face. It was lifted on 12 house motors, with Summit's motors for the Cliff production sound and lighting sub-hung below.

The PA system for the Lane show remained virtually identical to the Cliff production. Powered by Lab.Gruppen amplification, Brit Row's PA featured three main hangs of L-Acoustics V-DOSC. The centre hang consisted of 12 V-DOSC cabinets underhung with three dV-DOSC; the left and right hangs were nine V-DOSC with three dV-DOSC, and in between were two clusters of SB218 subs. The choir position had a left and right fill of four ARCS per side, and there were two outfills of four ARCS per side. At the front of the stage were three dV-DOSC per side as front fills, plus four SB218 subs. Additionally, further clarity was provided by a line of 24 JBL Control 1 speakers along the gallery.

Engineering at FOH was Maurizio Gennari and (for the Jones Gang's set) Dave Pointer, while Kursten Smith mixed monitors, with a Yamaha PM1D digital console at each position. On a show such as this, having a PM1D proved to be a major asset, according to Gennari. "It's perfect for this application where there are so many musicians on stage and around 80 channels to manage," he said. "There are effectively seven bands to deal with and it would be a total nightmare without the facilities that the PM1D can offer.

"I'm not saying it would be impossible with an analogue desk, but the ability to programme scenes during three days of rehearsals at Music Bank and recall them with absolute ease makes my job so much easier. One of the most essential things that I planned was the muting of any microphones that aren't being used at any time, which has helped to clean the sound up generally. Then, where we have different guests walking on to play cameo roles, I've had to prepare mix scenes for those moments, and apply different EQs to cope with the variation in the voices."

Gennari toured with a PM1D throughout 2003 with Depeche Mode frontman Dave Gahan and he instantly found it to be "a wonderful desk". He commented: "I had been using the smaller DM2000 on festivals, but we upgraded to the PM1D and it's such a powerful instrument."

In terms of microphony, Shure dominated the proceedings, informed Gennari. "We haven't diverted away from a standard Shure Beta 58 situation for vocals, for instance, regardless of any other artist preferences. Certainly Pete Townshend and his engineer Bob Pridden wanted the Shures, as well as an external Summit valve compressors for his acoustic guitar and a dbx 160 for his electric guitar. The remainder of the processing is within the PM1D."

LIGHTING CHALLENGE
The challenge for LD Derek Jones was been to convert Sir Cliff's lighting rig into a generic 'do all' rig for the Lane tribute. With virtually no time to prepare for the event, Jones' solution was to fill his Whole Hog II console with as many ingredients and options as possible, and simply create a variety of different looks as he heard the music, in real time.

Said Jones: "The Whole Hog II and its facilities do make it very easy to generate a wide range of scenes quite quickly, and it's obviously something I'm relying on here!"

Using four 16 metre trusses, Jones' rig was divided fairly evenly between moving lights and generics. There were 24 Martin Professional MAC 2000 spots, four MAC 2000 washes and 32 Vari*Lite VL5s, complemented by four-lamp ACL bars, Par 64s, four follow spots and four cracked oil machines. "Of course, trying to drive moving lights to music that's a bit before my time [unlike Sir Cliff's?] is a bit tricky because I could easily programme a state that looks wrong," Jones explained. "So I've mainly stuck to static looks and colour washes."

In addition to the above kit, Jones used four James Thomas LED Pixellines: "I've got into them for concerts and live events, but I started using them for conference work. For Cliff's show I use them as footlights for the dancers which is an unusual application, but for this event they are positioned on the ledge behind the band, with a MAC 2000 wash in between each of them, and it's a great in-your-face look.

Jones' choice of lighting supplier for this Albert Hall 'season' was Lite Alternative. "In the past I regularly used VLPS Lighting Services and it's only in the past 12 months that I've been using Lite Alternative. There was no reason to change other than I felt like trying someone new, and it's paid off. I have a very good working relationship with them but more importantly, their kit is so well maintained and an immense amount of attention to detail goes into the service."

The show ran almost a hour over its projected length, and finally ended with a rousing version of 'All Or Nothing' at around 11.25pm. Thankfully, the Albert Hall management waived the overtime penalty of £1,000. Despite his best efforts, there was nothing that Stage Manager Christopher Runciman could do to prevent the show running over. "There were a few artists who hadn't had the benefit of rehearsing their numbers, and that led to some extended spots," he said. "It turned into a bit of a runaway train, and one that we couldn't stop because everybody was having so much fun!"

Runciman, whose 18 year old son Edward was doing his first professional crewing job as part of the Stage Miracles team, added: "John Hellier's dream of putting together the perfect tribute to Ronnie is to be applauded, although the reality of including so many bands and artists doesn't come without a few problems. Certainly there were a few staging issues between Slim Chance and Kenney's band, and it was an effort to keep the peace at times, but everyone realised that it was ultimately about the event. All things considered, the day and evening went extremely well and it was a pleasure to be involved."

Main photography by Nik Milner (www.nikmilner.com) Additional crew photography by Mark Cunningham

RONNIE LANE MEMORIAL CONCERT - Key Production Crew & Suppliers:

• Promoter: Danny Betesh for Kennedy Street
• Production Manager: Jim Colson
• Stage Manager: Christopher Runciman
• PA: Britannia Row Productions
• FOH Sound Engineers: Maurizio Gennari, Dave Pointer
• Monitor Engineer: Kursten Smith
• Sound Technician: Rob 'Brains' Elliot
• Backline & Staging: Music Bank (Julie Alle, Nunu Whiting)
• Backline Technicians: Micky Sullivan, Deptford John Armitage, Alan Rogan
• Lighting: Lite Alternative
• Lighting Designer/Operator: Derek Jones
• Rigging: Summit Steel
• Catering: Saucery
• Transport: Stage Miracles
• Royal Albert Hall: Moe Crowe
• Manor Mobile: Will Shapland
• Video: Rupert Style
• Stage Crew: Stage Miracles
• Publicity: Judy Totton