Jill Scott wanted elegance. LD Martin Thomas, as set designer, lighting designer, and lighting programming, delivered. Scott’s Live Soul tour had a lot of elegance, plus a lot of heart and class, when it rolled into St. Louis river city one recent rainy night. The sold-out show was well worth trudging through the wet weather, as the R&B singer provided a powerhouse of great music and showmanship. Scott is far from what all too often passes for a pop star these days: she’s a woman of experience and talent, and effectively and sincerely connects with the audience.
Here in St. Louis, Thomas found himself at the 4,200-seat Fox, which was built as a movie house in 1929. It had glory days in the 1930s and 1940s, but by the 1970s it was severely neglected and had become home to the rowdier rock acts (e.g., Grateful Dead and Frank Zappa). It was finally shut down and abandoned. In 1981 the venue’s owners started restoring it to its original 1929 splendor — which makes for a great-looking place that is good for theatre, but a bit challenging for modern music acts like Scott.
Thomas’ approach was an apt one for the stately theatre.
Our sources were unable to confirm whether or not the traditional “kick me” sign was ever taped to his back, but Thomas began his career as “one of those kids who were part of the A.V. club in high school.” But it was not just any high school — it was the prestigious High School of Art & Design in Manhattan. “I was the guy who knew how to make the projector work,” he smiles. “Then from there, you get drafted to work in the auditorium.” But Thomas is quick to add that he’s grateful to the school and for the opportunities it brought.
After high school he was out on the road with bands, and he’s been on the road almost 30 years since. “It’s been good. Obviously, there are moments when you go, ‘Crap, why am I doing this?!?’ But I’ve met some great people here, learned a lot about the business and technology. I’ve learned people skills in general are especially important.”
In 2005, Thomas was part of the Sugar Water Tour, which included Scott, Queen Latifah and Erykah Badu. He had run lights for Badu and that’s when Scott and her team for noticed him. They turned to him for a European tour that had him flying by the seat of his pants. Scott told him she didn’t like followspots, didn’t like lights in her eyes, and he basically had to reproduce the show in whatever venue he was in, whether it had 60 PAR cans and no automated lights, or 48 automated lights and no PAR cans.
“But this show was our show,” he says, of Live Soul.
Prior to the tour, Scott flew Thomas into her hometown of Philadelphia to talk. The key word, he was told, was “elegant.” Thomas says he came away knowing it was going to be pretty show. “I knew she liked atmosphere, and I had no problem with haze.” But he quickly ascertained that the reality was that the rooms they would be playing in weren’t conducive to a complex design, and he says he wasn’t about to design something with a lot of circle trussing. “I knew I’d never get the rigging points, so why bother?”
For pre-production he had just one day of rehearsals. Then it was out for a two-month tour.
Being familiar with her music helped him come up with a design for the show. Soft goods played a major role, and even led him to give a hand to his audio brethren. “I designed all the soft goods to help the sound guys deaden out that stage. What little I know about audio, I know some correctly placed curtains really help!”
To achieve the signature smooth and coordinated look, he turned to a lot of Martin gear. The show featured 21 MAC 700s, five in a half-circle above Scott, and some others upstage. The downstage truss featured MAC 2000s that he uses for texture.
Thomas also used Martin Stagebar 54 LED strips, which he describes as “awesome.” It allowed him to mix warmer colors, something Scott very much wanted on this tour. All the Martin gear he said performed well “right out of the box,” and he’ll return to that box, apparently, as they “worked all the time, which is critical!” he laughs. “I’ve worked with a lot of other great companies, but when their lights work only 80 percent of the time; I’m spending time in the trusses trying to fix them.”
For washes he unboxed some Vari*Lite VL 3500s which he proclaims as “great lights!” “The first time I saw them,” he said, “I thought, ‘Wow, they are big.’ But their color saturation is really good. Everything about them is absolutely perfect. I didn’t have to move them much and that helped. I just had to get them in focus.”
Driving it all is an Avolites Diamond 4 Vision console. The variety of halls — from the old Fox Theatre to much bigger and smaller venues — needed an intimate feel, and the theatrical nature of the show demanded a lot of flexibility, which he says he got with the Avo. “In a bigger theatre, if I need an extra five points, I just push the fader up five points and get what I needed. It’s a very cool desk.”
It all provided the tools he needed to subtly enhance the mood through the big brassy numbers down to whisper-quiet ballads. “It was all simple, basic stuff,” he says. “This was not a show that needed a lot a lot of spinning, flashing, and wiggling. It was architecturally clean.”
The show was also impressive for what it didn’t have.
“You’ll notice there is no video in this show. I’ve seen so much of it lately it seemed like overkill, especially for this music. Instead we went with soft goods, creating texture with the drapes,” which were supplied by Rose Brand.
The limitations of the Fox didn’t allow for the kabuki drop. On most of the shows in the tour, Scott is revealed with a fly away kabuki. “Fragoso Inc. provided a ‘Chabuki’ for this show, and it made for a very dramatic beginning. It would pyramid down, and disappear up and Jill would appear out of the darkness. It was a great reveal.”
Creative Stage Lighting supplied all of the lighting and soft goods for the tour. Thomas says the tour has been a great experience, and he loved that Scott wanted something appropriate for her more sophisticated, mature audience. He says that Scott was all about creating an elegant atmosphere, which he did brilliantly. As almost a throwback to another era, it was reminiscent of the Rat Pack. He says he was influenced by the look of clubs out of places like New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago during the 1940s and 1950s.
“I’ve been influenced by Roy Bennett (Madonna, Dixie Chicks, et al) and Howard Ungerleider (Rush, et al). Howard is the master of the long light, the one that comes from heaven and strikes the stage. Another thing I’ve learned from Howard that I did with this show is never repeating a look from song to song. There were no giant moves in this show, just the careful placement of lights and making subtle color choices from there. During the entire two-and-a-half hour show, I rarely repeat a look. That’s the greatest part of this show: I could paint all day with these lights!”
And he did.
