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he ing t d Tour ela n Wast 68 • November 2019 • Lighting &Sound America Emotionally direct lighting and smart audio gear choices for Hozier’s Wasteland, Baby! Tour

By: Steve Moles

g a Opposite: Hozier performing in Atlanta. Above. A performance at Hollywood Forever. Lighting designer Steven Douglas is best-known

y for his work with The Killers; he has been working with Hozier since May of last year.

t t was an episode of BBC’s Silent Witness that first intro - Lighting

: duced me to Hozier. Played during an opening sequence I first met Steven Douglas in 2013 when he was designing

p on Hampstead Heath, “To Be Alone” is a haunting song lighting for The Killers; for this story, I caught up with him

g i It made all the more poignant by the pared-back, crystalline at the London Palladium. How did a young Irishman, long

;

s e beauty of its recording. I purchased Hozier’s eponymous before his association with Hozier, come to be lighting an

first album on the strength of that single listening. The established US rock band? “I took a diploma in theatre

G songs therein visit dark corners of the soul, but in so doing stage management and design in Dublin,” he opens.

r reveal a moral truth. This man has something to say, but “While I was doing it, I managed to find some odd gigs

s a you need to pay attention. That said, as a form of popular with Picturehouse, a very happening Dublin band at the

: music (“Take Me to Church,” for example), these are care - time. In the March after I graduated, I knocked at the door

p fully crafted songs that delight the ear with their originality. of the Olympia Theatre in Dublin and asked the chief elec -

L In short, Andrew John Hozier-Byrne is a unique talent. trician who I should send my CV to. ‘You don’t,’ was his

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The Atlanta performance. A key aspect of Douglas’ design, placed behind the band risers, is a set of six vertical columns of P2 Hexalines from Portman Lights.

reply, but a week later he called. I was about to catch the Kanye West and Alicia Keys...What was the name of that bus to my job stacking shelves at a supermarket; he need - college again? ed a followspot operator—could I be there in 40 minutes? I “When Hozier released the first album, Matty Kilmurry ended up working at the Olympia Theatre for seven-and-a- was the LD. A family man, he asked me to cover a couple half years, rising to assistant electrician, then chief electri - of shows for him here in Ireland, and a couple of one-offs cian.” If this isn’t a compelling endorsement of the old in New York. Then he and the band disappeared from my saw, “When opportunity knocks, don’t hesitate,” I don’t life for two years while they promoted the first album. But know what is. the fact the band already knew me was important; after a “I first met The Killers there; [they were] a support act— well-earned break, Matty decided to place his family first this was early in their career—and needed someone to and I was asked to take over; I was a natural fit. light them, so I busked it. They liked what I did and asked “This was May 2018,” Douglas continues. “I was touring for my number—how often does that happen but you with The Killers in New Zealand, and Andrew’s manager, never hear from them again? But they called and asked if I Caroline Downey, was visiting her daughter there and could do the NME Awards tour. That’s when they broke came to see the show. We were using house rigs, as you s e

through—in six months, we went from small clubs to sec - do, and so would be the case for Hozier’s next outing. g a m I ond on the bill at Glastonbury.” Even today, we are working with a touring floor package y t t e

Douglas is still with the band 15 years on and, in the and are using the Palladium’s own lights for this show.” G / n i f f i interim, has forged a strong collaborative relationship with This is the largely SLX-supplied rig, alongside kit from PRG r G

s a

lighting designer Nick Whitehead, most recently codesign - used for Michael McIntyre’s Big Show , a popular r a P

ing the Aerosmith residency in Las Vegas. (See LSA , June comedy/variety series. “For the other UK dates, we carry a o t o h

2019.) Not to mention his work for Jay-Z, Britney Spears, full production rig, but that’s the exception—in the US, for P

70 • November 2019 • Lighting &Sound America example, we generally pick up from the house.” Thanks to the house rig at the Palladium, there is a luxu - Adlib provides the crew and equipment for the UK tour, ry of lighting riches available, but Douglas is restrained. including sound, lights, and video gear. “[Sue] ‘Duchess’ “There are Robe Spikies and Mac Quantum Profiles up Iredale is our production manager and Adlib are her go-to there we could have used, but I don’t use beam lights,” he vendor. New to me, I usually use Neg Earth or Siyan. Adlib says. Not that it stopped him producing exactly that look in have been great—they have some good people there; in the song “Nobody.” “But I have added six [GLP] JDC1s up the US, where we are headed again for the next seven there for wash.” It’s a device he also uses to warm up the weeks, we will just carry a floor package and pick up audience when a sing-along ensues. local.” “There are eight musicians onstage, three or four down - Not that you’d know it watching the show, a slickly real - stage of the risers—they do swap about a bit—so I have ized production in which Douglas manages to deftly reflect seven fixtures on the upstage bar specifically for rear posi - the stylistic changes within Hozier’s music and, like the tions. Midstage elements of the rig are more for effect and performer himself, has a delicate, considered touch that to fill out. Andrew is the sort of artist you can light with very doesn’t slap you in the face. little—I’ve done shows with just six moving fixtures and a “The design started around the second album’s cover bunch of PARs.” art—Andrew sat seemingly in a room by a table submerged Out front, Douglas uses the ubiquitous grandMA2 con - underwater, two windows in the background. I had Perry sole. “We pick one up locally,” he says, “you can get one Scenic [Creative] make me a backdrop modelled on two anywhere. I can work with any desk—Avolites, ChamSys, similar windows I’d come across. Slightly 3D, the frames Hog—I’ve used them all, but I like the MA for the ability to are formed from a light foam material; the whole drop clone. I know they all do it, but the workflow on the MA just weighs about 200lb.” makes so much sense to me.” It’s a theatrical cloth of which Douglas takes full advan - tage, light through the windows, with uplighting casting Video shadow to the frames, and sometimes with a randomly “Besides the drapes, we have a video wall at the back of swagged scrim flown in front for a different texture. The stage and a set of lipstick cameras on stage,” Douglas use of flybars to bring these two elements in and out or continues. This is not an IMAG show by any stretch of the together at the same time is where Douglas effects his imagination, and more credit to Douglas for prevailing most profound visual changes; you could be midway into across the full onstage image. He uses camera feeds spar - the next song before a lighting cue would reveal the ingly and content is often rendered in black and white or change at the back of the stage. desaturated, which seems entirely appropriate. A particular “We just wanted specific looks for certain songs; the song toward the close of the show is almost documentary windows are not even revealed until seven numbers into in feel. Even for the numbers where generated content was the set. For a different setting, behind the band risers I deployed, this is not a TV show—think Ansel Adams meets have six vertical columns of P2 Hexaline by Portman Lights an edgy Frontier animation. and there are two further lines of Chroma-Q Color Force 72 “The content resides on a Catalyst media server, but it LED battens on the floor across the back. I especially like wasn’t always like that,” Douglas says. “It all started when the Hexaline—for an LED source, it has that tungsten glow we were doing a run of festivals in the US and were think - and isn’t too overpowering.” As a punctuation marker to ing about some sort of backdrop. Third or fourth on the bill, the beat, he uses the Hexalines often and, as he says, they you don’t get much opportunity to influence the look of the never once become tiresome. stage, but there is always a big LED screen—the question “To complete the floor package, I have a pair of Color was what to put on it.” The solution was delightfully cheap Kinetics iW Blasts as uplighters beside his mic stand and and effective. eight Martin [by Harman] MAC Viper Performances—a pair “We loaded in early for one festival and had time avail - either side downstage, two midstage, and four across the able. We rigged our swagged gauze, our painted backdrop, back. Shinbusters for a bit of accent on him, or for specific and put our tour photographer in a cherry picker to shoot effects from behind. I chose the Vipers for the animation them all in combination.” Douglas had been thinking wheel—I wanted a subtle bit of movement that isn’t an ahead. “We put all the pictures on an ImageCue, a server in obvious gobo. Overhead, my default request from a house a small square box, plugged it into the HDMI link at the system is for 13 Vipers, 24 [Martin Mac] Auras, and 11 ETC front of house, and turned it on. Too easy. We’d been Source Four Profiles. Here, I have access to a lot more—in watching people lug big server racks out through the fact, I’ve just encountered what will be my new front light: crowd: This was easier and lighter than a backpack, and at they have Martin Encore Performances out in the house. A under $1,000, suddenly we had the swag look and the win - nice warm white LED and, at the sort of range I’m work - dows. These things take on a life of their own and it wasn’t ing—18m here in the Palladium—more than bright enough.” long before someone asked, ‘Could we put the content for

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“Church” up there?.’ ImageCue has just one layer, so you has his own special skills and sensitivities that bring need to be meticulous in your planning; nevertheless, you something extra to his role. “I started in audio in 1996, can do a lot—the software resides on an SD card, your first as a session musician before moving to live sound. image data on a USB key. I like it so much I even repro - I’ve done a lot—Amy Winehouse for five years, then a lot grammed some of The Killers’ stuff for ease of portability. of Scottish and Irish acts—Texas, The Script, Marti But now we are doing a whole lot more on this show, so Pellow, to name a few.” the move to a more versatile server such as Catalyst was Pattison joined Hozier in August 2018 and, much like inevitable. The choice was determined by what Douglas, was recruited after Hozier’s management attend - Screenworks [the supplier in the US] and Adlib had.” Not ed one of his shows with The Script. “They must have strictly true in the case of Adlib, as we learn later on from liked what they heard because they offered me the job,” a brief chat with video tech, Matt Hopwood. he explains. “For this UK tour, we’ve carried our own sys - “Some of the content is very simple,” Douglas says. “A tem from Adlib, though we’re using the house L-Acoustics montage of the lyrics written on scraps of paper flicker rig from SSE here at the Palladium. However, you’ve come through one song, for example. Something evocative of a on a historic day—apparently, this is the first show here mirror-ball effect, flared pencil-thin beams for another. That ever where they have removed the seats in the stalls. That was produced by Lüz Studio in Montréal. Andrew’s broth - change in the ear height of the stalls audience has led me er, Jon, is a filmmaker and made one song-specific piece. to bring in some of our Coda Audio gear from the touring They are both involved in the ideas and direction for con - rig to augment the existing house fills. The house front fills tent. I’m part of that process as well—we sit around and no longer make any sense because they now fire straight discuss ideas, my input tends to the more practical dimen - into the belly of the front row, and coverage from the sions—how will this work in the live show, will it be over - mains L/R doesn’t quite make that group on center that powering, or is it something that looks great on an iPhone, would normally be covered by a wide angle down fill at the but doesn’t stand the test if being scaled up...” bottom of a traditional line array. That said, I never think The first time I noticed content, it was dimmer than the those 120°-wide down cabinets really make it for the cen - lighting—as with the Hexalines, nothing is in your face. For ter core audience. Making sure everyone gets a good lis - “Nina Cried Power,” content drew upon some very power - tening experience and is properly covered is a priority for ful found footage of public protest. “Angel of Small Death me. I will use lots of fills, I often put in a center cluster for and the Codeine Scene” saw Hozier lit in stark relief by the just that reason.” iW Blasts while a black and white line drawing animation With such a focus on fills and coverage, doesn’t han - of a cartoon cat, redolent of something from the 1930s, dling timing and transition between a multiplicity of boxes played behind the swagged gauze. All very thought-pro - when you’re playing quick in/out shows in theatres voking without overwhelming the songs. become tricky? “Not on the tour,” he says. “The Coda We next speak to Matt Hopwood from Adlib, who boxes are just so phase-coherent. I often use the Coda explains the screen: “It’s a ROE Visual Vanish V8. The TiRAY, a nice little box, ideal for fill, and get the timing right modules only weigh 6.5kg and at 14m wide x 7m high, it’s and there are no transition issues. All these Coda cabinets a light, manageable screen.” Hopwood is the only LED have the same tonality.” tech on the tour. “It takes me and a couple of stagehands That mention of a Coda system from Adlib is timely. around one-and-a-half hours to rig. There is no issue with Coda has been attracting a lot of attention recently, not recalibration if you have to swap out a module; the soft - least at the PLASA Show in September; how has Pattison ware is from iTech and very easy to use. The Catalyst serv - found the system? “We used a Coda AiRAY for mains; if er actually comes from Simon Pugsley, at SNP you ask me, it’s powered by witchcraft. Small and light, Productions; he is a specialist with that system and is with but immensely powerful when you need it. You can com - us on tour. Adlib stocks Green Hippo servers in-house, but fortably take this system into clubs, theatres, and arenas; they have a good working relationship with Simon and size is not an issue. This simple bi-amp box is insane. always use him when a client wants to use Catalyst. The There is just no distortion. If you play tracks, you will hear cameras are all Marshall lipstick cameras—CV225s mainly, things you have never heard before; not that this show with CV350 for the side positions. The CV350 has a uses any tracks at all—this is all completely live.” remote zoom and, with the band being quite distant, that Pattison and monitor man Darren Dunphy were indeed zoom function is critical.” at pains to repeat that there were no tracks on the show. From what I heard, I never found that hard to believe—for s e l

Sound an eight-piece band, this was an open, spacious mix o M

Part of me hoped that Stephen Pattison would have been where every voice could breathe. I say voice because as v e t S

with Hozier long enough to have been part of the record - well as being multi-instrumentalists, all eight of them sang, o t o h

ing team for that first album; it proves not so, but Pattison consistently, throughout the show. P

72 • November 2019 • Lighting &Sound America “What I mean about hearing things you’ve never studio, Andrew likes to use a Sennheiser 441 and we do heard before is that you also need to pay attention— carry one with us, but the truth is we get a better input there is nowhere to hide with the system; nothing gets putting him on a Shure KSM9. That decision is founded on smeared, so you do need to be careful with your mix,” the simple fact he likes to get in among the audience and Pattison says. you just don’t want a wired mic out there in that situation. The eight-piece band is a mix of musicians from the In particular, he favors the 441 for its midrange detail. It US, UK, and Ireland, four of whom are women. I mention and the KSM are very similar in that respect; the gains and this because Sue “Duchess” Iredale, the production man - compression settings are quite close. Andrew has a wide ager, draws my attention to it. “And the production team is dynamic range in performance, from whisper to roar; he female as well,” she says, “my assistant, the tour manager, has a very powerful voice.” Something I witnessed almost and me.” It’s a sad indictment of the so-called liberal arts immediately: They started sound-checking a new song music industry that a veteran the stature of Duchess feels and he sang, without microphone, in the slightly more the situation still warrants comment. relaxed, less projective way you do in rehearsal, and still Back with Pattison, he comments on the importance of managed to ring out in this large, dry auditorium without the vocals: “Not only do they all sing, the massed vocal the aid of the PA. element is a significant part of his musical structure. In the “I do worry he sings too much and I’m constantly telling

Above and next spread: The London Palladium show. The singer uses a Shure KSM9 condenser vocal mic for live performances.

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him to save his voice,” Pattison says. “The saving grace is they do lots of vocal warm-ups; one of the backing vocal - ists (BVs), Kristen Rogers, is also a vocal coach.” There are two BVs, “and they all belt it out for certain parts,” continues Pattison. “He has choral singing in his background and really understands how to use massed voices effectively.” Something Pattison handled well: high- church choral style—think soprano plainsong—or gutsy gospel, neither were ever lost in the music. “The rest of the band are generally rooted to their stage positions, though there is a degree of instrument swapping during the performance; all have a Shure B58 for vocals. Instrument-wise the drum kit is simple—kick, snare, one rack and one floor tom, hi-hat, ride, and crash cymbals, and there’s a Roland SPD-S for some clap and snap sounds. Drum mics are what you’d expect: Sennheiser 414, 57, 906...I do use Shure suspension mounts for the snare mics, and he has B56 on an overhead boom for vocals; just physically more manageable for him. We have two keyboard players who use a Nord Stage 3, one is mainly for piano sounds, the other for a variety of sounds and sits along with a MIDI keyboard and Hammond XK-5. Downstage-right, Emily Kohavi is a multi-instrumentalist; nominally, she plays guitar—acoustic and electric—she also plays a lot of violin parts. It has a bug on the body from LR Baggs, from which, like the guitars, I take a clean and FX send.” Pattison grabbed me late in the show and put a set of headphones on me to hear Kohavi’s violin played through distortion and octave pedals to produce a dirty, angry cello-like sound. Flicking the earmuffs off and hearing Pattison blend it with a clean violin send was a weird, but discernible, sound. That emphasizes how, musically, this is a highly textured performance—there is a lot of detail in there that could arguably be dispensed with for a live show, but as both Pattison and Dunphy confirm, “He [Hozier] has a very clear idea of what he wants people to hear.” This statement is reinforced by the artist’s own setup. “Andrew’s guitars are through a [Universal Audio] OX box,” explains Pattison. “Andrew uses a Fender Bassman amp and a hand-wired Vox AC30. Both amps are on all the time, not one or the other, and the blend is his sound. The Bassman has a cleaner sound for definition and the AC30 breaks up much sooner and has a warmer, more driven tone. The OX boxes allow us to attenuate the sound, so no audio actually comes out of the speaker cabinet. The OX box acts as a reactive load to the amp; we can drive the amps flat-out and use pre- and power valves in the An upstage video wall, consisting of ROE VIsual Vanish V8 pan - amp to get the tone and feel when Andrew plays without els, delivers the projected visuals. killing valves and output transformers.” s e l o He continues, “The OX box offers a stereo output from M e v the unit and allows you to use a selection of modeled mics, you don’t need to—you could have your Vox sound like it’s e t S

o mic positions, and speaker cabinet options, too. We chose attached to a Marshall 4x12 if you really wanted. We lis - t o h

P to use the models of the actual cabinets we are using, but tened to several modeled mic options and chose to use a

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421 and a Royer with a little room ambience. So, there are no real mics in use on the guitars, just models and impulse responses from the OX boxes. The ‘mics’ are panned hard left and right on the OX box output, so we have the option of either or both mics on both amps, then creating a blend of the two amps and four mics depending on the song and tone we want. For Emily’s guitar we use a Radial Redbox DI with speaker emulation and a separate attenuator to make the speaker quiet. We also use a Radial Redbox DI with speaker emulation on her violin FX line to smooth off the overdriven, distorted violin tones; otherwise, the distor - tion pedals would sound too harsh and fizzy. This solution gives a more rounded, amp-like tone. We used to have backline cabs rigged out in the corridor backstage to give us that same level of control onstage, but this is far more civilized.” Besides Hozier’s KSM9 mic, a Shure Green Bullet har -

monica mic is also used for a distorted vocal. “It depends Darren Dunphy, monitor engineer. on the set list as to which songs it’s used for,” says Pattison. “If he plays ‘Wasteland, Baby!’ it just gives his vocal a gritty edge, which I then put through two separate hear. I’d ask him, ‘What did you do there to achieve a cer - Leslie speaker FX—one slow, one fast—for a pulsating tain sound on the recording?’ And he would tell me. It’s stereo tremolo effect similar to the recording. If he plays great to work with an artist who really understands sound ‘Talk,’ that has a repeating ‘Hey ya’ phrase in the verses and, though it again leaves you no hiding place, he is also that is heavily overdriven. It’s the same setting on the realistic and understands the occasional shortcomings of [Digitech] RP360; he just lays into it much more. Routed room acoustics. Alex Ryan, the bass player, is also MD— through his own RP360, the pedal is emulating a small he is classically trained and knows how to score the live Fender combo on the edge of breakup and the bullet mic arrangements. He and Andrew are a powerful combination. adds a bit of grit to the front end. The louder you sing, the Alex plays custom Skjold five-string bass and also has a more it overdrives and compresses. Occasionally, he’ll play small synth in front of him for certain parts. The fact I used a harmonica into it which is what it’s designed for, but to be a session player has been really useful for this mostly it’s a vocal effect.” show—we start from a common language; the musical He continues, “Andrew hears in his head what is on the notation all makes sense to me.” album, and that’s the level of detail he wants everyone to Which brings us to out front. “I have an Allen & Heath dLive S7000, my desk of choice and a board I like for sev - eral reasons. I don’t need to add plug-ins or any external effects, I use about 10 FX sends, basic stuff like different reverbs for the acoustic guitars, or on the voices so I can get them to sit in different places. I find the workflow of the desk amazing, clean and clear—it’s easy to find any - thing you want.” Pattison exceeded my expectations in terms of the live rendering at the desk stalls level; then up in both bal - conies, coverage was well-tailored, just as he’d promised. “To Be Alone” was as haunting and articulate as the recording—aided, of course, by some excellent musician - ship that brought the song new life without losing sight of the original tension of the record. If nothing else, you could sense the passion of Hozier’s performance.

Monitors Darren Dunphy on monitors is the veteran of the crew. He has also had the undoubted pleasure of having mixed monitors for The Cranberries and Sinéad O’Connor, two of Stephen Pattison, front-of-house engineer.

76 • November 2019 • Lighting &Sound America the most distinctive female voices ever to emerge from Ireland, but he finds Hozier exceptional. “Whatever the style of song—American folk, Chicago blues, soul—his voice lends itself to them all,” Dunphy says. Does having such an exacting musician make for added pressure? “I’ve been with Andrew for six-and-a-half years now, right from the first gig, and I have to say I really like the one-to-one contact of mixing monitors. You are in direct touch with the musicians and you get the immediate satisfaction of knowing you’re doing it right, because they’re the only people you have to please. He’s especially nice as when he credits the band at the end of the show; he also credits every crew member by name, even merchandise and caterers. He’s a lovely man.” Dunphy has a shiny new Yamaha Rivage PM7 at the side of stage “with the Rupert Neve pre-amps,” he explains. “I used a PM5D for a long time but, eventually, we ran out of inputs. The Rivage PM7 is a desk I was see - ing increasingly frequently with US country acts. When you’ve eight vocalists, sometimes all at the same time, your panning becomes crucial. With this board, I find it really easy to place each of them in the mix very clearly. Adlib bought this one for me; in the US we use Nashville’s Spectrum Sound as our supplier, and they have given me the same board. Nothing is too much trouble for them, and it has been the same with Adlib.” He continues, “Everyone is on IEMs, Shure PSM 1000s, 16 stereo mix, plus tech feeds and other things makes 22 in total. The thing I most enjoy is working with Patto [Pattison]—I tend to work with his reverbs, for example, because they’re coming back through the mics. When we go to the US after these shows, we’ll be using Spectrum’s d&b GSL system. With no back projection off the system, I’ll be putting side fills on stage just to give the band that same sort of back-feed. Overall, my job is made easier because these are all session musicians—they all play together as a band. When you’re going from a shed show one day to a theatre the next, they know how the change in room acoustics can affect your IEMs.”

Conclusion Cards on the table, I came to this show with high expecta - tions—yes, Hozier’s lyrical content can be tough at times, but even so, the words are not without beauty and heart - breaking poignancy. Musically, I think the man is unique— he effortlessly plunders countless North American styles and numerous other sources—rock even (surely a recent addition to his musical evolution)—strips them back to their essential ingredients and somehow finds ways to represent them as new, fresh, and irresistible. At the Palladium, almost 3,000 people were visibly moved for almost two hours.