KYLIE: X2008 Tour / 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

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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 38 TPi JUNE 08

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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 08 JUNETPi 39

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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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productionprofile 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.”

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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