by Josh Root
Standby Al and Cast, standby follow spots, stand by Audio, band live, record on…. fade out house music, Nick and Band GO! Are the words I hear through my headset at the start of the show - a bit different to the cast in the darkness backstage. Ultimately, we are all waiting on the same thing, like a coiled spring, filled with the same giddy anticipation for the start of the show. Huge crashes of thunder then echo around the theatre, the flashes of strobe lighting and torrential rain draw the audience chatter to an end ahead of a seriously funky rendition of Cory Wong and Dirty Loops’ cover of Thriller. For me, there is nothing quite like the energy held in live music. You feel the thump of the bass and kick drum firmly in your chest, the rest surrounds your head, with a punch nothing recorded can quite match and I have always absolutely loved being a part of it.
I started rigging the show with Guy and his team just last Monday, unloading several lorries and vans of hire equipment from HS Hire and Autograph, relaying flight cases filled with all sorts of contents from large scale moving lights, speakers and cabling to confetti and even a disco ball. The team then gets to work, hoisting fixtures up in the air to fly the whole overhead package that will illuminate the 95 strong cast in just a matter of days. Once in, each of the speakers is then meticulously placed and angled to cover a different part of the audience, ensuring everyone that comes to watch gets an high quality and equal listening experience, finely tuned by Tom Man and his team from Multicast Audio. It’s amazing to think how many sound sources there are in what is a fairly small room, but this complexity of coverage allows for the excellent standard of the cast to be maintained and heard perfectly by each member of the audience - keeping ‘the ultimate Hurtwood mixtape’ sounding as it should!
By Wednesday, things are beginning to take shape with echoes of chop saws, drills and sanders audible from the theatre. Custom wooden frames are constructed to create the elaborate hexagon angled staging designed by Alistair Coulton, with each piece of stage deck levelled precisely and bordered in an extravagant gold trim. Uniquely shaped steps are secured in place, painted and tested, backstage areas masked with black drapes and entrances covered. Whilst all this is going on, the set is being dressed with a huge floor package of lighting fixtures that line almost every corner of the stage – blame lies there with the brilliantly optimistic lighting designer Guy Davey! A mix of retro style tungsten lamps and modern LED movers are placed, hung and tied to scaffold poles and stands, all cabled into the spider network that connects every item in the theatre. Two large low lying smoke machines are then wheeled into place and piped into the steps, that will spill out a dense carpet to cover the stage during the show, falling gracefully off each tiered level.
Its once we get to the Thursday band call that things really start to take shape, and the show comes alive. A 9-piece band, running with tracks produces such an amazingly large sound ranging from momentous swelled endings to soft orchestral pop ballads. The show ends up becoming so dynamic with no track the same, hence the breadth of instrumentation from Matt Greave’s dancing electric synths to JD’s deafening Timbale, the punchy 3-piece brass section to even a banjo! All of this is captured live, running back to stage boxes, condensed into cabling that feeds the sound desk at the back. And that’s where I end up once the rehearsal process begins, mixing with Dave Parsons (Head of Music) and 5 other music tech students across both years. Each show, we are responsible for mixing all the cast vocal microphones, balancing multi layered backing vocals with the lead singer and the rest of the band.
Every person involved backstage from costume to front of house plays a sizable role in the running of the machine that is theatre, and often most people don’t realise quite the level of time and effort that goes into building a show like the Hurtwood Pop Concert. The attention to detail of the technical and creative team allows for incredible performances night after night, showcasing all students and facilitating what Hurtwood does best: Unforgettable evenings of live performance.
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