Oasis demolished the record book and set new standards when they played at the prestigious Knebworth Park in August. From the rigging of the PA system to the last encore, a hungry-for-detail MARK CUNNINGHAM was there to bring you the definitive account of an historic event.

For many weeks, the publicity machine behind Oasis's Knebworth concerts had made an enviable job of brainwashing the media into appreciating the huge significance of the event. But it was not until Noel Gallagher ambled on to the stage and announced to the heaving masses, "This is bloody history. We're all making history tonight", that it finally made sense and the inevitable shiver danced up my spine. "Christ, he's right," I thought. "This is something that will be remembered in 20 years' time, and I'm here watching it happen."

Last November when I interviewed Noel Gallagher backstage at Earl's Court, it became clear that Oasis were indeed the biggest band of the '90s. Less than six months later, as I swayed with the crowd at Maine Road Stadium, their status had grown in my mind to 'most important British band since Punk'. Now they're even bigger. From a privileged vantage point atop a mixing tower in the grounds of a Hertfordshire stately home, I suddenly felt something in common with those veteran journalists who claim to have 'been there' at such classic events as The Beatles at Shea Stadium and Hendrix at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival. I was at the second of Oasis's two shows over the weekend of August 10-11, shows which attracted 250,000 punters and grossed £5,625,000, with staggering ease. It is also estimated that at least 4% of the British population applied for tickets. Remove the toddlers and grannies from the equation, and you begin to grasp the extent of this band's popularity.

For the past 30 years, we Brits have used The Beatles' success as a yardstick with which to compare others, while praying for a band like Oasis to come along and restore British rock to its distant glory. And after Knebworth and the news that (What's The Story?) Morning Glory, less than a year since its release, has sold more copies than even Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the waiting is finally over. We've rarely had it so good. Welcome to the new generation.

That their set contained no less than 20 songs proves that Oasis, or rather Gallagher the elder, knows the value of the concise pop song, especially the type which relies on well-worn chord structures and infectious melodies. Yes, he has the deserved reputation of being a songwriting magpie, but when he remoulds standards into gems like 'Some Might Say', 'Live Forever', 'Acquiesce', and the '90s classic, 'Don't Look Back In Anger', he can be forgiven for pretty much everything. The hits — and quality B-sides — were all present and correct, performed with immense power and a sense of occasion. Like a Tasmanian devil, Liam Gallagher would introduce numbers with stoned nonsense and obscenities, but, hey, it was going out live on Radio 1, so why not?

For me, the highlights were similar to those at Maine Road: the haunting, harmonica-led 'Masterplan' which concluded the acoustic set, 'Live Forever' with its video projections of departed rock icons (Moonie, Lennon, Elvis, and Bolan among them), 'Champagne Supernova' with The Stone Roses' John Squire covering for Weller's album guest spot, and the apocalyptic sonic rush of 'I Am The Walrus', in which Oasis and their 11-strong army of backing musicians thrashed away like it was the last song on Earth. An impressive fireworks display signalled the climax of this momentous event as 125,000 pairs of glazed eyes drifted peacefully out of the park to the strains of 'Hey Jude'. Oh, sweet grinning irony.

PUBLIC ADDRESS

Since Oasis's first Creation single, 'Supersonic', in April 1994, the Turbosound PA equipment and associated expertise relied on for the majority of their concerts has been supplied by Britannia Row Productions, and this was no exception for the band's summer festival shows, which also included dates in Loch Lomond and Cork — coming almost exactly five years after their live debut at The Boardwalk in Manchester on August 18 1991.

Brit Row successfully handled the all-star Nordoff-Robbins Silver Clef Concert at Knebworth in June 1990 with Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney, Cliff & The Shadows, Eric Clapton, Tears For Fears, Genesis, and Status Quo, providing a system which consisted of 160 Turbosound TMS-3s at the front of the stage, and MSI high and low packs on three delays. For the Oasis shows, however, the significantly improved, current generation Turbosound PA amounted to the largest system of its branding ever designed, with a front of house total of 34 TFS-780 Flashlight narrows per side, and 96 lows in four columns at each side, plus a number of 46 degree wide dispersion boxes to provide extra penetration in the field — the combination enabling a coverage of 120 degrees. No fewer than 168 Turbosound cabinets — 72 lows, 72 narrows, 16 underhung, and eight wides — were spread between 11 delay towers in three zones — at 75, 150, and 225 metres from the stage, providing 80 degree delay coverage.

Amplification for the main PA and delays was provided by BSS EPC-760s and EPC-780S. 17 amp racks, containing two of each amplifier type, drove the delay towers. Eight identical racks drove each side of the PA and a further nine racks powered the monitor system, contributing to a total of 168 BSS power convertors.

Brit Row Director, Mike Lowe commented: "No-one else has ever installed 11 delay towers at a Knebworth show, but Oasis are very committed to getting good quality sound in people's faces... everywhere!" Equally, however, the local Hertfordshire council was committed to ensuring that the decibel limits set under the terms of the licensing would not be exceeded. With a notoriously loud band like Oasis, this might have presented a problem. Nevertheless, a 65dB limit was set at the end of the estate at Old Knebworth, and Jim Griffiths from audio consultants Travers Morgan was commissioned to keep an ear on things. During the soundcheck on August 9, he monitored the proceedings to confirm that the sound remained on the good side of 65dB, and from there the front of house mix limit was set. On the eve of the shows, Lowe believed the sound would average 101dB L(Eq) over 15 minutes [L(Eq) is a method of expressing sound level averaged over a period of time], although 107dB would have been acceptable. He said: "That allows for some serious peaks throughout the set, and the acoustic set certainly helps to bring the average down. With a highly distributed system, we are able to deliver a very punchy sound that can be contained within the site."

Each delay tower received a full range signal and was equipped with a BSS FCS-960 graphic EQ/crossover, a BSS TCS-804 dual time corrector for tower distance correction, Turbosound LMS-700 omni drive and a Turbosound LMS-780 management system for individual delay timing. On show day, PA Technician, Paddi Addison informed me: "From the main left and right of the PA, the signals go to the front-of-house console matrix, then first of all to the three small Floodlight infill arrays and underhung cabinets, all of which are controlled by a drive rack which contains a BSS FCS-960 and an Omnidrive. In the Omnidrive, there is the capability for each side of the PA to be different, providing a different delay time for the centre and outer fills. There is another matrix which goes to the delay rack that consists of two Midas XL88 matrix mixers, and they split the signals into the 11 delays in the field. The reason for putting all that control in the field is that during the gig it's going to be very difficult for crew personnel to move around freely and quickly, so if anything needs tweaking, anyone near to one of the towers can sort things out without much of a problem."

"The original plan was to have 13 delay towers, and to decide on their positions, we marked out the actual dispersions that we were looking for, on the ground with white lines," said Lowe, as he guided me around the site, three days before the first show. "We went through a whole rigmarole of staking out the ground with red stakes to indicate the delays and blue ones to mark angles. We used a big protractor-like board which was staked to the front of the stage and had that as the point from which we measured out. The first thing was to stake out the distances between the three delay zone arcs. That was OK on paper, but after about an hour and a half, it really didn't look good, and we came to the conclusion that the stage had been set up at a different orientation to the plans we'd been given. We checked this out with the staging guys, and it turned out that our hunch was correct, so we rearranged things at our end. We had been told that there would be a hospitality viewing area behind a low fence, but we subsequently discovered this would not be the case, so we lost the extra two delays, leaving 11."

FRONT OF HOUSE

Engineering at front of house was Huw Richards with his regular 64-channel Yamaha PM4000 desk. After the Maine Road concerts in late April, Richards, who began working with Oasis last autumn, took time out to investigate how to improve various elements of the band's live sound. "We had been so busy on the road that we never had a chance to modify our techniques, but we had a three-month break during which I was looking around at various options," he told me. "There was a lot of bad sound information to deal with previously. Firstly, it was difficult for me to bring the string section over the level of the band. It doesn't matter what type of microphone or pick-up you use, there will always be largely insurmountable problems with feedback."

Luck came Richards' way when a drum tech colleague, who had worked with Nigel Kennedy, put him in touch with the classical instrument builder, Dave Bruce Johnson who works from a studio in Birmingham's The Custard Factory and runs the company Violectra. Richards' formula for success involved reducing Oasis's string section to a quartet and commissioning from Johnson two custom-built violins, a viola, and a cello, all of which are fed through Ridge Farm's Gas Cooker valve DI boxes to provide smooth signals. "They have worked out incredibly well and sound very natural," he said. "Apparently, Kennedy tried every type of electric violin in the world but went for these. So I grabbed a couple of instruments off Dave and put the order in, because I was pretty confident they were the ones. We did a test on the violin and viola at Earl's Court, using The Cure's system in between gigs. They sounded absolutely phenomenal and you can get some serious levels from them."

Football crazy Oasis were impressed by the wide range of colour schemes, which could adorn the instruments, and, naturally, plumped for the light blue of Manchester City FC's strip! Richards added: "The instruments have bridge pick-ups. There's a Barbara transducer in there which is completely encased, so each instrument is feedback immune, and I can get plenty of string information over the band both out front and on stage, even in the big, complex, electric songs like 'I Am The Walrus'. They were quite expensive, costing around £20,000 including all the flight casing, and they took three months to build, but the band are very happy with the outcome."

The summer festival shows were notable for the addition to the band's backing musicians of classically-trained keyboard player, Jeanette Mason, who has come into the fold mainly to help fill out the acoustic set. "I worked with her years ago on a Jimmy Somerville tour. She was wonderful and very capable of adding some nice touches," said Richards. "At the moment, she's only playing on the acoustic numbers and a few of the electric songs, but I'm sure she'll be doing more as she gels in. So the whole texture up there has changed quite a lot in a relatively short time, when you think that there has only been three and a half months in between Maine Road and Knebworth."

Previously a Takamine and Epiphone player on-stage, Noel Gallagher is now exclusively using Takamine acoustics... despite Richards' alternative preferences. "I think Takamines are very sharp-sounding guitars, but Noel enjoys playing them and that's really what counts. As with the strings and also Guigsy's bass, we put his and Bonehead's acoustics through Gas Cooker valve Dis, which I find to be quite a warmer improvement on other boxes. It just seems that the industry is finding favour with valve technology at the moment and people use them wherever they can."

"No-one else has ever installed 11 delay towers at a Knebworth show, but Oasis are very committed to getting good quality sound in people's faces... everywhere!"

The Yamaha PM4000 was also the choice of the support band engineers. Richards favours it for its ease of use, flexibility, and the availability of stereo modules for any part of the mainframe. However, the Midas XL4 had been under consideration. He said: "There's a bit of time required to get into the XL4 and modify it, but it was time we didn't have. I thought about using the XL4 because of the varying scene changes, but they've now simplified quite a bit, not least because of our reduced string section and the greater control we now have over them and the acoustic instruments. There's less of a need for processing. We don't need to use the gates as much because everything sounds so much cleaner, so I'm not jumping around like I used to!"

Among the latest technology in the processing racks was a bunch of Neve 9098 equalisers from Amek, primarily for use on the acoustic guitars and vocals. Richards commented: "The 9098s sound beautiful and soft and are quite receptive as well. I've ended up bypassing the desk EQ and use the desk as a level tool. Jon Lemon is also using these with The Cure, and he's doing the same thing, bypassing the EQs on his XL3s."

For compression on the vocals, Richards employed Summit DCL-200s, while BSS 402s were inserted across the harmonica, strings, and brass channels. A BSS Varicurve was applied to Guigsy's bass to achieve extra control during the moments when he 'leaned in' with his pick to produce a harder sound, as he is often prone to do. Behringer gates were inserted on Alan White's drum kit; their solid attack attributes theoretically suit his style of drumming, which, like Guigsy's bass playing, varies in thrust.

The remaining processors included an Eventide 3000, a Lexicon PCM 80, and, new for the band, a Lexicon 480L, which Richards described as "great for the brass and strings, and also quite nice in the acoustic set for swamping the stage with the guitars and vocals". He added: "We have the old AMS reverb, which I'll never get rid of. Another old unit that I have, which didn't kick off at first because of its original high price, is a psychoacoustic equaliser made by Sound Performance Laboratories. We're still playing around with that as a bass enhancer, but it is quite a severe unit so we're just 'tickling' the bass drum and bass guitar sounds with it to get some real low ground frequencies happening."

Richards' microphone regime mainly consisted of a Shure/AKG mixture. Beta 57As remained standard for the Gallaghers' vocals, an SM91 and a Beta 91 were placed in the bass drum, and the rest of the kit was miked with SM57s (snare) and an SM81 (hi-hat and ride cymbal). AKG 414s were used on the drum overheads, ride cymbal, and across the guitar cabinets, 418s on the toms, and 419s on the brass section.

Seated proudly on top of Richards' PM4000 was a pair of Meyer Sound HD-1 monitors, leading me to wonder just what purpose they might serve when more than 100dB of Oasis venom was being pumped in the engineer's direction. He explained: "We were rehearsing for these gigs at Music Bank in South London. I was draped off from the band in the main room there, but it didn't help much and I was having trouble mixing over the guitars. I got some Deltamaxes in at first which didn't really do anything for me. But then we moved out into another studio which left me free to mix on a completely separate stage for a couple of days. Nu-Nu at Music Bank had these Meyers and suggested I try them. I banged them on the desk and they were great. Of course, once the show starts, they're not used at all. They're not delayed; they're just there to serve a PEL function for quick referencing during setup. When we moved to the NEC for production rehearsals, the sound in Hall 1 was so atrocious that I set myself up in one of the production offices to the back of the room and mixed from there. That's really why the Meyers have stayed with me."

MONITORS

If there is one member of a sound crew for whom I will always reserve the greatest sympathy, it is the monitor engineer. He's the guy who has to face such subtle criticisms as, 'It sounds like shite up here! Sort it out!' Until recently, a thick-skinned man by the name of Jacko was the long-serving engineer responsible for delivering Oasis cranium-melting levels of volume on stage. At Maine Road in April, he told me: "It's deafening on stage, but that's what they want, and they are the instructions I have. I measured the volume of Noel's guitar sound in America by standing just behind him with a meter, six feet from his amps, and it was 121 dB. I keep telling them that they're all going to go deaf before long if they carry on with such an incredibly loud on-stage sound, but they're not having it so what can you do?"

Jacko has since exited the team, possibly in an attempt to preserve his own hearing! Working in the background at Maine Road was Gareth Williams, who has now taken over Jacko's demanding role, and at Knebworth, he was controlling the sound via a 40-channel Midas XL3 and a 16-channel XL3 stretch console, plus a bank of Drawmer gates and compressors. "I came into the picture just before Maine Road when I put the monitor system together for them while they were touring America. So when Jacko left, I suppose I was the obvious choice to take over as the engineer. The stretch that we have is the same XL3 quad desk that was used on the Floyd's Division Bell tour, only we're not enabling the quad function. It's really used for sub-mixing some trumpets and saxes into one channel on the main board. But I've also duplicated channels so that I can access my effects, and also the string section are all on Garwood Radio Station in-ear monitors.

"It can be hellish loud towards the end when everyone is playing, and even though they are playing electric instruments, it's still difficult to be confident about your pitch when you're a classically-trained violinist in that situation, playing 'I Am The Walrus' which is phenomenally loud up here. Between the string players, there are eight mixes and a reverb. This is the first time that in-ear monitoring has been used with Oasis, albeit only on the strings. It's creeping in, but I don't think it will ever creep in as far as the actual band members. We first tried in-ear monitoring out on the strings at Maine Road, but it was a hard-wired system and they didn't get on with it at all, and ended up not using it. They were getting tangled up in too many leads. This time we're on wireless systems, and it grew from rehearsals at Music Bank."

Assisting Williams was Scotty Ashton who 'babysat' the effects sends and in-ear mixes, which were completely independent of the main XL3. Ashton commented: "We have a Lexicon LRC MIDI remote controller for the effects changes, such as a couple of reverbs and a delay. Our main work really starts from 'Whatever' at the start of the acoustic set, and it gets more complex from that point onwards."

Sixteen individual mixes were sent by Williams and assistant Scotty Ashton to 17 Turbosound 2 x 15-inch band wedges and five 1 x 15-inch wedges for the brass section, while the four string players each benefited not only from the in-ear monitoring system but also a 1 x 15-inch/2-inch Funktion One co-axial wedge. The side fills, meanwhile, consisted of ten Flashlight narrows, 12 lows, and eight Floodlight cabinets. Richards said: "The monitor system is slightly smaller at Knebworth, but the band seem much happier with the sound. Maine Road was a bit of a trial thing, because they had never done anything as big before, so I think the idea was to ram as much gear into the stadium as we could as a safeguard. But that isn't necessarily the answer."

Williams added: "The amount of cabinets used for the drum fills has decreased, because Alan White doesn't want any subs, he just wants to hear a nice, quiet sound from a pair of 2 x 15-inch wedges. So I've used more Flashlights in the actual stage configuration and taken any upstage Flashlights out of the way, so the side fills are purely for the front line players where it is really loud. But it doesn't spill as far as Alan. The good thing about the brass players is that they are on high risers, out of the way of the full force of the guitars. It was difficult at the Stockholm show immediately before this, because we were using a JBL flown system instead of our regular Turbosound rig, and although I was trying to run the same kind of sound, the spill was everywhere and it was incredibly difficult for everyone."

BACKLINE

The improvements, in sound and technical efficiency extended to a new (light blue!) backline power distribution system, co-designed for Oasis by Brit Row's Pete Brotzman and Toby Hunt of Funktion One who together have been responsible for Brit Row's main design and kit building work. Brotzman explained the system's evolution: "Huw Richards asked me if I would build for them a fully flight-cased distribution system that they could take all over the world and comply with all the regulations in the various countries. So I designed a system that had a 15kVA transformer, which would simultaneously give out 240 volts at 12.5kVA and 120 volts at 2.5kVA. It is tapped from 100 up to 250 volts in 5 volt increments, and this allows the band to travel anywhere in the world, plug in and simply arrange the tappings to conform. The outputs have a tunable RCD and Oasis are running them at 20 milliamps. They also have plug boards that are purpose-designed for use with their backline kit, and the system has a Minicam lock patchbay allowing them to patch the different voltages. It's very safe, and if there should be any faults, the RCD will trip the system."

Two new techs were in evidence at Knebworth — drum tech Roger 'Dodge' Aspinall formerly worked with Alan White's brother, Steve from Paul Weller's band, and 'backline boffin' Paul 'Spooner' Heywood is now Bonehead's guitar tech. Guigsy recently changed his bass rig to valve Trace Elliot equipment (again in Man City blue!) and prides himself on a much more English sound which obviously suits the band's music. He used his 1986 Fender Jazz Bass, while his new 1957 reissue Precision and favourite 1969 Tele bass sat in the wings with his tech, Roger Nowell. Guitar tech, Jason Rhodes said that Noel Gallagher has now acquired a sizable stack of gear. "Along with his 1970s Marshall Bluesbreaker, WEM Dominator Mark III, and Marshall JCM 900/4 x 12-inch stack, he has now added a vintage Marshall Bluesbreaker — an item he'd been craving for ages. He took it to Maine Road to try it out, but ended up plugging it in to his rig."

Bonehead has now moved from using Marshall Lead and Bass 50 amps in favour of a JCM 900 stack, with a Marshall Valvestate 80 combo as a backup. An Epiphone fan like Gallagher, he played his tobacco/burst Riviera throughout the set. While Bonehead relies purely on his valves, Gallagher uses a basic effects setup, which has not changed since he explained it to me at Earl's Court in November. "My guitar goes into a Vox wah-wah pedal and a couple of Boss pedals [DD-3 Digital Delay and a Phaser], into the tuner, into a [Boss] Line Selector, and out of there into a passive splitter box. One of the lines out of there goes into the Bluesbreaker(s), the other into a passive split which is spread between the WEM and the JCM."

Miking the guitar cabinets has been a constant source of amusement for Huw Richards over the past year, with the famously intense volume proving to be a major obstacle. "The guitars are so unforgiving, frequency-wise, and mics die very quickly because they just can't take the sound pressure being forced into them," he said. "But I think we have found a good mic in the AKG 414. It's pretty resilient."

Noel Gallagher recently joined the select club of guitarists, who have had limited edition 'Signature' models designed as an acknowledgement of their association with a particular instrument. Certainly, sales of Epiphone semi-acoustics have rocketed since Oasis's (and, to be fair, Paul Weller's solo) success, and Gallagher's accolade is well deserved. But the most interesting addition to his guitar collection was the Union Jack Epiphone he debuted in the spring while touring in America.

The 'Backline Geezer', as Jason Rhodes is introduced by his charge, said: "It was made especially for Noel and given to him as a birthday present by his girlfriend. I took it down to Bill Puplett Guitars in Harrow to get it match fit, because it started off as a bog standard factory model, but he's had all the frets seen to. Until now, Noel's used his burgundy '70s Epiphone Riviera as his main electric guitar, but I can't get him away from the Union Jack now."