Marina (Marina Lambrini Diamandis), formerly known as Marina and the Diamonds, is a Wales-born singer-songwriter-keyboardist who moved to London as a teenager. Now 34, her music styles include dance, indie, electro and new wave pop genres. Her Feb. 2010 debut album release, The Family Jewels, entered the U.K. Albums Chart at number five, with her next two albums also reaching the top 10. This tour is in support of her fourth studio album, Love + Fear, another top-five charted album, released last April.
Rob Sinclair
Lighting Designer
This is Rob Sinclair’s third album cycle/tour with Marina, so he already had good lines of communication to start off the design process. They talked about an adult pop show, with dancers, no musicians and projection as the main lighting. “The idea stayed pretty much to that design, except for the addition of the multi-instrumentalist for the second part of the tour. It’s a really unique and compelling show, and we’re all very proud of what we created. I really wanted to explore projection as lighting, and how to make a pop show not look or feel like a conventional show.
“Our production manager, Simon Schofield, comes from a video background so he took the lead on the projection suppliers for the tour. Blink, the video content creators, are old friends from my time working on tours with artists Kylie Minogue, Shania Twain, Tame Impala and others. We gave them the impossible task of making too much content for too little money, and they absolutely excelled on everything. As the projection led the whole show, a lot of the dynamic and cues had to come from video.” Solotech served as the video vendor for the tour.
“Our lighting programmer and director, Jason Hyne, and I go back a way, from the Queen Extravaganza to Kaiser Chiefs and many places in between,” Rob continues. “He’s a wonderfully safe pair of hands, he has a dry sense of humor, and he is a truly talented LD. We had to put the show together at high speed, so I gave him guidance, he programmed and then we integrated lighting and video. It’s always a joy working with Marina and her management. This tour really shows that you don’t need a huge budget to create compelling and exciting work; in fact, sometimes constraint pushes creativity harder.” Christie Lites served as the lighting vendor.
Jason Hyne
Lighting Programmer & Director
Jason Hyne says that he has been fortunate to work with Rob Sinclair as a programmer for many years on a number of diverse projects. Subsequently the opportunity to work with Marina on the Love + Fear Tour as lighting and video director was offered. “As with most tours, we’re always up against the clock,” Jason says. “Due to the time constraints of the Love + Fear tour, we had approximately eight days that were pretty much split equally between pre-production programming and full production rehearsals. During this time, I was given a set list with about 25 potential tracks to work on, some of which were subject to change. Every track is time coded, consequently triggering each individual piece of video content. All lighting cues were programmed alongside for structure and continuity.
“The Marina production crew, video tech Grant Stoker, and all the creative teams were great to work with, and it’s always exciting to see Rob’s creative foresight come to life on stage, Rob being the catalyst into bringing the show to the road. As Rob mentioned, the production logistics were dealt with by Simon Schofield, whose expertise in all aspects of video are paramount when negotiating the variety of venues we’ve played. Simon’s knowledge and experience assists in alleviating the stresses that come with venues of every shape and size. It’s been a great tour and always a bonus to work with a reliable and conscientious team.”
Marina Love + Fear Tour
Crew
Lighting Designer: Rob Sinclair
Video Director: Rob Sinclair
Lighting Programmer & Director: Jason Hyne
Lighting Co: Christie Lites
Lighting Techs: Paul Hyne, SMP
Video Tech: Grant Stoker
Video Co: Solotech
Video Content: Blink
Scenic/Staging Co: Solotech
Tour Manager: Suzi Green
Production Manager: Simon Schofield
Production Assistant: Ashlee Johansen
Stage Manager: SMP
Draperies: Hangman
Trucking: Truck ‘N Roll
Gear
1 ChamSys MagicQ MQ80 console
44 Martin MAC Viper Performances
8 GLP JDC1’s
1 Unique 2.1 Hazer
2 30K Laser Projectors
1 Resolume media server
More Marina “Love + Fear” Tour photos by Steve Jennings:
