When Kacey Musgraves, the Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter, kicked off her 2022 star-crossed: unveiled tour in Saint Paul, MN in mid-January, she hit the road with a lighting design by Rob Sinclair. The tour included U.S. dates at Madison Square Garden in New York City, the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas, and the Bridgestone Arena in Musgraves’ hometown of Nashville, TN. PLSN caught up with the lighting team to share their own thoughts about working on the show.
Rob Sinclair
Lighting Designer
Sinclair notes that Kacey Musgraves’ management were looking for ideas for her star-crossed: unveiled tour, so Sinclair sent them something very rough, which seemed to connect. “It had the proscenium arch and the heart shaped stage, although in very different configurations. We then all worked together to tweak the idea and to add detail,” he says.
“Kacey has exquisite taste and an amazing reference library on her phone—she can call up something really beautiful in milliseconds. She was very involved at all stages but also a very gracious collaborator, allowing the whole team to bring their own ideas.” Sinclair says every tour is never easy as there can always be a few wrong turns. “I always send us down a few blind alleys and there can be some unexpected roadblocks. We tried to deliver a show that had big, Instagram-able visual moments, but that never distracted from Kacey, her songs and her band.”
Sinclair says their success was entirely down to the fantastic team who all worked tirelessly for weeks. “I’m so proud to know André Petrus, Danielle Edwards, Harry Boyde, Simon Roberts, George Sinclair, Ian Kinnersley, Steve Price and all of our crews from Christie Lites, ER Productions, SGPS ShowRig and Screenworks. I’m also really grateful to Leslie Cohea, Bobby Simmons and Jason Owen for trusting the English guy with glasses.”
Andre Petrus
Associate Lighting Designer & Programmer
“I love Kacey Musgraves. This new record is fire,” enthuses Petrus. “This is not a light show. It’s about creating a vibe. I found myself pulling lights out as opposed to adding them. The most challenging part of this show was to not over light the stage. If I turned lights on it was generally for a specific reason. One of my personal challenges is to light each song in a stylized format. We wanted each song to have its own personality and we tried to accentuate the music through the technology.”
Petrus says at first they had just enough time to get a first pass of the show. “That time slowly diminished as everyone had their own thoughts as to how the songs should look. We started with a set list and over the rehearsal period it got switched up quite a bit. Luckily it was a matter of taking songs out instead of adding songs in. I spent a lot of my time cueing in all the video and screen content with our video programmer Simon Roberts. This was my first time working with Simon in this capacity and I hope to do it again soon. Lighting Director Danielle Edwards and I have a great working relationship. She is talented and is always there for my venting episodes.”
Danielle Edwards
Lighting Director
Edwards first worked with Sinclair on Greta Van Fleet’s The Strange Horizons Tour. “I was immediately impressed with his design style and eye for detail. During the pandemic, I worked adjacent to André on some local one-offs, I was able to get to know who he was and how he works prior to working with him in this capacity. Greta Van Fleet was my first time working with Rob and André as a team. There is a wealth of knowledge and experience to be gleaned from those two; it has been an absolute pleasure getting to know and work with such talented individuals!”
Edwards says there were a few moments that needed a little flexibility to allow for Kacey to connect with the crowd. “We also had the ‘Kacey-oke’ moment that was selected by an attendee every night, so it made sense to make those songs or cues manual. I’d say about 80% timecode, 20% manual cues. Running the show is mostly just exercising those brain muscles that were starting to atrophy from not being used during the pandemic. We were using grandMA3 hardware, which was a learning curve, (where’s my oops button… amirite!?) but I ended up really liking the new hardware.”
Edwards also notes she’s a little late to the game, but she was thrilled to use the Robe RoboSpot Followspot system. “Having control of color and dimmer took away a little bit of the uncertainty we all experience when depending on local crew who’ve never seen the show, or who have varying levels of experience running followspots.”
Kacey Musgraves star-crossed: unveiled Tour
Production Team
- Lighting Designer: Rob Sinclair
- Associate Lighting Designer & Programmer: André Petrus
- Design Assistant: George Sinclair
- Lighting Director: Danielle Edwards
- Tour Manager: Jane Donald
- Production Manager: Ian Kinnersley
- Production Coordinator: Beth Brown
- Lighting Co: Christie Lites/Matt Illot, Russell Benoit
- Lighting Crew Chief: Jamy Donnelly
- Lighting Techs: Chelsea Opdyke, Chris Pedersen, Marc Durning, Devon Zuckerman
- Video Director: Steve “TSP” Price
- Video Co: Screenworks/Randy Mayer
- Video/LED Crew Chief: Mike Roberts
- Video/LED Techs: Tyler Thornton, Tyler Field, Tim “TC” Cerola, Zephyn Kercher, Allyssa Roberts,
- Video/LED Content Creator: Simon Roberts
- Staging Co: SGPS ShowRig
- FX: ER Productions/Lawrence Wright
- FX Techs: Jeff Owens, Harry Boyde, Asher Heighham
- Stage Manager: Burtus Bragg
- Carpenters: Drew Odom, Conrad Stafford, Corey Settle, Robert Flood, Scott Weinclaw
- Riggers: Art McConnell, Vlad Kim
Gear
- 2 MA Lighting grandMA3 full-size Lighting Console
- 1 MA Lighting grandMA3 compact Lighting Console
- 142 GLP impression X4 Bar 20
- 4 GLP impression X4 Bar 10
- 18 GLP impression FR10 Bar
- 80 Robe BMFL
- 6 Robe BMFL Followspots
- 18 Martin MAC Aura
- 8 Claypaky Sharpy
- 4 Chroma Q Space Force
- 48 GLP JDC1 Strobe
- 1 CrowdSync Technology LED Wristband System
- 4 Reel EFX DF50 Hazer
- 1 ROE Visual CB5 LED Panel Package
More Kacey Musgraves Tour Photos from Steve Jennings:
