Keith Urban has been roaring across the country with his lauded High and Alive World tour, described by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the very few gotta-see-’em-live-to-get-it greats who can hold an arena in the palm of his hand.
 

The flawless performance is matched by an equally flawless lighting design by Rob Sinclair (Kylie, Post Malone, My Chemical Romance), with lighting director Benjamin Silverstein on tour. Ben has worked with a variety of acts throughout his career, including The War on Drugs and MGMT.
 

“Keith loves big, chunky looks, and when speaking with Rob, I think part of the intention was to recreate an old-school par can rig but with modern gear,” explained Ben. “Rob has knocked it out of the park because it really feels like the pods are banks of par cans.”
 

The aforementioned pods have become a significant topic of discussion among aficionados of concert lighting design. The four air pods are packed with Martin MAC Aura PXLs, with 24 units in each of the four pods. Additionally, the four side pods each hold 12 MAC Aura XBs.
 

They are complemented by video pods, which are often used as a lighting source. Ben controls these through the console into disguise D3, essentially treating the pods as a bunch of RGB fixtures.
 

The video pods move positions throughout the show via Kinesys, sometimes blending into the hardware and sometimes drawing attention to the talent.
 

“There's a lot of really cool stuff with video and lighting morphing into one,” remarked Ben. “In some songs, when we're controlling the video through the lighting console, we add effects or filters or masks over it from the D3. You wouldn't always realise it was just like a lighting thing.”
 

The use of pods can often fill the stage with lighting effects, making the lighting the primary element of the stage set. The pods can channel energy to a specific area with great efficiency. The stage can be made to appear one size and then appear much larger with different positions and various pod automation looks.
 

“The MAC PXLs have been an excellent fixture to use,” said Ben. “They're just so punchy. We use Elation Fuzes in the US, but with the MAC Aura PXL, they really cut through in a different and very satisfying way. We run lots of phasers (effects) through them, although not a lot of movement effects, but a lot of colour sweeps and hits and stuff like that. Modern-day par can stuff!”
 

Ben says the MAC Aura XBs in the side pods are great, providing a range of phasers (effects) like dimmer, colour, and punch.
 

Upstage on the floor is a row of 18 Ayrton Dominos to provide backwash, punch and fill in the space in a great way.
 

A total of 31 Elation Proteus Maximus units are in the rig: on the front truss, the upstage truss for back lighting, and on the floor on either side of the stage for side lighting. Ben says he doesn’t use them above 20%-30% throughout the show because they're so bright. He adds that they are great; however, the backline guys don’t love it!
 

All of the thirteen Proteus Maximus on the front truss were used as followspots. In the US, these were coupled with a Follow Me tracking system, but in Australia, a RoboSpot follow spot system is used.
 

“One of the coolest things that Chameleon did was successfully make a RoboSpot system work like a Follow Me system, which is the first time I've ever experienced RoboSpots being able to do that,” commented Ben. “Chameleon said there was an update relatively recently where you can use the PSN data, and I believe PSN from the RoboSpot station is output into the MA3 console, where they do the calibration, and then we have markers set. Now I can assign any light on our front truss to different markers, just like in Follow Me.
 

“It made coming from the States to here seamless, and there was no programming challenge. Chameleon solved it, and it's a huge benefit.”
 

ACME Pixel Lines are located along the main riser step, adding an effective icon eye candy detail. A total of 35 Chauvet Color STRIKE Ms provide great hits and a lot of sparkly stuff.
 

“They provide a lot of great strobe hits, big wash looks, and you can get a lot of really great punchy stuff through them or just set a really nice, soupy wash upstage, and it just fills the space in a great way,” explained Ben.
 

Eight Robert Juliat Dalis 862S are situated on the floor of the small thrust areas off the front of the stage. Six Claypaky Sharpy were in the rig; two on either side of the stage floor and two at FOH to make the mirrorball super effective.
 

Ben ran the show on an MA Lighting grandMA3 full-size console running in Mode 3. He adds that Joe Watrach programmed on this tour and did an absolutely amazing job.
 

“The Australian tour has been incredible,” commented Ben. “Maybe because Keith is from here, there is a certain element of different excitement, and you feel that energy. We started with a few days of production rehearsals in Newcastle, followed by our first show there, and the Chameleon crew has been absolutely incredible. They went above and beyond, making my life easy. Everybody on this tour has been great, with an amazing crew in every department. Shout out to the team at Big Picture as well. They were all phenomenal. We’re feeling it everywhere, just how lucky we are right now.
 

“You know it's been nice here because we've been doing pre-rig load-in days and then show days, and a lot of times we're doing two or three nights in one place, whereas in the States we've been doing three nights in a row in different cities, and that gets hard at times.
 

“The Chameleon crew are so good, and they're just top-notch, with an incredible work ethic and positive attitude.”
 

Chameleon Crew:
Levi Boes - Crew Chief
Danyon McCue – Kinesys
Michael Simpson
Nick Newman
Michael Simpson
Nick Newman
Cooper Corcoran
Matt Davies
Shonnie Skehan
Hunter Philip
Graham Walker – Account Manager