CONCERTS Copyright Lighting &Sound America November 2019 complete issue: http://plasa.me/mbzbv 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 s e g a Opposite: Hozier performing in Atlanta. Above. A performance at Hollywood Forever. Lighting designer Steven Douglas is best-known m I y for his work with The Killers; he has been working with Hozier since May of last year. t t e G / n o s l e d u D t t was an episode of BBC’s Silent Witness that first intro - Lighting o c S : duced me to Hozier. Played during an opening sequence I first met Steven Douglas in 2013 when he was designing o t o h p on Hampstead Heath, “To Be Alone” is a haunting song lighting for The Killers; for this story, I caught up with him t h g i It made all the more poignant by the pared-back, crystalline at the London Palladium. How did a young Irishman, long R ; s e beauty of its recording. I purchased Hozier’s eponymous before his association with Hozier, come to be lighting an g a m I first album on the strength of that single listening. The established US rock band? “I took a diploma in theatre y t t e G songs therein visit dark corners of the soul, but in so doing stage management and design in Dublin,” he opens. / n i f f i r reveal a moral truth. This man has something to say, but “While I was doing it, I managed to find some odd gigs G s a you need to pay attention. That said, as a form of popular with Picturehouse, a very happening Dublin band at the r a P : music (“Take Me to Church,” for example), these are care - time. In the March after I graduated, I knocked at the door o t o h p fully crafted songs that delight the ear with their originality. of the Olympia Theatre in Dublin and asked the chief elec - t f e L In short, Andrew John Hozier-Byrne is a unique talent. trician who I should send my CV to. ‘You don’t,’ was his www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • November 2019 • 69 CONCERTS 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.