To the uninitiated, the staging for Kylie’s Tension Tour looks rather simplistic, with little in the way of backdrops, flamboyant costumes, over-the-top styling and other fluff you may have associated with previous Kylie shows. Unfortunately, most audiences would not see the complexity behind the apparently ‘simplistic’ design. 

The show was spectacular, with bold colour choices and stunning screen visuals. The stage was large, and a catwalk and a B-stage ensured interaction between Kylie and her adoring fans.

Kylie delivered one hell of a concert, not a stage show. The focus was on her and the music; she did not disappoint, and by the end of her performance, even the harshest critics could not fail to be won over.

“The show is set in the present moment and focuses on Kylie and her music,” commented Rob Sinclair, Creative & Lighting Designer. “We tried to present her at the centre of everything without distraction. It’s a chance for her and her audience to spend time together.

“The show is very screen-based. Three large upstage surfaces, two side screens, the band on video cubes and the flown square. It’s a clean, modern world that sits well with the music of the Tension albums.”

Sinclair surrounded himself with people he described as the best, most generous, and hard-working team. 

“So many of the people on this show are true friends, and it makes me so happy to continue working with them,” he added. “Of course, Kylie is involved every step of the way and has accurate and valuable creative input on everything.”

Sinclair notes that the show encountered the usual hurdles of budget, time, and physics but adds that they navigated all of them reasonably well.

When asked about fixture choice, he says he hates doing this in the trade press, but they’re just lights. 

“These days, the different types are pretty interchangeable, and they all work well. I choose the fixture types and am guided on exact specs by vendor availability. I wish it were a better story than that! 

“Maybe the only unusual things are the Robe BMFL Spots. We try to avoid using LED Robospots due to the low CRI in high-power LED fixtures. I have a whole lecture I can give on demand. It’s very detailed and tends to put people to sleep.”  

Sinclair collaborated with some extraordinarily talented individuals, including Sophie Muller, who created the original films, and Luke Hall Studios, who produced most of the content. Steve Anderson, the musical director who has been with Kylie for 30 years, does an incredible job of breathing new life into older songs, making them all feel current and contemporary. 

“I think we achieved what we wanted to do,” said Sinclair. “It’s a very different type of Kylie show, but it is one that I love watching. She’s a genuinely inspirational performer and nails being at the centre of everything every night.”

Sinclair’s long-time associate Ali Pike lit the show with José Lorenzo and Matt Jones as Programmers. Lorenzo was on tour as the Lighting Director.

“Rob tells us what the picture is, and we make it happen!” he said. 

The production rehearsals and first run of shows took place in Australia with Ayrton Dominos and Martin MAC Viper XIPs.

Lorenzo remarks that it’s very exciting to see the comeback of the Viper as an LED fixture; adding the colour mixing, as always with Martin, is cool. “I haven’t missed any features compared to the Robin Fortes. The crew loves the MAC Viper XIP because it’s a couple of kilograms lighter than the original Viper, and it’s easy to travel with on pre-rigged trusses and is a fast fixture.

“Then we’ve got Ayrton Dominos, which is probably the brightest of the Ayrton range. We use them mainly for key lighting on the show. They have three wheels of colour correction and CMY mixing that help when we’re trying to get the exact tones for the skin colour of the guys we’ve got on stage.”

Lorenzo is excited to have forty-eight Chauvet COLORado PXL Curve in the rig. He cites the zoom range and colour mixing as stand-out features. 

“For such a small pixel and such a small amount of space, they’ve managed to fit a powerful chip with a nice zoom range on each one of the pixels, and it’s helping us with backlight on the show. It’s also a relatively new product, and it’s always nice to have new hands-on toys as soon as they become available. They play a crucial game on the show, especially backlight, as they go wide and are well-diffused and frosted.”

The lighting setup has all MAC Viper XIPs on the stage, overhead, and floor. They merge with 114 x Chauvet Color Strike Ms, which define the shape of the stage. 

“I like Color Strikes; it’s a very effective fixture. It’s the perfect eye candy choice at the moment. The picture we’re trying to draw here on this show is square; the design is very square. It’s all straight angles, and having Color Strikes is pretty much the same. We’re looking for that horizontal picture, and they just added it to that square look of the stage, which is fantastic.”

The PXL Curves are positioned on two lines upstage, just above them. The Dominos are spread across the room and on four front-of-house trusses. They provide the leading key light for the front of the main stage, catwalk, and satellite stage.

Robe BMFL followspots light Kylie and some of the dancers when needed. Lorenzo comments that they’re so much nicer than big beams from the back of the venue. 

“The advantage of using moving heads as followspots is that we can tune the white as we go,” Lorenzo remarked. “One of the main issues you have with traditional follow spots is they look too green or too blue, and then you have to swap gels until you find the actual colour temperature. Now, reaching the right colour temperature is achievable by scrolling an encoder and getting to the correct Kelvin for what we are trying to achieve in this show.”

Lastly, the rig features twelve Claypaky Sharpys, specifically designed to light the mirror ball, a feat they were born to do. “I don’t think they will go away as far as we’ve got mirrorballs in rigs. They do what’s required of them and are punchy and narrow.”

The custom-made mirrorball spins thanks to a battery-powered motor that gets charged between shows. The battery and motor are located within the mirror ball to prevent cables from dropping from the rigging. 

Like all departments, the lighting is timecoded and triggered by Will Sanderson, the Playback Engineer, and Lorenzo runs macros for every song.

“We’ll recall the song before they actually start playing it, and that will just do its own thing, press play, and I just go through it,” revealed Lorenzo. “All the followspots are at my fingertips, with every followspot on a different fader. We program most of it as well. We know which ones we will use in every song based on the dancers’ and leading artist’s blocking. But then I can also alter this if, at any point, anything changes while on the show.”

Lorenzo runs an MA Lighting grandMA3 full-size console in Mode 3, which he is delighted to use. 

“It’s been a long journey to get where we are with MA3, but we’re pleased. It’s consistent now. I think it’s the platform to go to nowadays, especially for this scale of shows, and I’m just looking forward to seeing what new features we will see from MA Lighting in the future.”

 

This article first appeared in the April edition of Lighting & Sound International