The Special Night That Lit Up Ally Pally

The Alexandra Palace building dates back to 1873 and today boasts the largest standing capacity of any London music venue. In November 2010, it was re-branded as The People’s Palace, after receiving a major overhaul in all departments, which has seen the venue, under the guide of Managing Director, Rebecca Kane, stamp itself back on the touring circuit, playing host to the likes of LCD Soundsystem, Vampire Weekend, and Portishead.
    Hordes of dedicated Specials’ fans had already settled in the main bar when I arrived during soundcheck to talk to Set and Lighting Designer, Mark Jones-Roberts, who also runs his own production company, Light and Visual.
    Jones-Roberts was brought in fairly late on by the band’s manager, who asked him to do a complete re-design, as the previous LD had other commitments. From inception, it took him just two weeks to package.
    “We started with a festival in Belfast, and then played two festivals in Spain before touring Europe, which was mainly playing 2,500 capacity venues, so Ally Pally’s quite a step up,” he explained. “The band’s initial remit was: no movement, no colour, no gobos, and white light all the time - so that wasn’t easy! However, I did a bit of pre-programming and added a bit of colour to the odd song, and the management were over the moon; fortunately, the band then gave me a free reiin.”
    Jones-Roberts operated the show from a High End Systems Whole Hog iPC running as Hog III, with a Super Wyg for additional lines. He ran six outputs from one universe for the generic lighting - two of them were for the matrix at the back; and then another separate universe for the centre catalyst, as he needed to send media from the catalyst to the matrix, and also fire the video for the opening and the end of the show. Previously an Avolites user, he has gradually become more accustomed to the Hog’s user-friendly interface.
    “What I really like about the Hog is the cue stacks, and the fact that I am able to fire multi-cues in one hit,” he said.
    Prism Lighting provided all of the fixtures including rigging and motors for a mid truss, back truss, and matrix truss upstage of the back truss. There were 10 Martin Professional MAC 700 spots and 14 Martin MAC 700 washes; six Martin 250 beams, 11 five-way Chroma Q DB4’s; 40 Showtec Matrix (five by five) crowd blinders hung in 10 by four columns; six Strand Patt 2000 fresnels; 12 Strand SL Zooms; two Df50 haze; and two London fans. 
    Jones-Roberts is a big Martin fan, and has been impressed with both the versatility and reliability of the MAC fixtures throughout the tour.
    “I have not had one failure when using the MAC 700’s - they’re such great lamps; and I use the MAC washes for the tight beams too,” Jones-Roberts revealed. “I really like the MAC’s fluffiness – it’s a bit like an old fresnel, really; like the 2000 fresnels that we’re using on the show. I do have some [Martin] 250 beams, which are nice straight beams, but I really do like that fluffiness on the edge of the beam; and you can’t beat those MAC lamps when it comes to that.
    “We’re also using some old 2000W strands to generate a nice powerful amber lighting; and the band have now worked out where the light is going to be during the show, so they can go into it and out of it when they want to as opposed to being lit the whole time.”
    Jones-Roberts said everything came together during the two production days, which took place in Wolverhampton. Mark Walker from Caerus Productions was brought in at this stage to generate some animation for the International Jet Set VT, which is the old flipper board you find at airports, and it showed all the dates we’d done in Europe and the UK,” he said. “For video, I used two Barco FLM HD20k projectors and just a DVI straight out to the back of the catalyst; the huge Specials logo gauze created almost an LCD effect, which looked great.”
    A striking 13m by 8m black gauze backdrop complete with The Specials’ logo was supplied by JC Joels, and was one of the main projection surfaces, along with a white trevira. Behind the gauze was a second white trevira which was uplit by the 10 DB4 batons, and there was also a black trevira tab track reveal set three m upstage for the top of the show, with a further tab track for a white trevira for projection on the rear truss 8m upstage. 
    Jones-Roberts’ lighting crew consisted of Tim Eastham (who also toured on the Spanish festivals and the European leg of the tour) along with Kris Lundberg. The tour rigger was Chris Randle who also joined for the UK tour.
    Tour and project management was handled by the very calm and collected character Mike Darling, who has previously worked on all of the Kaiser Chiefs’ tours. Darling is a previous TPi Award-winner, of course; he fought off fierce competition to scoop the title of Tour Manager of the Year back in 2008. I asked him how difficult it was combining the two management roles, and how working with The Specials might differ to working with the Kaiser Chiefs. These are gentlemen in their sixties, after all. 
    “As a Tour Manager, the band likes to see you around all the time, and as a Project Manager you kind of need to be hidden and doing stuff, so I’m a bit torn - that’s why I employed an assistant, and one I knew well, Joe Clark, before I took on the job,” he explained. “Live, they are outstanding, and full of energy; it was after seeing them play live that I wanted to work with them, to be honest.
    “Because I’m younger than them, they have a bit of fun with you, but that’s just part of the job; and these guys have been around the block - they’ve had a normal life as well as experiencing the limelight, and then they’ve come back again, which is pretty amazing. I also booked them for Ibiza Rocks, which I run, and knowing that there’s a younger generation of fans out there that want to watch them play is a real positive.”
    Darling also pointed out that due to his work with Kaiser Chiefs, in terms of rental companies and crew, he has had the luxury of handpicking his favourites for The Specials’ tour. As a result, lighting was handled by Prism Lighting; sound was handled by Adlib Audio; trucking via Fly by Nite; bussing supplied from Fast Lane; and catering was provided by Popcorn.
    “They’re all amazing people to be around,” he concluded. “And for me to orchestrate that, put it together, and see that everyone’s enjoying it is just fantastic for me. It’s just sad that the tour’s had to come to an end, really.”

TPi

www.thespecials.com
www.alexandrapalace.com