Anyone who knows LD Seth Jackson knows he is the original “Mr. Nice Guy.” So it came as startling to many — including Jackson himself — when he was asked to design the production for Alice Cooper’s No More Mr. Nice Guy tour. “My reaction was, ‘Wait…Huh?” Jackson says. But his background in legitimate theatre attracted the original shock rocker’s team, as they were taking this new production in a new direction.
“When the conversation began with manager Shep Gordon, the direction was immediately focused on creating a show free of the trappings of the standard rock concert,” Jackson explains. “There would be no bumps to every snare beat. No flash and trash. A good portion of the show would be done in variations of white light, holding back saturated colors for specific moments. There would be no graphic focuses of beams in the audience; everything would remain inside the ‘fourth wall.’ There would absolutely be no video.”
Jackson specifically watched only the original Welcome to My Nightmare to get a feel for Alice — but purposely stayed away from everything else. “The fresher I was with the material, the better.”
The result created a show more unique and exciting than anything he’s done before. “We experimented with bold ideas, especially for a hard rock show, and the result is striking. At one point during programming, Brian Jenkins (programmer) screamed out, ‘How is this working so well? Nobody uses these colors!’ That is what we wanted. Success.”
Others on his lighting team include assistant Nathan Scheuer and lighting director Andy May, along with the staff and facilities of Webster University’s Conservatory of Theatre Arts for the “lab projects” that led to their finished product.
Yanni Right-Sizes World Tour
Yanni’s big sound and big orchestra usually calls for big productions. But things are different on this world tour. Wrapping up their U.S. dates, LD Bud Horowitz had time to talk about what’s different this time around.
“This time around the show has been structured to play 3,000-5,000 theatres rather than arenas. For one, we really wanted to increase the ‘intimacy’ factor,” Horowitz says. “We are also trying to structure the show — both in terms of the size of the orchestra and the technical size of the production — to make it easier and more cost effective to tour overseas. There is no video touring with the show. We are doing I-Mag in certain larger venues. We have scaled back the audio and the lighting systems to make the overseas shows a lot easier. This version really does focus more on Yanni and the music than the overall scale of the show.”
Yanni has already performed this year in Mexico and South America. More international touring in Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America starts in September.
McCartney Gets Back on Tour
Paul McCartney’s Up and Coming tour played Peru, Chile and Brazil in May for stadium shows. LD LeRoy Bennett’s 80-foot stage design reflected the fact that thousands would want to see the former Beatle up close — so the show had to be larger than life. In fact, behind the stage on the 31-truck tour were eight working offices and the catering camp, which served 480 vegetarian meals daily. McCartney’s camp hired 200 local workers per night to help the 170-person crew with the shows. The U.S. dates start June 10 in Las Vegas.
No Console-ation Needed for STP
Stone Temple Pilots LD Alastair Bramall-Watson shares an experience to which many LDs can relate.
“I was doing an STP show the other night, and some bozo spilt an entire pint of water into the faders of the console. The desk stayed on, so rather than disturb it, as the show was due to start in two minutes, we carried on with the moist console,” he says, with fingers crossed. “The console lasted through the show and didn’t fail at all. After the show, we tipped out the water.” And breathed a sigh of relief, no doubt. The experience could serve as a possible QC test for lighting console manufacturers. However, Watson has one caveat: “I wouldn’t recommend more than a pint, though.”
The Long and Dusty Road
Few lighting designers become salesmen. Dusty Hudgins is one of those few people. His story is much like many of those in the early days of concert touring, being in the right place at the right time. It was 1978, and Hudgins was bored with his job as a research chemist. Reading a story in the Dallas paper about a rock ‘n’ roll concert company led him to apply for a job — without any sound or lighting skills. “The only question I was asked was, ‘If I told you to be on a plane in four hours and you would be gone for a month, could you do it?’ I said ‘Yes,’ and that was that.” Two weeks later, he was on the Genesis tour. “Career paths” in the industry referred to the road you were literally on back then…
“I did not know a 6×19 (leko) from 827 (Roscolene color), but I learned quickly,” Hudgins says. A succession of tours followed as Hudgins moved up the ranks, adding crew chief, lighting tech and then LD to his title: Willie Nelson, P-Funk (“my first tour with artistic freedom,” he says), the Beach Boys, Ringo & His All Starr Band, Kenny Rogers. But it was a chance inquiry into a moving mirror fixture in Austin that landed him a sales job offer in 1992. He wasn’t looking for it, but it was a way to spend more time at home. His sales career began, but he also found time to run the lights at a local church to keep his chops in the art of lighting.
Fast forward light years later, and his recent six-year stint with another lighting manufacturer has come to an end. What’s next? As this issue went to press, that was an open question. For an update, you can email him at dustyhudgins@gmail.com.
Quick Cues…
LD Ryan Murphy is driving the design of The Cars’ reunion tour……Britney Spears is gearing up for her new world tour, Femme Fatale. LD Tom Beck, lighting programmer Dan Boland and lighting director Marty Postma will take the show through the U.S. and Canada starting mid-June through late August.
To contact Debi Moen, email dmoen@plsn.com.
