SWEET TALKER A SUCCESSFUL SONGWRITER, NUMBER ONE POP STAR, TV SHOW MENTOR AND TOURING PRO, BRITISH SINGER JESSIE J UNLEASHED HER SOULFUL HIP HOP INFUSED, BEAT DRIVEN PERFORMANCE FOR HER LATEST TOUR IN SUPPORT OF HER THIRD STUDIO ALBUM, SWEET TALKER. WITH A STRIPPED DOWN SHOW DESIGN FROM LD VINCE FOSTER, THE ARTIST S VOICE BECAME THE RIGHTFUL STAR OF THE SHOW. TPi S KELLY MURRAY REPORTS. After cancelling her very first tour date in Glasgow due to an unforeseen throat infection, Jessie J was soon back on full form, adding a Glaswegian date onto the end of the UK run. The singer is well-known for wanting to really please her fans with her performances. Manchester was the third date of the tour and her presence in the city summoned queuing fans by midday, complete with blankets and flasks, hoping to catch a glimpse of the star. Once we made our way to the stage door, we were greeted rather sternly by the venue s in-house security. Unless someone comes to meet you, you re not coming in we re told. Right then PRODUCTION 24/7 s Production Assistant, Lizzie Graham, is the woman in the know backstage. Having started her own career as a stagehand at crewing specialists Stage Miracles, three years later she wanted to make the transition into the production office. She took up an internship at 24/7 Productions, working under Jessie J s Production Manager, John Pryer. Graham has clearly made an impact too, as this year she just happens to be nominated for a TPi Award. Following five days of rehearsals in Ryhl, North Wales, at an old theatre venue, the tour began in late January. By the third tour date, on a cold and rainy Manchester afternoon, she explained the decisions behind the tour s chosen vendors: In terms of suppliers, 24/7 are very loyal when we get good service. For example, I know we ve used our catering company Eat To The Beat for the past 15 years, long before my time with the company. However, on this academy-sized tour, there 48
Opposite: Jessie J performed in Manchester as part of her Sweet Talker tour; She uses a customised gold plated Sennheiser. Below: White Light supplied a Clay Paky dominated rig; Show Designer and LD, Vince Foster. are a couple of new vendors in tow, namely audio supplier Adlib and lighting vendor White Light. Adlib are very helpful to work with, we did a couple of events with them over the summer and they were just very professional. If you needed anything, they sorted it out straight away, so we knew we could rely on them. We also have a new lighting supplier, White Light. We have two crew members from there and I have to say they are the perfect theatre professionals. I suppose what is nice is that everybody knows each other, so it s been a fairly stress free tour. We ve used Rambo [Lead Truck Driver] before and I specifically requested to have Dean [Phoenix Bussing s Lead Driver] on the tour as I ve worked with him on other events, and he certainly makes things run very smoothly, she added. And what of her TPi Award nomination for touring with Jessie J? It s great to be nominated, and I really wish I could go on the night but I ll be on tour with Jessie in Miami. LIGHTING AND SET DESIGN The tour s Show Designer and Lighting Director, Vince Foster has worked with Jessie J for the last four years. His vision for her tour this time has gone in the total opposite direction to the last tour, which took place in arenas throughout the UK. We ve stripped all the video away because she s a dynamic artist and so she doesn t actually need that kind of visual support; her voice can just own the show, Foster explained. This was certainly true when she appeared on stage that evening, clad in a sheer Manchester emblazoned over sized t-shirt; understated yet stage-owning. This stripped down, budget-driven production (there s no pyro or backing vocalists this time around either) the main lighting concept is centred around two straight general purpose TomCat trusses. The rig is predominately a Clay Paky design with 26 Mythos placed across both the truss and floor, six Clay Paky Sharpy Washes for key lighting on the front truss, 16 Clay Paky A.leda B-EYE K20 s on staggered T bars and uprights, 12 Pixel Lines by Pixel Range vertically on uprights and 20 generic 2-lite molefays. Having moved away from video screens, Foster asked Hang Man to create a backdrop behind which 24 Philips Nitro Strobes shine through. There is a lot of LED on this show, I think that s the way many designs are going these days. I really like the new Mythos fixtures because they can do everything; it s a profile, a wash light and beam. I can get any look I want out of them. The B-EYEs are also fairly new and they re a great wash light with really good colour options. They don t look like an LED light at all, so they re pretty attractive on stage, added Foster.
Below: Hang Man created a cloth backdrop, designed by Vince Foster; Production Assistant, Lizzie Graham; Foster used his own HES Hog 4 desk to control the lighting; The cue-driven show was mainly based around different shades of white light. For control, Foster is using his own High End Systems Hog 4 desk over ArtNet. I ve always used Hogs wherever possible. They re so familiar to me, it s a bit like putting on a comfortable pair of slippers! he laughed. I can make a show in two weeks or 10 minutes if I need to, I don t have to think about the button pushes anymore. Jessie J s lighting show is a cue driven affair which was always the thinking behind Foster s design. When the tour goes to Asia, I ll hand it over to the next operator so all they have to know is the music in order to run the show, it s as simple as that. I always try to simplify the programming so that the transition is fluid. With the look of the show, there s various warm and cold white light, so the main theme is based on around 80% of different white tones, which Foster is happy to say has been a really effective look. Supporting Foster on the tour is Crew Chief, Hadyn Williams and Lighting Tech, Neil Scrivener from White Light. Since Lester Cobrin joined the company as Head of Concert Touring two years ago, the lighting rental company has branched out from its theatre roots. Said Williams: I think part of White Light s recent success is its investment in new kit. We were definitely one of the first companies to have the Mythos fixtures and because Vince wanted them, it helped us get the gig, which we re glad about because it s been a great experience. DRAPING Draping expert Hang Man has worked with Foster over many years now and more recently, with 24/7 too, on top pop acts such as 5ive, The Wanted and as of last year, Jessie J. We ve worked with Vince on all of these projects to create backdrops with a series of layers to enable different looks and effects to be achieved through lighting it in various ways. We ve actually developed new fabrication processes specifically for some of these projects and the latest Jessie J drape was a good example of this, explained Hang Man s Sam Booker. The brief was to create the 3D effect using only shading and different fabrics on a drape which could be folded and packed up to make it as practical as possible for a touring show. The architectural regularity of the design lent itself well to a combination of printed blackout fabrics and black and white gauzes to create some stunning visual effects on stage. The final effect was achieved with a printed blackout fabric appliquéd onto a black sharks tooth gauze with a secondary white sharks tooth gauze hung upstage of main backdrop. The drapes themselves were 15-metres by 6-metres and were created from scratch in just three weeks. Those three weeks included the Christmas and New Year period though, so time was certainly very tight! AUDIO FOH Engineer Karl Snake Newton has worked with Jessie J for three years, but this is his first time touring with Adlib. She s a good artist to work with because she has a naturally great 50
Below: Dean Westwood of Phoenix Bussing; Stardes Dave Rambo Ramsden; Eat To The Beat provided the tour s catering; Head Caterer, Pauline Austin with Jamie Morris; White Light s Hadyen Williams and Neil Scrivener. voice; it s quite fierce at times. Her mix is quite poppy and rocky as she has a live band with keys, drums, guitars and bass up there with her, he noted. Adlib supplied control desks and a custom rack which houses the stage distro, mic splitter and an Avid stage rack. At FOH there is Snake s Avid Profile running Venue software. I really like the Profile, I m very used to it now. I worked with this desk last time I was on tour with Jessie, so I ve replicated that. Although Baggy is always trying to get me on a DiGiCo! The Baggy in question is Andy Baggy Robinson, who told TPi: I m using an SD10 this time, I ve never used a 10 before but because we ve lost the backing vocalists from the arena show, this new set up fits easily onto this desk. It was the economic option for the tour, and I like it so far. For the arena shows last year, I was on an SD5, so you ll always find me on a DiGiCo in some form or other! I ve been working with them since 06 and I ve never looked back. DiGiCo make the best sounding desks out there. Baggy is creating four mixes for the band and for the artist herself. They are all on Sennheiser 2000 Series in-ears [provided by 24/7]. Jessie J is using a customised gold plated Sennesier 5235 microphone she even has a Swarovski Crystal encrusted mic stand. Continued Baggy: DiGiCo is always the best sounding desk in my opinion, and Sennheiser make the best in-ears too. The combination of the mic, my console and the inears is like a hat trick. If you have the right tools for the job, it makes your job so much easier. The sound in the 1930s-built O2 Apollo theatre was certainly on point, with the singer expressing her clear enthusiasm for playing with a live band. During her rendition of her very first single Do It Like A Dude she commented: I m going to be singing this song till the bitter end, when I m 90 and still dancing around in my knickers! before launching into the gritty undertones of the smash hit. The tour is carrying 28 boxes of L-Acoustics K2 to allow 14 per side in the bigger venues such as Brixton and Hammersmith. In this venue there are 12 per side. Adlib s System Tech, Sam Proctor said of the PA choice: We chose the K2 because Snake used a K1 system on her arena tour, so the K2 was the perfect transition. It translates really well and it s also a nice light box, designed for rigging every day. Proctor also designs and tunes the system each day. The K2 was the best decision; the HF is clear right to the back of the room and you can vary the horizontal dispersion with this box, She s a good artist to work with because she has a naturally great voice; it s quite fierce at times... FOH Engineer, Karl Snake Newton. which is great for theatres and throwing sound off the wall. I don t think you get that with any other system out there. As the venues vary dramatically on this tour, so some of the array is half flown, and according to Proctor, the K2 s light weight design also enables for quick ground stacking for these varying designs. The system is completed by six SB28 subwoofers per side, four ARCs for front 52
Below: FOH Engineer, Karl Snake Newton with Monitor Engineer, Andy Baggy Robinson; Baggy with his DiGiCo SD10 console; Clay Paky B-EYEs featured in the lighting design; Adlib s Sam Proctor, System Tech. fill and two KARAs per side for lip fill. It s tough being the only tech on a tour, but Snake and Baggy are hands on which makes my life a lot easier! said Proctor. Snake added: The K2 is a great box and I m a big fan of L-Acoustics. I prefer the K1 system but we couldn t fit it into this kind of venue, so we have the next best thing. Sam Proctor has done an absolutely great job too, he s been a star. Speaking of which, Snake was chosen as the 2014 TPi Awards FOH Engineer of the year, something we clearly had to mention. Ah yes he laughed as he blushed simultaneously. I was very flattered to have won, so I d like to thank everyone who voted for me! CATERING 24/7 s go-to food agency is the ever-present Eat To The Beat, a tour catering veteran. In Jessie J s camp, it s ETTB s Head Caterer Pauline Austin who is at the helm of the hungry roadies. She s been with the company for an impressive 20 years, and also worked on Jessie J s 2014 arena tour. During the aftermath of a successful lunch service, (of prawn and tofu pad Thai, in case you were curious), Austin told TPi: It s quite a chilled out tour this time, because we re dealing with a nice size crew. There are just two of us from ETTB, Jamie Morris and myself, and then at each venue we have a third person who comes in as part of the local crew working as our kitchen assistant. Between us we cook and prepare breakfast and lunch for the crew and then dinner for the artist too. We cook all kinds of dishes; we have quite a big choice and receive an intake of fresh produce deliveries daily, which come straight to the venue. That means we can make lots of salads and fresh soups. Tonight for the dinner sitting we have southern fried chicken with red cabbage slaw and sweet potato, pork schnitzel and vegetables and crab, lemon and chilli linguine, so our lovely crew are pretty well looked-after! she smiled. The dessert platters included a delicious homemade banoffee pie (a stunningly natural Jessie J herself enjoyed the first slice, but we thought we should probably test it too ), cheese boards and a plethora of colourful fruit options. Unsurprisingly, looking around at the well-fed team behind this tour, the company has been nominated for a TPi Award once again... TRANSPORT And keeping the tour moving on time is the slick transportation crew. Lead Truck Driver, Dave Rambo Ramsden has worked for Stardes for 30 years, and still retains his love for life on the road. I ve worked with a lot of bands in a lot of different venues over the years, but it s this type venue, which I like the most; it s a great size, he noted of his load in / out at the O2 Apollo in Manchester. A lot of people have an idea about this industry before they start working in it, like it would be glamorous... it s not glamorous when you re a truck driver, but it is still a lot of fun when you know everyone on tour. After this long in the business, I just try to keep everybody happy! While Rambo is handling the equipment deliveries between venues, it s down to Dean Westwood of the bus crew to re-locate the artist, band and crew. This is my first tour with Jessie, and it s been a very relaxed one so far. Phoenix are the best in the game, they re great to work for so that makes things easier if you ve 53
Below: The star s tour will continue in the US and Australia. never worked with a particular artist before too. BANG BANG INTO THE ROOM As Jessie J continues to prove herself as one of the top live female vocalists Britain has to offer, it s clear from the audience on her latest UK run that the pop star s fans are very much behind her. Not to mention she s working with more TPi Award winners than you could shake a selfie stick at. In a stripped back setting the starlet felt comfortable enough to chat to people individually about when they d bought her album, and interestingly was relaxed enough to begin a brand new song all over again declaring that: I m a perfectionist, and I want to get this right for you. Well, judging by the army of fans still camping outside by the tour buses after the show, once again, get it right she did. The tour will continue throughout the US and Australia during early 2015. TPi Photos: Jade Dannielle Martin www.jessiejofficial.com www.24-7productions.co.uk www.whitelight.ltd.uk www.hangman.co.uk, www.adlib.co.uk www.phoenix-bussing.co.uk www.stardes.co.uk www.eattothebeat.com