5 minute read

A Life in Song: Quincy Jones Live in Concert

To celebrate his 85th birthday, the musical icon took over London’s O2 Arena for one night, opening the doors to thousands of fans to witness his famed tracks reimagined by a full orchestra. A handful of A-list performers turned up to lend their voices for the evening of celebration. TPi was invited to meet LD Ben M Rogers, who outlined his visual goals for the performance.

Quincy Jones’ musical repertoire is truly incredible. The impact of his farreaching work has found critical acclaim in cinema, theatre and popular music. Jones has won a Grammy, Tony, Oscar and Emmy for his efforts. With the famed producer turning 85 this year, London was ready to roll out the red carpet. Hosted by Nic Harcourt, the audience was treated to an evening with Jones as he told stories from his illustrious career about collaborating with the likes of Michael Jackson, Steven Spielberg and Frank Sinatra. In between chats, the O2 enjoyed Jones’ back catalogue reimagined live by the Senbla Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jules Buckley. A selection of industry heavyweights, including Mark Ronson, Paul Weller and Mick Hucknall, joined the orchestral party.

Mark Ronson lending his guitar skill for the evening

Ollie Rosenblatt, Founder of promoter Senbla, told TPi how this historic show came about. “It was actually us who originally approached Quincy’s management,” began Rosenblatt. I just so happened that Jones and his management were already in Europe during the summer so they agreed to go ahead with the show. “We had to get our skates on pretty quickly,” reminisced Rosenblatt. “We didn’t have much time to create or sell tickets for the show but that made us focus more, think clearer and more efficiently about what we want to achieve and how to do it.”

Ben M Rogers was brought in as the show’s Lighting Designer with PRG XL Video providing all the fixtures needed for the performance. 8 weeks before doors opened the LD got to work to ensure the stage set was up to scratch for this very special birthday celebration.

Senbla has a great deal of experience in this style of show although, according to Rogers, the venues are usually not as vast as the O2. “Most of the Senbla shows of this nature have been in concert halls, so I was keen to try and capture the warmth and intimacy of those spaces within the cavern of the O2,” he began. Rosenblatt agreed: “The scale was much larger as we were in an arena and had to create everything from scratch. From the music and design to booking the orchestra and guests and to selling the tickets. Ben did a brilliant job bringing it to life and creating fantastic visual elements, getting the feeling spot on.”

Unlike other orchestral shows, Rogers explained, this particular performance had 3 areas of interest. First was the large orchestra with an expanded rhythm section. Then stage right there was an interview area, where Jones and Harcourt sat throughout the evening. Finally there was a space for the guest artists to perform just in front of conductor Jules Buckley. Understandably all 3 of these elements largely dictated the stage composition. “I added a small triangular stage extension on centre to give the guest artists some playing space,” said Rogers. “We put in red scenic drapes to frame the space as well as some conventional fresnels on grip stands and a large ‘Q’ letter to enhance the raised interview area.” The giant letter came courtesy of The Curious Collection.

LD for the event, Ben M Rogers

With the limited stage space and reduced production time, Rogers opted to move away from followspots, instead creating balanced keylit areas for the principal fixtures. “The packed stage meant some quite acute angles were needed to frame the artists but exclude the orchestra,” said Rogers. “I structured the mid stage truss with an arrangement of ladder drops which allowed me to layer the lighting rig vertically.” The red curtains and ground row fixtures allowed him to compose a rich and layered image with the limited amount of space.

The front top and side light for the centre stage artist area was the new Prolights RA3000. The LD had demoed the product previously, although this was the first time adding it to a show rig. “The output is immense with an excellent zoom range,” enthused Rogers, adding, “Most critically for me are the optics which allow for precise control of the blend of gobos, iris and framing shutters. Not only that but the fixture has even colour mixing using the CMY and CTO flags.” Through the show, Rogers was able to utilise the great zoom and framing shutters to cut spill of the orchestra and keep a tight and tidy focus.

Adding more texture and animation to the rig where 5 Claypaky B-EYE K20’s overhead and a row of the new Chauvet Professional Pyxis along the front of the stage. The rig was rounded out with 8 PRG Best Boy Wash’s, 12 HP Spot’s and 10 Icon Edge’s fixtures which offered some key light to the interview area, backlight orchestra wash and beam effects. Also present on Rogers’ rider were Hazebase Hazers and Martin by Harman Jem AF-1 fans. For control Rogers relied on his old favorite, the MA Lighting grandMA2. “I’ve been pretty much locked into the MA platform for the last 10 years,” stated the LD. “I still rock out the grandMA1 sometimes and the dot2 has been great on some of my install projects, but for this show - and pretty much every live gig I do - the grandMA2 remains a robust and powerful system to trust!” As many of the musical arrangements were only agreed upon on the preceding day, time coding and other such methods were always going to be out of the question. Instead he opted to build a theatrical stack adding in some effects and stabs during the performance. “I took a deep breath and went for it,” joked Rogers. He also admitted he was very conscious the show was made up of music from several different decades. “In essence the musical flow of the show was structured across several decades so there was a really nice musical evolution which I tried to follow with the lighting character,” he mused. “We began with jazz and swing and evolved to classic rock and pop with the extended tribute to Rodney ‘Rod’ Templeton and Michael Jackson in the second half.”

Quincy Jones sharing his 85th Birthday with the O2 Arena

PRG XL Video supplied the fixtures, control and rigging for the production. “I’ve had excellent support from Jon Cadbury and the team at PRG for many years and this gig was no exception,” Rogers recalled. “As the O2’s in-house rigging team, they made it easy to co-ordinate this one-off event. The prep facility at Longbridge allowed our Production Electrician, Stephen Andrews, and the lighting team of Hamzah Wahbi, James Marks and Jamie Paul - the chance to get it all ready as we loaded in that morning with sound checks and production rehearsals in the afternoon.”

Despite the tight time schedule, the production was able to bring the magic of Jones’ music to the O2 Arena. “Quincy Jones is a musician of the highest order,” concluded Rogers. “His work has resonated through generations and long may it do so. There is perhaps nothing more electrifying for me than sitting in the middle of an enraptured crowd sharing an experience like this one. It was a pleasure to shine a little light on!” As for Senbla, Rosenblatt is happy to report he is still “buzzing from it”. He elaborated. “We’ve had nothing but brilliant feedback from the audience, guest artists and people in the industry so I’m chuffed. I think we genuinely achieved a piece live music history as something like this has never been done before with Quincy Jones. I feel we created and captured something very special.”

TPi

Photos: Senbla

www.quincyjones.com

www.prg.com/uk/en

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