CONCERTS Copyright Lighting Sound America · “When Hozier released the first album, Matty Kilmurry was the LD. A family man, he asked me to cover a couple of shows for him here

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68 • November 2019 • Lighting&Sound America

WastelandTouring the

Copyright Lighting&Sound America November 2019 complete issue: http://plasa.me/mbzbv

was an episode of BBC’s Silent Witness that first intro-duced me to Hozier. Played during an opening sequenceon Hampstead Heath, “To Be Alone” is a haunting songmade all the more poignant by the pared-back, crystallinebeauty of its recording. I purchased Hozier’s eponymousfirst album on the strength of that single listening. Thesongs therein visit dark corners of the soul, but in so doingreveal a moral truth. This man has something to say, butyou need to pay attention. That said, as a form of popularmusic (“Take Me to Church,” for example), these are care-fully crafted songs that delight the ear with their originality.In short, Andrew John Hozier-Byrne is a unique talent.

LightingI first met Steven Douglas in 2013 when he was designinglighting for The Killers; for this story, I caught up with himat the London Palladium. How did a young Irishman, longbefore his association with Hozier, come to be lighting anestablished US rock band? “I took a diploma in theatrestage management and design in Dublin,” he opens.“While I was doing it, I managed to find some odd gigswith Picturehouse, a very happening Dublin band at thetime. In the March after I graduated, I knocked at the doorof the Olympia Theatre in Dublin and asked the chief elec-trician who I should send my CV to. ‘You don’t,’ was his

Opposite: Hozier performing in Atlanta. Above. A performance at Hollywood Forever. Lighting designer Steven Douglas is best-knownfor his work with The Killers; he has been working with Hozier since May of last year.

www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • November 2019 • 69

Left photo: Paras Griffin/Getty Images; Right photo: Scott Dudelson/Getty Images

It

Emotionally direct lighting and smart audio gear choices forHozier’s Wasteland, Baby! Tour

By: Steve Moles


reply, but a week later he called. I was about to catch thebus to my job stacking shelves at a supermarket; he need-ed a followspot operator—could I be there in 40 minutes? Iended up working at the Olympia Theatre for seven-and-a-half years, rising to assistant electrician, then chief electri-cian.” If this isn’t a compelling endorsement of the oldsaw, “When opportunity knocks, don’t hesitate,” I don’tknow what is.

“I first met The Killers there; [they were] a support act—this was early in their career—and needed someone tolight them, so I busked it. They liked what I did and askedfor my number—how often does that happen but younever hear from them again? But they called and asked if Icould do the NME Awards tour. That’s when they brokethrough—in six months, we went from small clubs to sec-ond on the bill at Glastonbury.”

Douglas is still with the band 15 years on and, in theinterim, has forged a strong collaborative relationship withlighting designer Nick Whitehead, most recently codesign-ing the Aerosmith residency in Las Vegas. (See LSA, June2019.) Not to mention his work for Jay-Z, Britney Spears,

Kanye West and Alicia Keys...What was the name of thatcollege again?

“When Hozier released the first album, Matty Kilmurrywas the LD. A family man, he asked me to cover a coupleof shows for him here in Ireland, and a couple of one-offsin New York. Then he and the band disappeared from mylife for two years while they promoted the first album. Butthe fact the band already knew me was important; after awell-earned break, Matty decided to place his family firstand I was asked to take over; I was a natural fit.

“This was May 2018,” Douglas continues. “I was touringwith The Killers in New Zealand, and Andrew’s manager,Caroline Downey, was visiting her daughter there andcame to see the show. We were using house rigs, as youdo, and so would be the case for Hozier’s next outing.Even today, we are working with a touring floor packageand are using the Palladium’s own lights for this show.”This is the largely SLX-supplied rig, alongside kit from PRGused for Michael McIntyre’s Big Show, a popularcomedy/variety series. “For the other UK dates, we carry afull production rig, but that’s the exception—in the US, for P

hoto: Paras Griffin/Getty Images

The Atlanta performance. A key aspect of Douglas’ design, placed behind the band risers, is a set of six vertical columns of P2Hexalines from Portman Lights.

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example, we generally pick up from the house.” Adlib provides the crew and equipment for the UK tour,

including sound, lights, and video gear. “[Sue] ‘Duchess’Iredale is our production manager and Adlib are her go-tovendor. New to me, I usually use Neg Earth or Siyan. Adlibhave been great—they have some good people there; inthe US, where we are headed again for the next sevenweeks, we will just carry a floor package and pick uplocal.”

Not that you’d know it watching the show, a slickly real-ized production in which Douglas manages to deftly reflectthe stylistic changes within Hozier’s music and, like theperformer himself, has a delicate, considered touch thatdoesn’t slap you in the face.

“The design started around the second album’s coverart—Andrew sat seemingly in a room by a table submergedunderwater, two windows in the background. I had PerryScenic [Creative] make me a backdrop modelled on twosimilar windows I’d come across. Slightly 3D, the framesare formed from a light foam material; the whole dropweighs about 200lb.”

It’s a theatrical cloth of which Douglas takes full advan-tage, light through the windows, with uplighting castingshadow to the frames, and sometimes with a randomlyswagged scrim flown in front for a different texture. Theuse of flybars to bring these two elements in and out ortogether at the same time is where Douglas effects hismost profound visual changes; you could be midway intothe next song before a lighting cue would reveal thechange at the back of the stage.

“We just wanted specific looks for certain songs; thewindows are not even revealed until seven numbers intothe set. For a different setting, behind the band risers Ihave six vertical columns of P2 Hexaline by Portman Lightsand there are two further lines of Chroma-Q Color Force 72LED battens on the floor across the back. I especially likethe Hexaline—for an LED source, it has that tungsten glowand isn’t too overpowering.” As a punctuation marker tothe beat, he uses the Hexalines often and, as he says, theynever once become tiresome.

“To complete the floor package, I have a pair of ColorKinetics iW Blasts as uplighters beside his mic stand andeight Martin [by Harman] MAC Viper Performances—a paireither side downstage, two midstage, and four across theback. Shinbusters for a bit of accent on him, or for specificeffects from behind. I chose the Vipers for the animationwheel—I wanted a subtle bit of movement that isn’t anobvious gobo. Overhead, my default request from a housesystem is for 13 Vipers, 24 [Martin Mac] Auras, and 11 ETCSource Four Profiles. Here, I have access to a lot more—infact, I’ve just encountered what will be my new front light:they have Martin Encore Performances out in the house. Anice warm white LED and, at the sort of range I’m work-ing—18m here in the Palladium—more than bright enough.”

Thanks to the house rig at the Palladium, there is a luxu-ry of lighting riches available, but Douglas is restrained.“There are Robe Spikies and Mac Quantum Profiles upthere we could have used, but I don’t use beam lights,” hesays. Not that it stopped him producing exactly that look inthe song “Nobody.” “But I have added six [GLP] JDC1s upthere for wash.” It’s a device he also uses to warm up theaudience when a sing-along ensues.

“There are eight musicians onstage, three or four down-stage of the risers—they do swap about a bit—so I haveseven fixtures on the upstage bar specifically for rear posi-tions. Midstage elements of the rig are more for effect andto fill out. Andrew is the sort of artist you can light with verylittle—I’ve done shows with just six moving fixtures and abunch of PARs.”

Out front, Douglas uses the ubiquitous grandMA2 con-sole. “We pick one up locally,” he says, “you can get oneanywhere. I can work with any desk—Avolites, ChamSys,Hog—I’ve used them all, but I like the MA for the ability toclone. I know they all do it, but the workflow on the MA justmakes so much sense to me.”

Video“Besides the drapes, we have a video wall at the back ofstage and a set of lipstick cameras on stage,” Douglascontinues. This is not an IMAG show by any stretch of theimagination, and more credit to Douglas for prevailingacross the full onstage image. He uses camera feeds spar-ingly and content is often rendered in black and white ordesaturated, which seems entirely appropriate. A particularsong toward the close of the show is almost documentaryin feel. Even for the numbers where generated content wasdeployed, this is not a TV show—think Ansel Adams meetsan edgy Frontier animation.

“The content resides on a Catalyst media server, but itwasn’t always like that,” Douglas says. “It all started whenwe were doing a run of festivals in the US and were think-ing about some sort of backdrop. Third or fourth on the bill,you don’t get much opportunity to influence the look of thestage, but there is always a big LED screen—the questionwas what to put on it.” The solution was delightfully cheapand effective.

“We loaded in early for one festival and had time avail-able. We rigged our swagged gauze, our painted backdrop,and put our tour photographer in a cherry picker to shootthem all in combination.” Douglas had been thinkingahead. “We put all the pictures on an ImageCue, a server ina small square box, plugged it into the HDMI link at thefront of house, and turned it on. Too easy. We’d beenwatching people lug big server racks out through thecrowd: This was easier and lighter than a backpack, and atunder $1,000, suddenly we had the swag look and the win-dows. These things take on a life of their own and it wasn’tlong before someone asked, ‘Could we put the content for


“Church” up there?.’ ImageCue has just one layer, so youneed to be meticulous in your planning; nevertheless, youcan do a lot—the software resides on an SD card, yourimage data on a USB key. I like it so much I even repro-grammed some of The Killers’ stuff for ease of portability.But now we are doing a whole lot more on this show, sothe move to a more versatile server such as Catalyst wasinevitable. The choice was determined by whatScreenworks [the supplier in the US] and Adlib had.” Notstrictly true in the case of Adlib, as we learn later on froma brief chat with video tech, Matt Hopwood.

“Some of the content is very simple,” Douglas says. “Amontage of the lyrics written on scraps of paper flickerthrough one song, for example. Something evocative of amirror-ball effect, flared pencil-thin beams for another. Thatwas produced by Lüz Studio in Montréal. Andrew’s broth-er, Jon, is a filmmaker and made one song-specific piece.They are both involved in the ideas and direction for con-tent. I’m part of that process as well—we sit around anddiscuss ideas, my input tends to the more practical dimen-sions—how will this work in the live show, will it be over-powering, or is it something that looks great on an iPhone,but doesn’t stand the test if being scaled up...”

The first time I noticed content, it was dimmer than thelighting—as with the Hexalines, nothing is in your face. For“Nina Cried Power,” content drew upon some very power-ful found footage of public protest. “Angel of Small Deathand the Codeine Scene” saw Hozier lit in stark relief by theiW Blasts while a black and white line drawing animationof a cartoon cat, redolent of something from the 1930s,played behind the swagged gauze. All very thought-pro-voking without overwhelming the songs.

We next speak to Matt Hopwood from Adlib, whoexplains the screen: “It’s a ROE Visual Vanish V8. Themodules only weigh 6.5kg and at 14m wide x 7m high, it’sa light, manageable screen.” Hopwood is the only LEDtech on the tour. “It takes me and a couple of stagehandsaround one-and-a-half hours to rig. There is no issue withrecalibration if you have to swap out a module; the soft-ware is from iTech and very easy to use. The Catalyst serv-er actually comes from Simon Pugsley, at SNPProductions; he is a specialist with that system and is withus on tour. Adlib stocks Green Hippo servers in-house, butthey have a good working relationship with Simon andalways use him when a client wants to use Catalyst. Thecameras are all Marshall lipstick cameras—CV225s mainly,with CV350 for the side positions. The CV350 has aremote zoom and, with the band being quite distant, thatzoom function is critical.”

SoundPart of me hoped that Stephen Pattison would have beenwith Hozier long enough to have been part of the record-ing team for that first album; it proves not so, but Pattison

has his own special skills and sensitivities that bringsomething extra to his role. “I started in audio in 1996,first as a session musician before moving to live sound.I’ve done a lot—Amy Winehouse for five years, then a lotof Scottish and Irish acts—Texas, The Script, MartiPellow, to name a few.”

Pattison joined Hozier in August 2018 and, much likeDouglas, was recruited after Hozier’s management attend-ed one of his shows with The Script. “They must haveliked what they heard because they offered me the job,”he explains. “For this UK tour, we’ve carried our own sys-tem from Adlib, though we’re using the house L-Acousticsrig from SSE here at the Palladium. However, you’ve comeon a historic day—apparently, this is the first show hereever where they have removed the seats in the stalls. Thatchange in the ear height of the stalls audience has led meto bring in some of our Coda Audio gear from the touringrig to augment the existing house fills. The house front fillsno longer make any sense because they now fire straightinto the belly of the front row, and coverage from themains L/R doesn’t quite make that group on center thatwould normally be covered by a wide angle down fill at thebottom of a traditional line array. That said, I never thinkthose 120°-wide down cabinets really make it for the cen-ter core audience. Making sure everyone gets a good lis-tening experience and is properly covered is a priority forme. I will use lots of fills, I often put in a center cluster forjust that reason.”

With such a focus on fills and coverage, doesn’t han-dling timing and transition between a multiplicity of boxeswhen you’re playing quick in/out shows in theatresbecome tricky? “Not on the tour,” he says. “The Codaboxes are just so phase-coherent. I often use the CodaTiRAY, a nice little box, ideal for fill, and get the timing rightand there are no transition issues. All these Coda cabinetshave the same tonality.”

That mention of a Coda system from Adlib is timely.Coda has been attracting a lot of attention recently, notleast at the PLASA Show in September; how has Pattisonfound the system? “We used a Coda AiRAY for mains; ifyou ask me, it’s powered by witchcraft. Small and light,but immensely powerful when you need it. You can com-fortably take this system into clubs, theatres, and arenas;size is not an issue. This simple bi-amp box is insane.There is just no distortion. If you play tracks, you will hearthings you have never heard before; not that this showuses any tracks at all—this is all completely live.”

Pattison and monitor man Darren Dunphy were indeedat pains to repeat that there were no tracks on the show.From what I heard, I never found that hard to believe—foran eight-piece band, this was an open, spacious mixwhere every voice could breathe. I say voice because aswell as being multi-instrumentalists, all eight of them sang,consistently, throughout the show. P

hoto: Steve M

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“What I mean about hearing things you’ve neverheard before is that you also need to pay attention—there is nowhere to hide with the system; nothing getssmeared, so you do need to be careful with your mix,”Pattison says.

The eight-piece band is a mix of musicians from theUS, UK, and Ireland, four of whom are women. I mentionthis because Sue “Duchess” Iredale, the production man-ager, draws my attention to it. “And the production team isfemale as well,” she says, “my assistant, the tour manager,and me.” It’s a sad indictment of the so-called liberal artsmusic industry that a veteran the stature of Duchess feelsthe situation still warrants comment.

Back with Pattison, he comments on the importance ofthe vocals: “Not only do they all sing, the massed vocalelement is a significant part of his musical structure. In the

studio, Andrew likes to use a Sennheiser 441 and we docarry one with us, but the truth is we get a better inputputting him on a Shure KSM9. That decision is founded onthe simple fact he likes to get in among the audience andyou just don’t want a wired mic out there in that situation.In particular, he favors the 441 for its midrange detail. Itand the KSM are very similar in that respect; the gains andcompression settings are quite close. Andrew has a widedynamic range in performance, from whisper to roar; hehas a very powerful voice.” Something I witnessed almostimmediately: They started sound-checking a new songand he sang, without microphone, in the slightly morerelaxed, less projective way you do in rehearsal, and stillmanaged to ring out in this large, dry auditorium withoutthe aid of the PA.

“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.

Light plots: Courtesy of Steven Douglas


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The light plots above and below detail the floor and overhead packages used on the European part of the tour.


him to save his voice,” Pattison says. “The saving grace isthey 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 certainparts,” continues Pattison. “He has choral singing in hisbackground and really understands how to use massedvoices effectively.” Something Pattison handled well: high-church choral style—think soprano plainsong—or gutsygospel, neither were ever lost in the music.

“The rest of the band are generally rooted to their stagepositions, though there is a degree of instrument swappingduring the performance; all have a Shure B58 for vocals.Instrument-wise the drum kit is simple—kick, snare, onerack and one floor tom, hi-hat, ride, and crash cymbals,and there’s a Roland SPD-S for some clap and snapsounds. Drum mics are what you’d expect: Sennheiser414, 57, 906...I do use Shure suspension mounts for thesnare mics, and he has B56 on an overhead boom forvocals; just physically more manageable for him. We havetwo keyboard players who use a Nord Stage 3, one ismainly for piano sounds, the other for a variety of soundsand 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—shealso plays a lot of violin parts. It has a bug on the bodyfrom LR Baggs, from which, like the guitars, I take a cleanand FX send.”

Pattison grabbed me late in the show and put a set ofheadphones on me to hear Kohavi’s violin played throughdistortion and octave pedals to produce a dirty, angrycello-like sound. Flicking the earmuffs off and hearingPattison blend it with a clean violin send was a weird, butdiscernible, sound. That emphasizes how, musically, this isa highly textured performance—there is a lot of detail inthere that could arguably be dispensed with for a live show,but as both Pattison and Dunphy confirm, “He [Hozier] hasa 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 ampand a hand-wired Vox AC30. Both amps are on all thetime, not one or the other, and the blend is his sound. TheBassman has a cleaner sound for definition and the AC30breaks up much sooner and has a warmer, more driventone. The OX boxes allow us to attenuate the sound, sono audio actually comes out of the speaker cabinet. TheOX box acts as a reactive load to the amp; we can drivethe amps flat-out and use pre- and power valves in theamp to get the tone and feel when Andrew plays withoutkilling valves and output transformers.”

He continues, “The OX box offers a stereo output fromthe unit and allows you to use a selection of modeled mics,mic positions, and speaker cabinet options, too. We choseto use the models of the actual cabinets we are using, but

you don’t need to—you could have your Vox sound like it’sattached to a Marshall 4x12 if you really wanted. We lis-tened to several modeled mic options and chose to use aP

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An upstage video wall, consisting of ROE VIsual Vanish V8 pan-els, delivers the projected visuals.


421 and a Royer with a little room ambience. So, there areno real mics in use on the guitars, just models and impulseresponses from the OX boxes. The ‘mics’ are panned hardleft and right on the OX box output, so we have the optionof either or both mics on both amps, then creating a blendof the two amps and four mics depending on the song andtone we want. For Emily’s guitar we use a Radial RedboxDI with speaker emulation and a separate attenuator tomake the speaker quiet. We also use a Radial Redbox DIwith speaker emulation on her violin FX line to smooth offthe overdriven, distorted violin tones; otherwise, the distor-tion pedals would sound too harsh and fizzy. This solutiongives a more rounded, amp-like tone. We used to havebackline cabs rigged out in the corridor backstage to giveus that same level of control onstage, but this is far morecivilized.”

Besides Hozier’s KSM9 mic, a Shure Green Bullet har-monica mic is also used for a distorted vocal. “It dependson the set list as to which songs it’s used for,” saysPattison. “If he plays ‘Wasteland, Baby!’ it just gives hisvocal a gritty edge, which I then put through two separateLeslie speaker FX—one slow, one fast—for a pulsatingstereo tremolo effect similar to the recording. If he plays‘Talk,’ that has a repeating ‘Hey ya’ phrase in the versesthat is heavily overdriven. It’s the same setting on the[Digitech] RP360; he just lays into it much more. Routedthrough his own RP360, the pedal is emulating a smallFender combo on the edge of breakup and the bullet micadds a bit of grit to the front end. The louder you sing, themore it overdrives and compresses. Occasionally, he’ll playa harmonica into it which is what it’s designed for, butmostly it’s a vocal effect.”

He continues, “Andrew hears in his head what is on thealbum, and that’s the level of detail he wants everyone to

hear. I’d ask him, ‘What did you do there to achieve a cer-tain sound on the recording?’ And he would tell me. It’sgreat to work with an artist who really understands soundand, though it again leaves you no hiding place, he is alsorealistic and understands the occasional shortcomings ofroom acoustics. Alex Ryan, the bass player, is also MD—he is classically trained and knows how to score the livearrangements. He and Andrew are a powerful combination.Alex plays custom Skjold five-string bass and also has asmall synth in front of him for certain parts. The fact I usedto be a session player has been really useful for thisshow—we start from a common language; the musicalnotation all makes sense to me.”

Which brings us to out front. “I have an Allen & HeathdLive S7000, my desk of choice and a board I like for sev-eral reasons. I don’t need to add plug-ins or any externaleffects, I use about 10 FX sends, basic stuff like differentreverbs for the acoustic guitars, or on the voices so I canget them to sit in different places. I find the workflow ofthe desk amazing, clean and clear—it’s easy to find any-thing you want.”

Pattison exceeded my expectations in terms of the liverendering 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 therecording—aided, of course, by some excellent musician-ship that brought the song new life without losing sight ofthe original tension of the record. If nothing else, you couldsense the passion of Hozier’s performance.

MonitorsDarren Dunphy on monitors is the veteran of the crew. Hehas also had the undoubted pleasure of having mixedmonitors for The Cranberries and Sinéad O’Connor, two of

Darren Dunphy, monitor engineer.

Stephen Pattison, front-of-house engineer.

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the most distinctive female voices ever to emerge fromIreland, but he finds Hozier exceptional. “Whatever thestyle of song—American folk, Chicago blues, soul—hisvoice lends itself to them all,” Dunphy says. Does havingsuch an exacting musician make for added pressure? “I’vebeen with Andrew for six-and-a-half years now, right fromthe first gig, and I have to say I really like the one-to-onecontact of mixing monitors. You are in direct touch withthe musicians and you get the immediate satisfaction ofknowing you’re doing it right, because they’re the onlypeople you have to please. He’s especially nice as whenhe credits the band at the end of the show; he also creditsevery crew member by name, even merchandise andcaterers. He’s a lovely man.”

Dunphy has a shiny new Yamaha Rivage PM7 at theside of stage “with the Rupert Neve pre-amps,” heexplains. “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. Whenyou’ve eight vocalists, sometimes all at the same time,your panning becomes crucial. With this board, I find itreally easy to place each of them in the mix very clearly.Adlib bought this one for me; in the US we use Nashville’sSpectrum Sound as our supplier, and they have given methe 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 22in 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 wego to the US after these shows, we’ll be using Spectrum’sd&b GSL system. With no back projection off the system,I’ll be putting side fills on stage just to give the band thatsame sort of back-feed. Overall, my job is made easierbecause these are all session musicians—they all playtogether as a band. When you’re going from a shed showone day to a theatre the next, they know how the changein room acoustics can affect your IEMs.”

ConclusionCards 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 stylesand numerous other sources—rock even (surely a recentaddition to his musical evolution)—strips them back totheir essential ingredients and somehow finds ways torepresent them as new, fresh, and irresistible. At thePalladium, almost 3,000 people were visibly moved foralmost two hours.

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CONCERTS Copyright Lighting Sound America · “When Hozier released the first album, Matty Kilmurry was the LD. A family man, he asked me to cover a couple of shows for him here