Stevie Nicks performed a solid two-hour set spanning her 35-year solo career, which also included some notable Fleetwood Mac hits on her 24 Karat Gold Tour. With the added pleasure of The Pretenders on the bill, fans got two powerhouse iconic acts in one show. One of the highlights came when Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde comes back out to sing with Steve on the hit “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” to the delight of the crowd.
Back is production designer Paul “Arlo” Guthrie of Toss Film & Design Inc. We spoke with Guthrie about his history working on Nicks (and Fleetwood Mac tours) where he’s created an elegant design that accentuates Stevie’s style and music. We also spoke with lighting director Chris Lose along with The Pretenders lighting designer and director Tom Wagstaff.
Paul Guthrie wanted to give this tour a contemporary feel and always knew that the video content would feature prominently so he included a lot of LED to showcase that.
“I designed L shaped sections on both sides to expand the video resembling a deconstructed proscenium but keeping sight-lines clear to the stage for the side arena seats. I wanted a simple and elegant riser structure to showcase the upstage musicians and wrapped it in flexible LED. I also added some practical scenic lighting pieces on hoists that we introduce further into the show to add another layer.
“We don’t use any smoke or haze on Stevie’s tours, so I rely heavily on the video to add visual dynamic to the songs that would usually come from beams and lighting movement and programming. Stevie likes to be involved with the content so we work together to develop some of the concepts and I split the creation duties between Empirical and myself.
“I had Tait build the four Orb fixtures and 10 pendant fixtures that deploy in different heights for different songs. The four [3.5-foot] Orbs are hung on Nav hoists to lower down over the stage. They hold LED incandescent bulbs and are lined with RGB LED tape. The 10 pendants have roto-molded clear frosted teardrop globes and RGBW LED tape ‘filaments’ with some diffusion to soften the pixels of the tape. They look like giant old household bulbs.
“The Pendants are on Tait Nano winches which, along with the Nav hoists, are controlled by Art-Net from the grandMA console through Tait’s Navigator. Chris [Lose] has presets for the hoists that work within travel limits set by Brittany Keifer (the automation lead), and the position and travel time are triggered from cue lists in the grandMA.
“I wanted a hybrid lighting fixture, and the Mythos lighting fixtures fit the needs perfectly. Even without haze, the pin beams read in an arena and their versatility enabled me to use all they have to offer.
“PRG has a very long history with Stevie and Fleetwood Mac so it was a pleasure to have them back and to have PRG’s Curry Grant still involved. I love the Bad Boy Ground Control [units], which we are using as Stevie’s truss spot.”
Some of the scripting was imported from the Fleetwood Mac tour to save them typing the same things over in the grandMA, but the actual cues — with the exception of one Fleetwood Mac song — were all started from scratch, as was the content created for this tour.
“Stevie uses very literal interpretations of her songs, which give me a place to start when developing content, and her songs all tell stories. The challenge is to make a new artistic interpretation of songs that many of our audience have seen countless times. I have the more challenging concepts developed and executed by Alex Parks and the team at Empirical, and I handle the rest using animation, photos that Stevie or I have taken and footage I shoot in rehearsals. Stevie weighs in on everything we do in the show, which I always welcome.
“I feel spoiled again to get to work with great people who all bring their skills and specialties to make this show happen. Stevie always gives 100 percent, and it’s great for her to be supported by people who do the same. We were also very lucky to get to work alongside The Pretenders and their crew.”
Guthrie used 48 Atomic LED strobes, including a row of them on a truss that hung above the video wall. Though the strobes were used quite sporadically, he found other uses for the fixtures.
“We used the Atomic’s Auras to add a layer of color and some subtle movement from the built-in effects. It helped add a twinkle and extend the color palette beyond the video. I had thought about using them as a wash fixture but, given the power of the video and all those Mythos, I didn’t need them. We ended up with them pointed straight out.”
Chris Lose, Stevie’s lighting director, had a little over three weeks to program the show, starting off with almost 30 songs that could be called up whenever Stevie wanted to play them.
“I did the bulk of the lighting and automation programming. Arlo did most of the media programming. Having both consoles in session allowed us to add a few touches to each other’s looks when we couldn’t explain what we wanted to do.
“There is no timecode in this show. Everything, including the lighting, video and automation, is operated manually. No two shows are exactly the same. Stevie likes to go where she wants, when she wants, even in the middle of a song, so you need to be attentive and be ready at all times. The grandMA2 is my console of choice and has been since I became an LD. I only have nice things to say about the board.”
Lose is also a fan of the PRG Ground Control system.
“The PRG Ground Control system is great. It is a solution to a problem that I never could have imagined a solution to. We have had zero issues and no spares. The Claypaky Mythos are my go-to fixture for all aerial effects. I can usually get some impressive beam-age from them with even a minimal amount of humidity in the air.
“This is a great tour to be on, one we are continuing into 2017, and I’d like to thank Arlo for giving me the responsibility to see his vision through to completion, and I also want to thank my lighting crew — Tom, Corey, Cecil, Scott and Pup — for being total professionals at every step of the process.”
The Pretenders open the show on the tour. Though budgets can be limited, Wagstaff credited the band and management. They were “incredibly generous in their support for my design, for which I’m enormously grateful,” Wagstaff says.
“We did have some constraints in that we could not use haze for this run, and it had to be simple enough to set up and take down in the brief changeover windows before our sound check and between sets. It had to occasionally fit in a small trailer along with our backline, as we also had several solo shows scheduled in amongst the arena dates.
“Fortunately, Arlo and the Stevie camp were very kind in letting us use a large part of their rig for all our joint shows, so I was able to concentrate my resources on elements that could function more as scenic pieces, and mostly let Arlo’s lights deal with illuminating the band. Chrissie [Hynde] asked me to keep things fairly simple, with not a lot of movement or saturated colors, and so I went with mostly tungsten fixtures for my floor package, and in general my color palette stayed mostly to shades of white and pale pastels, so the occasional splash of more saturated color had an added impact.
“The other major element we have is a lovely textured backdrop from Atomic Designs. The Atomic backdrop takes color and patterns wonderfully, and gave me a wealth of options for different looks, and really added scale and depth to our stage setup, which, as we would not be using the LED walls, and would not have haze to create beams, could otherwise have looked quite cavernous.”
The Wagstaff and Guthrie camps were very supportive of each other regarding the lighting rig, Wagstaff says.
“I knew from the start that the basic stage illumination was going to come from those fixtures; without haze used on these shows, there was not a lot that could be done with beam looks (although in their tightest focus, the Mythos fixtures were able to give some limited beam looks). I relied on subtle color changes, and different intensity effects, lighting the band and backdrop mostly with Stevie’s lights, and most of my floor lights aimed out at the audience, using the fixtures themselves as design elements, controlling their intensity so that they provided a visually interesting and kinetic backdrop to the band.”
The pre-production time was in ways generous, as they had several days of rehearsal in a soundstage in the U.K. prior to arriving in the U.S. for the start of the tour.
“This was especially useful, as when we did meet up with the Stevie crew, we only had one afternoon on the stage before the first show the following day. Coming in to that with most of the show already programmed, and just needing to update some focuses and palettes on the actual rig, was a lifesaver.
“Arlo and Chris were very helpful, and gave me as much time as they could, but they also had their own bugs to squash, so coming in already prepared made my life much easier. I have to give special thanks to Chris [Lose] and Tom Mayer from Stevie’s camp for making sure that I had complete paperwork for their rig and a patched show file for me to start from ahead of time, so that when I met up with them in Phoenix for the first show, everything just loaded up perfectly the first time!
“I’ve done some shows in the past where I knew that I would not be able to call on extra help like that, and so, obviously, you have to make design choices bearing in mind not only what you want to do, but what you are physically able to achieve with the time/bodies you have. You must develop skills for all the different types of tours you’re on.
“I’d like to say a huge thank you to Arlo, Chris, Tom and the rest of the Stevie lighting crew for their invaluable help and generosity on this tour; my show would not have been possible without them. Thanks also to Curry Grant at PRG, who, when I said ‘Curry, I need to cut the price for this package — oh, and I also need to add some more lights,’ he just laughed, and made it happen! Thanks also to Chrissie and the rest of the band for the opportunity to light such a great show!”
Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold Tour with The Pretenders
Crew
Production Designer: Paul “Arlo” Guthrie/Toss Film & Design
Lighting Director & Programmer: Chris Lose
Lighting Designer, Programmer & Director for The Pretenders: Tom Wagstaff
Lighting Co: PRG/Curry Grant
Lighting Crew: Thomas Mayer, Corey Tom (Crew Chiefs), Cecil Nelson, Scott Naef, Matthew “Pup” Schiller
Video Content/Creators: Arlo Guthrie, Empirical/Alex Parks, Ben Nicholson
Video Director: Jerry McReynolds
Video Co: Screenworks/Danny O’Bryen
Video Crew: Greg “Grit” Frederick (Crew Chief), Matt “Lindy” Lindstrom, Jason Simpkin, David Jacobs, Jon Huntington
Staging & Automation: Tait/Matt Hales
Automation: Brittany Kiefer
Scenic Backdrop for The Pretenders: Atomic Design/Brian Shaughnessy
Riggers: Russell Glenn, Matt Rynes
Tour Manager: Marty Hom
Production Manager: Bobby Herr
Stage Manager: Steve Rinkov
Tour Manager for The Pretenders: Andy Proudfoot
Production Manager for The Pretenders: Robin Scott
Gear
Stevie Nicks:
- 2 grandMA2 consoles
- 88 Claypaky Mythos
- 26 PRG Best Boy Spot HP
- 48 Martin Atomic Strobe 3000 LED
- 24 Impression X4 Bar20 RGBW GLP
- 1 PRG Best Boy Ground Control Follow Spot
- 8 Robe 750w PATT 2013
- 3 Media Server Kit Mbox Extreme V3.5
- 1 SW X12Lte upstage video wall
- 1 Linx 9 video tile setup for risers
- 2 Barco HDF 30K projectors for I-Mag
- 1 PRG Mbox media server
The Pretenders:
- 2 grandMA2 Full consoles (Arena shows)
- 2 grandMA2 Light consoles (Solo shows)
- 56 Claypaky Mythos (from Stevie Nicks’ rig)
- 26 PRG Best Boy Spot HP (from Stevie Nicks’ rig)
- 29 GLP X4 Bar20 (22 from Stevie Nicks’ rig)
- 9 Sunstrip Active DMX fixtures
- 4 5k Skypans (Lamped at 2K)
- 3 5k Fresnels (Lamped at 2K)
- 3 4-Cell Molefays
- 3 2-Cell Molefays
- 7 MSE 3-Rise rolling stands
More tour photos by Steve Jennings:
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