Kylie X 2008 Live in Prague, TPi magazine

June 2008
International live event design & technology
June 2008 • Issue 106
KYLIE
X2008
LIVE IN PRAGUE
DUNNCHISELLIN’
RADIOHEAD’S CARBON-CONSCIOUS TOUR
SUPERGRASS • THE KOOKS • PORTISHEAD
SENNHEISER’S SOUNDFEST • A.C. NORTH 2008
RIGGING, TRUSSING & AUTOMATION FEATURE
www.tpimagazine.com
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kylie
X2008 WORLD TOUR
TPi DISCOVERED THERE IS MORE THAN ONE O2 ARENA IN
THE WORLD WHEN MARK CUNNINGHAM & LOUISE STICKLAND
FLEW TO THE BEAUTIFUL CZECH REPUBLIC CAPITAL OF PRAGUE
TO CATCH AN EARLY VIEW OF KYLIE MINOGUE’S LATEST
AND GREATEST LIVE PRODUCTION...
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My Head’, ‘Spinning Around’, ‘I Believe In You’ and ‘In
Your Eyes’, but virtually ignores her early Stock-AitkenWaterman era. We should be so lucky! Instead,
audiences get an unexpected bonus in the form of a
heavily choreographed cover of Barry Manilow’s
‘Copacabana’. Stunning!
With her new, nine-piece band and a cast of 14
dancers and acrobats in tow, Kylie — awarded an OBE
last year for her services to music — goes all out to
please with American cheerleader, saucy geisha girl and
robot themes, and would make even Graham Norton
blush with the veritable gay fest of ‘Loveboat’.
Routed by agent Dave Chumley of Primary Talent
International, the 15 truck, 40 tonne production tour
proved to be somewhat of a challenge for the crew
over the first few shows. “The main reason, is that
we’re putting what amounts to a stadium production
into arenas, with 15 trucks carrying 40 tonnes of gear,”
explained tour manager Sean Fitzpatrick.
“Even with the shortest of drives between venues,
it seems quite tough and we’re having to pre-rig either
the day before or very early, like 2am, on show day to
have it all ready for doors. The pattern is two shows,
night off, two shows, night off, pretty much all the way
through. We’ve struggled for these first few dates, but
we’re getting there.”
Sharing office space with Fitzpatrick is Kevin
Hopgood who took over the production management
reins from Steve Martin in 2005 for the Showgirl tour.
Initially on Capital Sound’s crew
for two Kylie tours (from 2000),
his underlying PM skills came to
the fore when he stepped in to
cover for Martin on a number of U.S. promos
and TV shows. When the Showgirl tour came along, his
PM role was set in stone. As Fitzpatrick said: “There
was always a production manager in there waiting to
get out!”
Hopgood commented that virtually every hour of
a 22-day production rehearsal period at LiteStructures
in Wakefield was used to prepare for X2008. “It was
my first time there and it worked out very well — we
made full use of the on-site manufacturing facility for
lots of set modifications and bespoke elements like our
cube frame [powder coated in black] which the
dancers use on stage.”
“The studio is a little out of the way, which is a
good thing on a number of levels. It’s a bit of a trek to
hotels, but it’s lovely to drive through the countryside
every morning... as long as you’ve got a SatNav!
They’ve had a number of big productions at
LiteStructures now, so they are fully geared up and
very accommodating. It’s a great facility and there
should be more like this. Normally, we’d follow up
with a week in a venue but we didn’t have such a
luxury this time, so it was straight to a single load-in day
for the first show in Paris.”
Early in the planning, it was decided that the tour
Photos by Ken MacKay
Copyright © 2008 Darenote Ltd — All Rights Reserved
Launched in Paris on May 6, X2008 is Kylie
Minogue’s largest tour of her 21-year pop career.
Now fully recovered after her well-reported breast
cancer surgery, the Australian star will play to well
over half a million people on her European tour and
appear live for the first time in Greece, Hungary,
Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Luxembourg, Russia,
Latvia and Spain.
TPi showed up for the tour’s fifth date at
Prague’s O2 Arena — a venue that, other than the
name, bears little of its London cousin’s identity.
Scheduled to end its European jaunt on August 4
after UK dates in Belfast, Glasgow, Manchester,
Newcastle and a sizeable stretch at London’s O2,
X2008 has reportedly cost a staggering £10 million
to stage and features an exclusive wardrobe
designed for Kylie by Jean Paul Gaultier, resulting in
around eight smoothly-integrated costume changes.
Creatively directed and produced by William
Baker, a master at integrating technology (not for its
own sake but always appropriately) in defining the look
and feel, the show is psychologically unnerving at times
and never predictable. With great humanity, positivity,
huge theatrical aplomb and considerable warmth, Kylie
bonds with her audience whilst proving that the art of
live performance and entertainment can breach new
and subtle emotional territories.
For X2008, Kylie’s set leans on her latest album,
X, and 21st century hits such as ‘Can’t Get You Out Of
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Tour manager Sean Fitzpatrick and
production manager Kevin Hopgood in
the Apple showroom, cunningly disgused
as the Kylie production office.
Bottom left inset:
LiteStructures Studio,
the venue for pre-tour rehearsals.
Above L-R: Lighting gurus Bryan Leitch & Nick Whitehouse; video director Ruary MacPhie; video crew chief Stuart Heaney; automation op Ian MacDonald.
would visit many territories that Kylie had never played
before, so the objective was to design a show that fairly
light on its feet and would fit snugly into a number of
venue sizes.
Hopgood, who is supported by technical manager
Phil Murphy and production co-ordinator Juliette
Baldrey, said: “Inevitably, there were a lot of very good
ideas on the table and the design grew into something
much bigger than was first intended. That’s fine for the
bigger places but we’ve had to devise a ‘B’ show for
the smaller venues.”
Set construction legend Charlie Kail has been
onboard as the engineering consultant on all aspects of
the set design. Hopgood explained: “Charlie decides
who is best suited to provide the services required and
36 TPi JUNE 08
he’s liaised between myself, the designers and Total
Solutions Group — our main set/staging vendor. He’s
done this for a number of Kylie tours and his
experience is vital.”
The Total Solutions Group was not only tasked
with the design and build of the new stage set from
concept images, it also supplied several flown and stage
props. Mervyn Thomas, the Birmingham-based
company’s project manager for the job, informed TPi
that the main job was to create a 15.5m x 14.6m
deep, 4° raked LED video-tiled stage with twin, 5m x
4.6m (1.8m high) band riser decks at left and right, and
and two sets of 2.5m wide access steps.
The rake meant that the downstage edge starts at
1.5m and by the upstage edge it is 2.45m. Neil
Darracott from Xolve was tasked to design this part of
the project which includes the integration of the stage
lifts.
Within the stage is a 12m x 2.9m deep stage lift,
supplied by Stage One, and designed in three separate
parts to bring stage props on and off the stage. This
also required the creation of three corridors under the
stage to feed the prop equipment on to the lifts and
then up to stage level.
The lifts have the same LED decks as the rest of
the stage. These were created by using a prefabricated
aluminium frame with 14 Barco MiStrips bolted to it at
60mm centres. Over the top of this is a polycarbonate
surface with a special non-slip floor which also acts as a
diffuser for the MiStrip units. Each deck has its own
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MiStrip controller and is linked together beneath the
stage.
As for the dazzling range of stage props, one of the
first to be revealed is The Controller — a base frame
with a controller suit supported on it. Thomas
explained: “This suit basically sits behind Kylie and has
arm supports which she holds on to during the flying
sequence. We tasked Specialz with supplying the 60strand, battery-powered electroluminescence. This is
linked to a halo to create the effect.”
The ‘Copacabana’ club scene sees a fully-stocked
‘foldaway’ bar and servery, featuring two lines of
battery-powered LED neon from Lightfactor. Also
effective is a four-sided pyramid, made from 2.15m
equilateral triangles that are hinged at the base frame
and opened and closed using linear actuators for a
single pendant to control this battery-operated prop.
Other props were created in collaboration with
Fineline, who provided lightweight mouldings and
support structures for them. These include a largerthan-life (2.4m high) set of hi-fi speakers, palm trees
and mannequins.
Most impressive is the giant mirror-tiled skull —
Fineline created the lightweight skull over a structural
framework by Total Solutions. It was then coated in
minute mirror ball tiles to create the effect.
VIDEO
The idea of moving video screens as a dynamic and
constantly shifting architectural parameter ensures a
visually provocative environment transporting the action
to a myriad of real and imaginative locations. Innovative
application of scenic video was on William Baker’s
canvas from the outset.
XL Video UK is again supplying Kylie’s video
hardware via Blink TV, whose production team were
commissioned by Baker to produce all the content. It’s
a physically gruelling tour particularly for the video
department, with XL’s team of 10 crew chiefed by
Stuart Heaney, and jointly project managed by Phil
Mercer from XL Video UK and Steve Aiken from XL
Belgium.
The results of the arduous daily schedule are truly
spectacular in delivering the show’s narrative journey.
Only through specifically thought-out visuals could such
a plethora of themes be addressed, from the pure
fantasism of pop to the dark introspection of death with
equal engagement.
The main screens are six hangs of Element Labs
Stealth, seven tiles wide by 24 high. The two centre
hangs track on and offstage, while the four outer ones
track up and downstage on diagonals. Complementing
these are 26 custom light-box floor panels each
containing 20 Barco MiStrips, making up the forestage
steps and band risers, bringing the whole floor area to
life. Upstage of the band risers are 6,000 Barco
MiSphere LED balls — 48 strings of 64 balls at each
side of stage.
This multi-layered LED texturing — crewed by
Pieter Laleman, Patrick Vansteelant and Andy Tonks —
brings a massive definition of the stage, creating a
vibrant performance arena, with video playing a vital
supporting role along with several eye-catching props in
true Kylie style.
KYLIE
All onstage LED surfaces all exclusively feature
playback footage. Meanwhile, two side projection
screens, each fed by a double stacked pair of Barco
FLM 20s, handle the four-camera I-Mag mix directed
by Ruary MacPhie, who cuts on a Grass Valley Zodiac
mixer/switcher.
Manned by Darren Montague, Gary Beirne, Luke
Levitt and Mark Cruickshank, the cameras are
positioned on track/dolly in the pit and stage left, one at
front of house and a hot head rigged to a downstage
centre truss.
MacPhie explained: “We had no camera rehearsals
with Kylie onstage until the morning of the first gig in
Paris, so it was very much in at the deep end.” He
handled this with characteristic composure, initially
experimenting with some onscreen chaos involving
distorting imagery or using the Zodiac’s DPM effects —
much to the artist’s approval.”
In others, using the console’s Proamp feature,
MacPhie utilises more conventional effects like chromas
and polarising by changing the brightness of the desks
signal outputs. This is also used to produce a more
overall filmic quality to the images when required.
MacPhie uses nine Key Frames rather than the
EMEMs on the Zodiac because he finds it much easier
and quicker to step through snapshots of the show’s
timeline. Clearscan mode is enabled on all the cameras
to reduce the Hertz flicker on the LED surfaces, so
elements like the floor appear as a solid block onscreen as opposed to a series of pixelated dots.
Playback material is stored on two Mac G5s
running Virtual VTR software which is fed into a Barco
SENSATIONAL, BRILLIANT AND INSPIRING!
Capital Sound Hire is proud to be part of the team.
Capital Sound Hire Ltd, Abacus House, 60 Weir Road, London SW19 8UG
T +44 (0)208 944 6777 www.capital-sound.co.uk
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Events Manager show control system,
triggered by LTC timecode from the
backline. This was programmed and
scaled to all screens and surfaces by
prolific ‘video scientist’ Richard Turner
whilst at LiteStructures.
The main day-to-day challenge for
the video department is fitting
everything into the roof above the
stage, which houses lighting, sound and
automation all within centimetres of
each other.
To speed up the rig and de-rig,
XL’s touring experience has come to
the fore with some nifty storage ideas.
The Stealth concertinas into custom
dollies, with the truss box of electronics
for each section lowered in and stored
on top. These stack two high in the
truck. The MiSpheres are pre-rigged in
truss-mounted sections complete with
their electronics, and are lowered from
the roof and packed into 2m long
boxes at the end of the night.
Elements like the stage panels are
time consuming — there are 108 of
them, each weighing 83kg and needing
to be manually lifted into place. At the
time we visited the tour, eight Stage
Miracles crew were expected to be
joining the crew to add extra person
power where needed, and this was
expected to make a huge difference.
AUTOMATION
The video tracking system is run by Ian
Macdonald and a team of four, all
working for production riggers The
Rigging Partnership. Their domain
includes all the automation involved
with the lighting rig, flying effects,
performer harnesses, winches and
control systems.
Macdonald needed plenty of
playbacks for some of the automated
sequences on this, so chose a Stage
Technologies Acrobat 4 desk. This is
running Chameleon software
controlling 14 Stage Technologies Big
Tow winches using Quinn drives and
PTSs.
Various scenic effects — primarily
Kylie’s stage entrances — are being
flown using a FastTrack system from
the USA. The tracking system runs four
winches, three running double
purchase pick-ups, plus one running
the whole system up- and down-stage
very smoothly.
Another six Big Tows are used to
move the Stealth screens, each
weighing approximately 480kg per
column. There are four winches for
performer flying, and the central pick
up is used four times — for Kylie’s
initial entrance in the Controller Suit,
on the skull, and on a cue flying in four
acrobats for ‘Sometime Samurai’ the
second song of Act Two.
CONTENT CREATION
Blink TV Production’s director Marcus
Viner and producer Tom Colbourne
collaborated closely with William Baker
to produce visuals for 23 out of 25
songs in the set. Content production
involved a four-day shoot directed by
Viner with Kylie at west London’s Black
Island Studios working with DoP John
Mathieson.
Four major set pieces were
created by art director Stevie Stewart,
complete with make-up by Kabuki and
wigs by Danilo Dixon. This produced
visuals for the Geisha and über-camp
‘Loveboat’ section of the show. “Kylie
was very much involved in the creative
process during the shoot,” explained
Viner. “She notes everything that’s
going on and will adapt her stagecraft
to work with the screen content
where necessary.”
Blink also commissioned three
different video artists and production
houses — UVA (United Visual Artists),
The Mill and Hello Charlie — to help
in assembling the footage. At Black
Island, they shot the raw elements of
the opening sequence and asked The
Mill (known for its work on BBC’s
‘Doctor Who’) to apply special effects.
UVA was given a tight brief and
asked to add its own unique creative
spin to several songs and the death
section of the show featuring the
incredible mirrored skull that flies in
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Above & below: With time to kill before the show, TPi’s trusty box Brownie works up a sweat behind
the scenes...
with Kylie perched aloft.
Hello Charlie worked on the striking ‘Nu-di-ty’
track featuring Japanese girls sauntering down a
street. The model was shot in green screen on a
travelator, completely naked in full white body makeup, choreographed by Michael Rooney (also
responsible for the super-slick show choreography).
The haunting bondage sequence for ‘Everlasting’
was choreographed by Kylie herself. Completed in
one take, she was tied up with strands of rubber and
filmed in a neon box constructed from VersaTubes.
Blink also used the editing resources of Barrie
Williams at Pixelfantastic, and Reg Wrench at
Preditors, off-lining everything at the latter and
conforming, editing and grading it with the former.
Once on-site at LiteStructures, screen and pixel
magic was applied by Richard Turner, and Blink also
commissioned Ben Ib to do additional 2D and 3D
work, including the ‘Heartbreak Rock’ section where
the screens and floor burst into life. They had four
full edit suites there which were fully utilised
throughout the production rehearsal period as the
show was fine tuned and the footage adapted
accordingly.
“It was a massive team effort,” concluded Viner,
“with lots of collaboration and managing people to
ensure we produced something really outstanding.”
He added that it’s always a great challenge to work
with someone of Baker’s imaginative calibre, and
although they have worked on several projects
together, his ideas and requirements are always full
of surprises and experimental daring.
CUE LIGHTS...
Lighting designer Bryan Leitch described the “slightly
surreal” moment he took the call from Kevin
Hopgood asking if he’d like to design the show.
Overcoming his initial excitement, and saying he’d
bring his showreelto the meeting, Hopgood retorted
that he didn’t have to bother — all he had to do was
say “yes” to accept the job!
Apparently, William Baker saw one of the Justin
Timberlake shows that he and co-designer Nick
Whitehouse of Visual Light had created. He
discovered how they liked to work seamlessly with
video and lighting as an overall visual medium... and
it went from there.
Leitch and Whitehouse met Baker who outlined
his ideas for the show. Fundamental to these were a
very theatrical look and feel with a definite narrative
arc to the story to complement its mood swings of
intense expression, gay extravaganza and meditative
contemplation before finishing on a fantastic note of
optimism. What he wanted from Leitch &
Whitehouse was first and foremost a design that
would help deliver that story.
Neg Earth won the contract to supply lighting
equipment, and invested in 120 Vari*Lites for the
project. “They have done a fantastic job,” enthused
Leitch, “including building lots of customised
elements and providing a top crew [chiefed by
Jonathan Sellars].”
Nick Whitehouse explained how it was a
galvanising task to get lights exactly where they
needed, given that — like all other departments —
they had to work around the tracking video screens,
performer and prop flying systems, and everything
else in the roof. They also had to deal with the LED
floor and the effect of this up-lighting the
performance area, and Kylie specifically, whilst making
a real effort to balance lighting on the band and
dancers and with the video.
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FOH engineer Chris Pyne, his ‘nuclear’ DiGiCo SD7
console... and (inset) a greeting to DiGiCo’s
marketing director, Dave Webster, using the
handy Snapshot Notes program!
Lighting is also used as a multiple scene change
vehicle, with trusses dropping in at strategic points or
the audience being blinded. It was imperative to Leitch
& Whitehouse that they had the capacity to change the
shape of the rig and sections of the performance space
at different times.
To achieve this, a 28-way Kinesys automation
system was chosen for its incredibly smooth movement
and fast, flexible programming via Kinesys Vector
software, and is part of the lighting package supplied by
Neg Earth. It is completely independent of the general
show automation effects (including the tracking
screens), and is operated by Craig Lewis.
Referring to Kylie’s latest album title, they also had
to incorporate an ‘X’ within the design, and this starts
with two large X-shaped trusses at stage left and right
which down-light the band. There are two smaller
‘distressed’ X’s over the stage, custom made from
30cm SuperTruss, and they also make X’s out of a
matrix of fixtures rigged on 11 soft-ladders upstage
right.
Another design challenge was the 10m trim height
of the Stealth screens which dictated that lighting had to
go above. This was another reason why they chose
powerful fixtures which still had plenty of impact by the
time they hit the stage.
Other than these parameters, all the ‘musical’
programming was left to them, so with Visual Light
panache and style, they programmed lighting to
complement and contrast with the video action, along
with some big moments of its own.
Capital Sound’s
crew chief,
Al Woods
The band X’s feature four Vari*Lite VL3000 Spots
and eight VL3000 Washes per side, with four Martin
Atomic strobes, and are toned with eight Color Kinetics
ColorBlast 12s. They are on Kinesys motors and fly in
to different heights throughout the show.
Over stage are four 4.5m fingers of trussing
(running upstage/downstage) sitting in between the
video tracks, all on Kinesys motors, each rigged with
four VL3000 Spots and toned with four ColorBlasts.
Upstage of this are two 5m cross stage trusses
(split to allow the video track access) with three
VL3500 Washes and two Atomics on each. These are
also on Kinesys motors and drop to the deck to double
as floor lights in addition to moving to different angles
and other positions throughout the show. Slightly
further downstage are the ‘baby’ X’s, constructed from
30.5cm SuperTruss with bespoke angle plates, each
featuring four VL3000 Spots and six ColorBlasts.
There are two L-shaped trusses which hold the
pre-show and interval kabuki drops, which are also
rigged with 10 Atomics, along with 10 VL3500 Spots
and 12 VL3500 Washes, all used for band and dancer
lighting, plus two underhung Lycian M2 follow spots.
Slotted in just upstage of this is another 5m truss loaded
with four VL3500 Washes that neatly conceals the end
of the video tracking trusses. These are also used to
highlight the band and dancers.
The front truss has six VL3000 Spots for audience
illumination and four VL3500 Washes for general
downstage coverage. Also on here are 12 4-cell Moles,
four snow machines and seven confetti cannons, four
rotating spot chairs and two under-hung versions, all
with Lycian M2s.
Far upstage, above the MiSphere trusses are two
additional L-shaped trusses with soft ladders each end,
together with six VL3000 Spots and three VL3500
Washes. The central soft ladder ‘disco wall’ is made up
of nine ladders, between them containing 20 SGM
Giotto 400 CMYs, 20 Atomic strobes and 20 2-lite
Moles, all at staggered intervals.
Back down on the deck, recessed into front of the
set frames are 20 Showtec Sunstrips and six i-Pix BB7
wash lights [see Radiohead feature] potently crosswashing the dancers during the skull section which kicks
in with ‘Like A Drug’.
Whitehouse runs all show lighting from an Avolites
Diamond 4 console, his choice for large shows. “It’s a
great desk with plenty of power and all the facilities I
need,” he said. Along with the SGM moving lights, the
desk is supplied to the tour by Siyan, and they are using
Luminex fibre optic for the FOH snake.
Operated by erstwhile set carpenter Jem
Nicholson, BPM SFX provided a range of special effects
including low smoke to cover the whole stage, a wind
effect, a 50' wide curtain of snow from confetti rollers,
a rose petal drop, and a shower of gold confetti and
streamers for the finale.
SOUND
In Prague, the full touring complement of Capital
Sound’s self-powered Meyer system was deployed. At
each side of the stage, it consisted of 14 MILO and two
Far left: RF & IT tech George
Hogan, audio tech Becky Pell and
monitor engineer Rod Matheson.
Left & above: Meyer systems in
the air and on the ground.
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underhangs of MILO 120s for the main arrays, six
flown 600 subs, 12 MICA side hangs, eight 700 subs
on the ground, and Melodie and M1D outfills. Six
Melodie boxes formed an upstage centre hang,
compensating for the lack of traditional front fill due to
the raked stage design. The system is set up daily by
Mike Smeaton, using SIM and a bank of Galileo
loudspeaker managers for overall system control.
Smeaton also uses Meyer’s Remote Monitoring
System (RMS) to keep tabs on the system’s real-time
working status.
“It’s a relatively tried and tested system set-up
— the only drag is not being able to install any
infills, so it’s all coming from the air,” said Cap
Sound’s crew chief, Al Woods. “We’ve put all the
power distro and cabling into dollies that we’ve used
on previous tours to speed up the load-in. The cables
all pull out of the dollies for quick and easy connection
to the loudspeakers.
“This tour’s a bit of a beast! There have been
some very long hours so far, mostly due to the knockon effects of things like health and safety checks, and
the general set load-in. Most of the crew had a day off
yesterday, but I came in to pre-rig the system with the
rigging department [headed by Dave Rowe] and mark
out the hanging points.
“The schedule is so tight that it’s easier for me to
come in and decide whether to do a dead hang or
move to another beam. Once you get the sales figure
for the venue from the promoter’s rep, you can make
decisions based on how far around the stage the seats
have been sold. Most of the time, we’re pretty good at
giving everyone very good sound coverage, but they’ve
been a bit naughty here and sold a lot further around
the sides of the stage than we’d been briefed, but we’ll
cope!
“As a department,
we’re very happy and
the comments about the
sound we’ve had from
promoters have been
very encouraging,
especially as we’ve had
no time to really analyse what we’re doing — it’s been
a rollercoaster for the first few dates! Fortunately, the
prepping and the work that we did in production
rehearsals has put us in good stead.”
The audio department loaded into Prague’s O2
Arena at 9.30am and were ready by 1pm... to twiddle
their thumbs for a while. “With a rolling stage it’s a bit
difficult to get everything plugged up as we’d want it,”
continued Woods. “Consequently, we have to wait for
the stage to be ready before we can complete the setup. To save time, we’ve stuck an old analyzer in one of
the racks, and as soon as we get mains power, we put
pink noise through the system and buzz all the circuits
from the ground as a fault-finding method before front
of house is even in the building.”
STARRING AT FOH
Recently married to fellow crew mainstay, audio tech
Becky Pell, Chris Pyne has driven many a console in his
12 years as Kylie’s FOH engineer, and for this outing he
is pioneering the use of DiGiCo’s latest digital demon,
the SD7. Indeed, this is reportedly the first major tour
at this level to take advantage of the console —
enigmatically previewed at PLASA ’07 as ‘The Concept’
— in a main FOH role. Pyne’s switch to the SD7
comes after exclusively using the D5 Live forerunner
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since its launch.
Featuring brand new technology — Stealth Audio
Processing (so named because, as DiGiCo’s Dave
Webster puts it, “no one saw it coming!”) — the SD7
boasts 256 processing paths, 128 busses, a 32 x 32
matrix and 1,392 audio connections.
After Soundtracs pioneered the use of Analog
Devices’ SHARC DSP in mixing consoles, DiGiCo
followed suit with a combination of the new generation
Super FPGA (Super Field Programmable Gate Array)
and Analog Devices’ new TigerSHARC. In short, the
SD7 is verging on nuclear.
Pyne described it in slightly more sober terms: “I
think that in general it’s the next step up. It’s an openended structure and DiGiCo constantly bring out
updates. It sounds slightly different; the EQ and
dynamics are definitely better, and it’s much faster to
set up. Plus, of course, it’s very colourful!”
MODUS OPERANDI
Pyne’s experience of working with DiGiCo desks has
changed his way of mixing, especially with the addition
of MADI multitrack recording facilities. “I can listen to a
recording of the last show and refine my mix EQ and
dynamics, and various cues, during downtime.
“I recorded the last Kylie live album using a D5 and
an ADK multitrack system. It was one of those
situations where the management were so knocked by
a particular show and asked if I’d recorded it. Sure
enough, I had, and a week later the album was
released. The technology we now have at our
fingertips allows us to be that instantaneous. And now,
with the SD7, the integration with recording devices is
noticeably smoother and for me it’s the best thing
ever.”
At this stage, he said, the plug-in architecture is
third party but by implementing an add-on system from
ADK, connection to external DSP with plug-ins from
various manufacturers is simple.
“I’m actually using far less outboard than ever,”
Pyne commented. “As these consoles become more
refined with more usable dynamics, I am slowly
weaning myself off hardware. I do expect to completely
depend on the console in time, but I continue to cling
to my favoured outboard gear — I’m just a sucker for
good quality hardware.
“I’ve been mixing for around 28 years and become
comfortable with certain bits of equipment. For
example, I always use the Drawmer 501 gates, and the
Avalon vocal pre-amps for Kylie which have a very
sweet EQ and soft compressor.”
Pyne’s SD7 includes a ‘snapshot notes’ feature
designed especially at his request, which allows him to
type settings info and reminders on to windows, and
move them around the console face and VU shelf
accordingly. “It’s a very nifty aide-memoire!” he said.
Nearly half of the show’s music comes from hard
disk, including loops, orchestra tracks, extra keyboards,
sound effects, percussion and backing vocals. Steve
Anderson, Kylie’s music producer, spent several months
re-recording tracks specifically for the tour, and the
band play live over it.
“Kylie is very pedantic about singing live and she
does a fantastic job... even when she’s got a cold!” said
Pyne — a possible reference to the star’s first night
malaise. “As usual, she is wonderful to work with.”
44 TPi JUNE 08
The mic set-up features a Shure SM91 and Audix
D6 in the kick drum, a Sennheiser E905 and Shure
Beta SM57 on snare, Shure KSM 137s on hi-hat and
ride cymbal, Sennheiser E904s on toms, KSM 32s on
kit overheads, Audio-Technica 4050s on guitars and
Sennheiser 908s on brass, with Avalon U5 DIs for bass
and acoustic guitar inputs.
For all the vocalists, wireless Sennheiser SKM
5200s with Neumann KK105 capsules have been
specially purchased, including a selection of gold and
chrome ‘blinged’ models exclusively for Kylie, and a
standard Sennheiser HSP 4 headset mic on a
gooseneck for two songs when she is dancing and
needs the flexibility.
Chris Pyne reserved some serious praise for
Sennheiser’s attention to detail. “As ever, they’ve been
really brilliant and heavily supported us. I find it
interesting how Sennheiser appear to place more
emphasis on supporting tours than anyone else in my
experience — for me, they’re No.1. Lots of people
make great gear but when you’re operating at this
professional level, it’s the relationships between the
manufacturers, rental companies and end users like
myself that really counts. Sennheiser can’t be faulted on
that score, but others still have a way to go.
“I can think of another very major microphone
brand who refused point blank to send someone out
to help us with an RF problem in the middle of a tour,
even though we’d bought a whole bunch of their
products. Sennheiser came the very next morning with
a brand new set of kit. So who do you think we’ll be
calling?!
“It’s the same with DiGiCo — I’ve been in
Shanghai in the middle of a cyclone and called them
with a console issue, asking them what I should do.
Three minutes later, I’ve fixed it. Service makes all the
difference.
“I’ve been using the MILO system since it came
out and one of my reasons for staying with it is that it’s
available everywhere. You’re guaranteed consistency of
sound in all regions, so you always know what you’re
going to get. It’s good quality, very reliable and the
Meyer service and support gives you that essential
peace of mind.”
MONITORING
Assisted by Becky Pell, monitor engineer Rod
Matheson has, like Pyne, been a long-time DiGiCo
user and continues to rate the D5 Live — now fitted
with the latest Version 4 software — as his premier
console choice. “It’s still my favourite digital board and
this software update is more monitor-orientated,” said
Matheson.
“Graphics pop up when you select a send and
there are a few other functions that make it more userfriendly. I had a play with the SD7 in Australia and they
were trying to get me one but it wasn’t ready in time,
so I’m sticking with the old faithful for now and will
review the situation later.”
Ten full stereo mixes are generated for the band
by Matheson, along with other mixes for the crew and
show caller Jackie Julnes, and also a ‘talk-around’ mix.
“We have some Optogate PB-05 infra-red gated mics
for the band to communicate with me and each other
via their ears. The mics are muted until they lean into
the infra-red beam path. It’s a very good method that’s
proved incredibly useful.”
Matheson’s trim outboard rack includes a TC
M5000 (“a deluxe reverb that sounds good in Kylie’s
ears”), a Summit TLA-50 (“to level out the bass”) and a
couple of Avalons inserted on vocals. The rest of the
processing, including gates, comps and BV reverbs, is all
done inside the D5.
Kylie and her band are all on Sennheiser G2 in-ear
systems with the new, top-of-the-range Ultimate Ears
UE11 moulds, featuring a three-way driver system that
“sounds amazing”. Drummer Matt Racher has a couple
of Aura shakers under his seat, run off a bridged mono
amp to fill out his bottom end — no pun intended!
The only conventionally powered speakers in the
entire rig are some Martin Audio LMDs [small line array
downfill modules] that are purely used for the dancers’
monitoring, positioned discreetly on the two upstage
band risers and on the subs at the downstage edge. “I
keep them at a safe volume level, but if anything I’d like
to get rid of them because you want to keep the stage
as silent as possible on a show like this.
Sharing monitor world is RF and IT technician
George Hogan who checks frequencies every day at
each venue, and carries an analyzer to calibrate the 46
channels of wireless required by the production. He
also factors 12 ways of radio comms into the plan.
Hogan has faced similar problems encountered by
recent LED-heavy tours by George Michael, the Spice
Girls and Sir Paul McCartney. “The LED stage can lead
to a lot of RF interference — it’s like the whole stage is
a radiating screen, so we need to take a lot of care of
selecting and managing the wireless frequencies,” he
explained.
“We started with a high power antenna up in the
truss for the IEMs, then added separate systems for
each band riser, and because the brass players also
perform down at the front, there’s a distributed
antenna copy of their system at stage left.”
Rock-It Cargo (freight), ET Travel, Music Bank
(band rehearsals and backline hire), Transam (trucking),
Phoenix (buses), Popcorn (catering) and Mojo Barriers
(supplier of the tour’s 30m front of house barrier)
round off the key production vendor credits.
THE FINAL WORD...
Sharing FOH viewing space with TPi was Terry Blamey,
Kylie’s manager since the start of her glittering career,
who glowed with pride. “It’s been an incredible 21
years, and shows don’t get much better than this,” he
told us. In the pop world, at least, he was probably
right.
At this very moment, Kylie, who turned 40 at the
end of May, and Madonna, 10 years her senior, are
operating in very similar musical territory and parallels
can easily be drawn between their gag-a-plenty live
presentation styles.
However, while Madonna can often be impersonal
in her delivery, Kylie’s warmth and charm transcend the
technology, and the rapport she has with her crew
backstage sets a fine example. Some may argue that,
with this tour, she has finally stolen Madge’s crown.
TPi
Photography by Louise Stickland,
Mark Cunningham, Ken MacKay/Darenote Ltd
and Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images