The entourage for Tori Amos’ latest tour just might be the easiest group to wrangle in the history of touring. That’s because the cast, which includes Pip, Isabel, Clyde, and Santa — a.k.a., the American Doll Posse — were all figments of Amos’ imagination.
She starts her set in each city dressed as one of the characters, depending on her mood that day. Each character sports a different wig and projects a different feel. Then the second set for the evening belongs to Amos in all of her redheaded glory. And it’s up to designers Dave Farmer and Dan Hardiman to sort it all out and make sense of it from a visual perspective.
The Cast of Characters
The original design brief for the American Doll Posse Tour called for a completely different opening to the show for each character in which Amos might appear. It was a challenge of schizophrenic proportion.
“We worked up a pool of tunes for each character,” says co-lighting designer Dave Farmer of THC Ltd, “and based the programming for each of those tunes around that stage persona.”
The persona of each of the different characters dramatically affected the lighting approach, taking into account the different costumes, stage entrance and personality of the each different character.
“For example,” Farmer continues, “the Clyde show is very moody and darkly lit at the start of the show and builds from there, whereas Santa has a much bolder party girl entrance which is very bright and reflected in the pop nature of the tunes. In stark contrast there is the Pip show, which is very aggressive, using strobes and plenty of high contrast white lighting.
But Amos rarely sticks to any song order, adding to the complexity of the situation. Design partner Dan Hardiman says that the key to lighting the show is all in the preparation. “Because Tori would do the second act of the show as herself she would often play a tune associated with another character. In this case we held a second copy of the tune which was edited to reflect its later position in the show while maintaining the essence of the original.”
A Design Partnership
Farmer and Hardiman have been working together since 1994 when they first formed a partnership. They were lighting a variety of parties, dance music events and small band shows when they incorporated the company as Total Herbal Confusion Limited (THC Ltd) in 1996.
“Incorporating THC, in effect, created a third person and a stable base for tackling larger projects,” says Hardiman. During the summer of 1996, the two lit a tent at the Glastonbury Festival. “We impressed several band managers, account handlers and other LDs with the enormous rig,” he says. “Shortly after were asked to design Moby's Play tour.”
Moby started in clubs with a capacity of about 600, and, 18 months and several re-designs later, they were on a world tour with a scaled up show and eventually did two nights at Wembley Arena. At the same time Farmer and Hardiman were also touring systems with Badly Drawn Boy and Soft Cell as well as managing their existing client base.
Today, Farmer and Hardiman manage a portfolio of incredibly varied clients including UB40, Simply Red, Will Young, The Doves, Ray Davies, several corporate and theatre clients, and, most recently, the Tori Amos world tour.
“We can be working on hip-hop, reggae, pop and an opera in the space of three months,” says Farmer. The London-based design team works internationally and prides themselves on offering complete show design. “The entertainment industry has expanded tremendously over the last decade and lighting, set design, video production, programming and playback are now part of the service we offer,” says Farmer. “During 2007 we re-branded the company as THC Design Ltd to reflect the change in our output and skills base.”
Two Heads are Better Than One
Farmer confirms that their approach is to tackle every aspect of the tour in a tag-team fashion. “It’s a case of ‘two heads are better than one,’” he says.
“That's true,” admits Hardiman. “The hours involved putting a show together are very, very long, so it’s good to have someone to bounce ideas off and swap places with when you are tired.”
Their design, Farmer says, typically starts with a design brief and a basic stage plan and they go from there, putting together simple designs, ideas and sketches. Then they jointly review the ideas to see which elements will go and which will stay.
“We’ll also both work on the project solo,” says Hardiman. “We’ll take the original drawings and attack those with other ideas to generate a second set of drawings and then meet up again to review. It’s a very efficient system with stunning results. The new drawings are often miles from the original set but when we reconvene there’s plenty to discuss and many ideas dovetail nicely. We’ll hammer out the finer details of the design from there. We’ve worked together for 14 years so there is a very strong bond between us.”
When it comes to programming, either Hardiman or Farmer will script the tunes and program them into the desk to provide a rough framework with which to work. They use WYSIWYG to visualize the playback before they get into tech rehearsals. It helps them to structure the show and check to see the ideas they like and which need work.
“Together,” says Farmer, “we’ll polish those tunes in WYSIWYG so they are show-ready. Having one of us at the console and one watching, making comments and introducing new ideas speeds up the process, reduces mistakes and also means we can swap places when you start to flag after eight hours of programming. We’ll then repeat the process in rehearsals to fine tune anything that hasn’t translated out of cyberspace.”
When it comes time to direct the show live, the two sit down to identify the positive and negative elements and highlight critical control points and set changes. Amos is known to change the set during the tour, and because venues change with every show, Farmer and Hardiman want to be prepared.
Hardiman describes the process. “The desk is programmed to run from set cue points in the show,” he says. “If one of our operators is running the console, we will train them in updating the programming for each venue, how to run the show and direct it, from ensuring the band positions are correct to dealing with changes in stage entrances and exits, and also dressing theatre soft goods.”
“We provide extensive technical drawings for the operator, production and crew so the show is as close to identical every day,” Hardiman continues, “while taking into account advantages and disadvantages of individual venues and production needs.”
“For this tour,” Farmer adds, “we did the rehearsals together and then Dan covered the first week in Italy while I was busy on Simply Red. And then we swapped in Paris and I continued on from there to complete the tour seven months later.”
The Ever-Evolving Set List
Amos plays for at least two hours each night, and her set list doesn’t necessarily follow any order. To the designers, this meant that each tune needed to stand on its own and work within the set in any order. It also meant that each song needed to be quickly and easily accessed from the console.
“We started with a short list of around 90 tunes based on old favorites and the new album content,” Farmer revealed. “I scripted those and then Dan and I crunched through them on WYSIWYG so the structure, gobos and color were in place. After that we’d review each tune and make the tweaks required.”
“Bearing in mind the average two-hour show features 20 to 25 tunes,” Hardiman adds, “and for other artists we’d normally have a working pool of 30 to 40 tunes, Tori’s short list was quite a task to undertake.”
“After rehearsals,” Farmer says, “we had around 90 tunes fully programmed. By the end of the tour there were just over 140 completed tunes in the desk and one of the incredibly dedicated fan sites said she had played around 160 different tunes. Fortunately Tori has a solo piano section in the show which showcases many of the tunes we only played once. Yes, I did have tunes programmed in the desk we didn’t manage to play. I’ll keep those for next time.”
And the next time won’t come soon enough for Farmer and Hardiman. They both acknowledge that they are having a great time on the road with Amos and company.
“We need to give thanks to Tori. She is terrific to work with, stunning live and totally professional in her outlook every day. It was a great challenge and we really enjoyed the whole process,” says Farmer. “Also,” he added, “this was our first tour using the Martin MAC 2000 Performance and it’s a terrific unit for projection capability and reliability.”
CREW
Lighting Designers: Dave Farmer,
Dan Hardiman, THC Design Ltd
Lighting Director: Dave Farmer
Lighting Techs, U.S.: David George,
Ty Brooks
Lighting Techs U.K.: Colin Green,
Will Keating
Production Manager: Andy Soloman
Tour Manager: Keith Anderson
Production Assistant: Dana Thomas
Lighting Supplier: PRG
Account Rep, U.S.: Mark Coleman
Account Rep, U.K.: Robin Wain
Soft Goods Manufacturer: J&C Joel
RGB Starcloth Manufacturer: Universal Stars
GEAR
1 Flying Pig Systems Wholehog III
console
20 Martin MAC 2000 Performance fixtures
4 Martin MAC 2000E Wash fixtures
24 PixelRange LED PixelPars
5 Vari*Lite VL1000TIs
8 RGB Starcloth panels
