The entourage for Tori Amos’ latest tour just might be the easiest group to wrangle in the history of touring. That’s because the cast, which includes Pip, Isabel, Clyde, and Santa — a.k.a., the American Doll Posse — were all figments of Amos’ imagination.
When Kevin Mitchell of Sugar Society booked the legendary Rabbit in the Moon at Amos’ Southend, his ace up his sleeve was Jack Kelly of Eye Dialogue, who had four years of experience doing shows at the Charlotte, NC music hall. He handed Kelly the tour rider and asked if he could light it for $4,000.
The word “Evanescence” is derived from the Latin word meaning “to vanish,” and that’s just what several of its band members and management have done since the band formed in 1998. But one element that leader and vocalist Amy Lee insisted on not changing was lighting designer/director Lawrence “Loz” Upton. Upton, who has designed the lighting for Smashing Pumpkins, Staind, and Marilyn Manson, among others, has a penchant for artists with more of a classical design aesthetic.
An integration of set, lighting and video technologies created a flashy, pulsating design worthy of the Las Vegas Strip.
The 8th Annual Latin Grammy Awards got a dose of Vegas pizzazz. Not that the live award show needed any spicing up, as it is arguably the hottest night in Latin music, attracting audiences with its passionate, pulsating performances from today’s top artists, including Ricky Martin, Regaetón recording artist Daddy Yankee and Dominican singer/songwriter Juan Luis Guerra — the night’s showstopper, winning a record five awards, including Album of the Year. This year’s show reached a record 12.6 million viewers nationwide; in several major markets, it was the number one program in its time slot. “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” need not apply here.
If you know the lighting industry, you know Genesis as much for the band’s production values as for its music. In the early 1980s, the group was instrumental in the development of the first commercially available automated lighting system, the Vari*Lite VL1, by providing the funds and the impetus for its delivery. For that reason, Lighting Designer Patrick Woodroffe cites the band’s “history of putting on big, spectacular light shows” as one of the main reasons he enthusiastically approached the design for the latest tour, Turn It on Again. He and Stage Designer Mark Fisher knew that they were dealing with “people who were knowledgeable, experienced and prepared to support a big venture…with both money and commitment,” according to Woodroffe. But they also knew it would come with challenges.
Snakes and Arrows is a culmination of 33 years of Ungerleider’s designs
By the time Howard Ungerleider was 20 years old, he was in his second year with American Talent International agency in New York. Already traveling the world with famous bands, his job was to ensure that the contracts he negotiated for their performances were upheld. While he was hanging out with these bands, they often asked him questions, the most common of which was, “What did you think of our show tonight?
Pick a song…any song
The lighting direction for Billboard-charting rock band 311’s Summer Unity Tour was nothing short of a guessing game. With a collection of 210 songs, none of which sound the least bit similar, 311 covers virtually every music genre: alternative rock, punk, ska, reggae, hip hop and even the occasional, gasp, mushy ballad (they cover The Cure’s classic melodrama “Love Song”). Lighting Designer Joe Paradise paused long enough to speak to us during the tour’s Las Vegas show at the Pearl Concert Theater, The Palms’ new concert hot spot.
From silly punk to serious vibes
When the U.K.’s leading weekly music newspaper, Melody Maker, panned a performance of Thomas Bangalter Guy and Manuel de Homen-Christo — who were performing back then under the moniker Darlin’ — they thought it was amusing that the paper referred to their music as “a bunch of daft punk.” Today, the drum machine and synthesizer duo perform under that name —Daft Punk — and they are known as much for their visual shows as their aural performances. They have a penchant for rousing an audience to a frenzy of dance, and if you happen to look at the FOH position during a show, you just might have seen the band’s lighting and set designer, Martin Phillips, getting into the act himself.
Roger Waters’ Dark Side of the Moon tour built a wall of light
When you think of a classic rock concert light show, chances are you’re thinking of Pink Floyd and Marc Brickman’s iconic masterpieces of the ‘70s and ‘80s. “Mr. Screen,” the circular projection surface ringed by Vari*Lites, the magnificent arched truss loaded with more automated lights, large inflatables and the flying, crashing airplane came to define the pinnacle of theatrical concert production.
Roger Waters, the main songwriter and one of the lead singers of Pink Floyd, left the band in 1985 and embarked on a solo career. After a short-lived reunion with David Gilmour and Pink Floyd, Waters was again on his own, touring and performing on the strength of his Floyd hits and his solo material. The recent leg of his tour, which was designed by Brickman, recently brought him through North America where PLSN caught up with some of the crew, including lighting director Mark “Sparky” Risk, video tech Clarke Anderson, and production manager Chris Kansy.
As John Mayer moves toward the blues, the show borrows a warehouse look
John has revitalized my live concert experience,” Michael Keller says. “The last few years weren’t fun any more.” Lighting designer Keller is talking about how every night on this tour is new; as he works the show, he doesn’t know what’s going to happen until it happens. Not in a “these-guys-are-crazy” way, but more in the vein of musicians making music fresh at the moment for the audience, as opposed to every note, beat, light cue and song order exactly the same show after show.
Muse uses video to blur the genre line.
If you took equal parts electronica, heavy metallica, music classica and rock progressiva, you might come up with something like the English rock band Muse. Combine their varied music influences with a penchant for telling stories of apocalypse, outer space, politics and religion, and you have a production landscape rife with design possibilities and themes. For their current world tour, the design duties landed on the shoulders of Oli Metcalfe, who has been designing and directing lighting for Muse since 2000 after they opened for the Red Hot Chili Peppers on the Californication tour, and on media director Tom Kirk.
Topping previous tours takes creativity — and a lotta video.
According to Dean Spurlock, lighting and video content designer for Brad Paisley’s “Bonfires and Amplifiers” tour, the concert “is in your face the whole time.” That’s not so hard to understand when you consider that Paisley threw down the gauntlet and challenged his team to put together his most spectacular concert yet. And he’s not just a man of words — the recent American Country Music Award winner for top male vocalist rolls up his sleeves and gets personally and actively involved in creating the show, even going as far as creating some of the video content in the form of a cartoon that accompanied an instrumental number.