Alice Cooper's Night Of Fear

The eerie evening of entertainment at Ally Pally was singled out by Production Manager Cesare Sabatini as one of the standout events on a whirlwind tour that has seen Alice Cooper and his crew play in the US, Canada, Europe, Asia and Australia.
    “We’ve traveled the world on this tour and 2011 has been such a crazy year. The Halloween show was fantastic and it was a pretty big production, especially because it was filmed in 3D,” explained Sabatini.
    “This meant it was a hectic two days for the crew and I. We even went in a day early on our day off to make sure everything was set up in advance and all the camera positions were worked out.”
    A seasoned professional in live touring, Sabatini began his career working with metal and rock bands such as Warrant and Firehouse in the ‘80s, before joining Cooper’s close-knit team in 2003. In the nine years he has worked with the rock singer, Sabatini has maintained many of the same crew members and suppliers to keep what he refers to as a family vibe on the road.
    “That’s the main thing about Alice, when we do a full blown tour, he likes to keep familiar faces. There were a lot of the same crew guys on this tour such as Monitor Engineer, Paul Bostic, who’s been with us for many years,” said Sabatini.

PREPARING THE NIGHT OF FEAR
Rehearsals for the tour began back in May 2011, when the crew spent a week preparing for the show in Nashville, Tennessee, and a further week at Horseshoe Casino in Southern Indiana. When designing the show, one of the main objectives was for it to fit in a variety of venues.
    “One day we’re playing Sheffield and the next day we’re playing Wembley so an Alice show has to be able to fit in different sized venues. We need to make it look good in a theatre or an arena,” said Sabatini.
    “With Alice, every couple of years we change the production. We do a two-year tour of the same show and then Alice and his Manager, Shep Gordon, come up with concepts for how they want the next show to be produced.
    “For the 2009 Theatre of Death tour, Rob Roth, who had directed Beauty and the Beast for broadway, designed the concepts for the tour and then we hired a Lighting Director. We went a different direction for the latest tour, hiring Production Designer, Seth Jackson. He designed the set and lighting concepts for the show with myself, Shep and our new LD, Andy May. This tour had a few less props and deaths, and featured a different lighting design to Theatre of Death.”
    Visiting so many continents meant suppliers for Cooper’s tours had to be carefully selected. Different companies were chosen for the European leg of the tour, with German firm Go Audio supplying not only audio but lighting equipment and crew too.
    “They are a one-stop shop for Europe and when we do a full on tour where we carry full production I use them because it’s so much easier if it all comes from one company. We used Stagetruck for transport, who we have been with for many years now, with additional services provided by Phoenix Bussing and Transam Trucking.”

THE PERFECT SETTING
“Alice Cooper’s Halloween Night of Fear was a huge success. Alexandra Palace’s Victorian gothic architecture created the perfect theatrical backdrop for the incredible production brought to the venue; it was a mix of horror, thrills and pure adrenaline,” said Alexandra Palace’s Managing Director, Rebecca Kane.
    “The sheer size and scale of the dramatic barrelled roof arching over the spectacular scene below was breathtaking. Watching zombies roaming the food stands and bars, interacting with people who were quite taken aback by the whole thing, made the night for me.” The zombies, were of course interactive actors left to graze upon the crowd as they entered the venue and its stunning setting.
    Kane continued: “The Palace sits on top of a hill amongst 196 acres of land, it’s got the best panoramic views of London and the prominence of Ally Pally as an iconic North London destination makes it extremely special. The venue also has the ability to host 10,400 people standing in one space, in the Great Hall. If you couple this with the musical heritage and sense of history, gig goers feel part of something and productions can maximise the flexibility of the venue.”
    The sound remodelling work from Vanguardia means visiting audio engineers have an established platform to work on.
    Said Kane: “With our expert live event teams, the get-ins, builds and de-rigs run smoother than ever before. We’re keen to continue building strong relationships with promoters, agents and artist management to enhance the great rapport that continues to bring shows to the Palace. AP stands for ‘Anything is Possible’,”said Kane.
    “We will continue to push boundaries and use the versatility of the venue to its absolute maximum.”
    Next year, Alexandra Palace will be part of the Olympic celebrations. Two days before the Olympic Torch makes it into the Olympic Stadium, it will grace the hills of Alexandra Palace with the stadium in view in the horizon.
    For Production Manager Sabatini, the venue offered the ideal setting for Alice Cooper’s spooky event. He said: “Alexandra Palace was a really cool place. I hear that they don’t host a lot of rock gigs, but we chose it because it was so well set up outside as well as inside for a Halloween show and provided the perfect environment to give the production exactly the vibe we needed.
    “It was easy to get to aswell, which was important factor for us because we wanted it to be as convenient as possible for people to commute to.”

THEATRICAL LIGHTING WITH A ROCK EDGE
After spending several years working on projects alongside Production Designer, Seth Jackson, Andy May joined Cooper’s production crew as Lighting Director in May 2011.
    Aside from focusing the audience’s attention on Alice, May’s lighting priority on stage was to get the balance right between properly lighting the set whilst still layering the lighting on various backdrops revealed through the show. “The look we were going for was bigger and longer lighting looks, which made the production more about Alice, but by the end it transforms into a full-blown rock show,” said May.
    “Initial ideas for this tour’s lighting design revolved around Alice being in the middle of a trash covered school yard. The original concept used a chain link fence for the backdrop, but the lights we used ended up looking much better on a mesh screen.”
    A full-size MA Lighting grandMA 1 supplied by US company PCS Audio was used for lighting control. It was selected because of its ability to clone between fixtures in just seconds - a feature May finds particularly useful in the festival environment in which he regularly works.
    Lighting cues were a prominent part of Cooper’s show, from the little guitar licks to a section of the performance where an actor playing the part of a photographer is stabbed with a mic stand.
    Said May: “In a way, it is 90 minutes of cue after cue because it is such a theatrical rock show. At one point you even see a 12ft Frankenstein monster running around the stage, which acts as another cue.”
    All lighting equipment for the ghoulish gig was provided by Go Audio, including a total of 21 Martin Professional MAC 2000 fixtures, which were hung from Tyler GT truss using T bars of 4ft and 6ft in length. “These were used to create the big rock looks and all of the little details that brought the rig to life. I like the Martin MAC 2000 because it’s proven itself time and again, and I’m very comfortable with the quality and color of light it produces,” explained May.
    Five LED Martin Stage Bars were used as uplighting on the backdrop and a further five were placed on the downstage edge. “These LED lights on the floor produce a cold uplight effect, which works great for Alice and the band,” commented the LD.
    Elation Impressions moving green LED fixtures were positioned on the floor, with two downstage left, two downstage right and four upstage back to light the mesh screen. Also incorporated into the lighting design were 120 Par 64 fixtures, which often form the base of old school rock shows. Avolites ART 2000 dimming system completed the lighting set-up.
    Additional lighting equipment and screens for the foyet area were supplied by Neg Earth to create an eerie atmosphere for the fans before they entered the Great Hall.
   
QUICK TURNAROUND FOR BROADCAST
To allow Cooper fans who missed out on getting a ticket to the haunting production to enjoy the show, the performance was broadcast on Sky Arts just two days after the event (on Halloween). The night of fright was also taken to the third dimension by being filmed for Sky 3D using 3ality digital stereo 3D camera rigs provided by outside broadcast company Telegenic. The rigs have been used increasingly for live events since last year, when 3ality was busy outfitting the UK’s first dedicated 3D truck for Sky with up to seven of its stereo 3D rigs.
    Alice Cooper’s Halloween Night of Fear was the first production from newly formed Toucan, a joint venture combining the talents of Touch Productions and specialist 3D production capabilities of Can Communicate. With Duncan Humphreys taking on the role of Lead Producer, the high definition show featured over 20 hits from the 100-minute set such as Welcome To My Nightmare and Poison.
    The production team, led by Cooper’s longtime Manager Gordon and Production Manager Sabatini, worked closely with Can Communicate and 3D Director, Marcus Viner, to ensure suitable 3D camera positions were achieved. Viner has directed multi-camera live music coverage for the past 16 years. Prior to that, he worked for five years in a variety of roles within the live music industry including Backline Tech and Production Manager.
    Said Viner: “Alice’s theatrical stage show really suited 3D, his extensive use of props, including a guillotine, swords, blood and a python, being just some of the highlights.”
    The show was captured using five mirror rigs, which included 3ality’s TS5 rigs on a jib and towercam. A further pair of 2D cameras converted to 3D completed the coverage of the performance, with one acting as master close-up and the other as an onstage handheld. “The main challenge was to turn the programme around very quickly for broadcast on Sky soon after the event. The line cut was taken into post straight after the show, a few convergence errors were fixed and then it was sent to Sky for broadcast,” said Viner.
    Live video coverage and image magnification of the show for the benefit of the audience at the venue was carried out using two 20k Barco projectors and a pair of 20ft by 15ft Fastfold screens positioned either side of the stage. Instead of an additional video surface, a selection of backdrops created by Image Technologies and Drops-Everything were positioned at the back of the stage.
    “Alice has never really had video in his tours throughout his whole career. One of these days maybe we will, but we’ve always used backdrops because it’s an old school rock show. At the Halloween show, we added the sidescreens for the audience and for the 3D camera crew to look at,” said Sabatini

CLASSIC HEAVY SOUND
At Cooper’s FOH was James Wood, a Sound Engineer with 21 years of experience. Initially starting out in his local Albuquerque, New Mexico home, in 2002 Wood began touring America with heavy metal band Dokken, Ratt and Warrant.
    Said Wood: “I already knew the tour’s Production Manager, Cesare Sabatini, and several other crew members from earlier tours, so when they made a choice to hire a new FOH sound guy I was considered. I was finishing up a tour with Ratt and was looking for more work.”
    A timely move for Wood meant he joined the Theatre of Death crew mid-tour. On Night of Fear, Wood made himself at home on the already-in-use Yamaha PM5D-RH mixing desk, making use of its onboard processing. “I like the abilities of individual channel control such as input, delay, compression and gates. Input delays for time alignment and imaging are important to me. Having all that outboard gear would be a lot to haul around, plus the storing and recalling of scenes between multiple acts is a very nice thing to have.”
    Wood ran the majority of the sound effects from a sampler at FOH, mixing on the fly, and simultaneously recorded the shows using the Samson Zoom H4n portable recorder to record four live tracks. Mics for the Night Of Fear tour included the Shure Beta 91’s, 56’s and 58’s; KSM 32’s, SM81’s and SM57’s.
    System Tech, Michael Wirth, has worked in live music production for more that 10 years. After Cooper’s 2010 tour, the rental company Go Audio recommended Wirth again for the Night Of Fear tour.
    Using an L-Acoustics PA system, the main hang consisted of 12 V-DOSC and 3dV-DOSC per side, the out hangs consisted of nine Karas per side. For front fills, six Karas were in place and all the components were powered with LA-8 amplifiers.
    A total of 24 Quake MSE-118 subs, a single 18-inch horn loaded subwoofer, were set up in a line in front of the stage. A single Dolby Lake Processor used in Dolby / Mesa configuration controlled the system.
    Wirth said, “I’ve been working for many years with the L-Acoustics products and it was the number one choice for Alice’s production. It offers flexibility even in difficult venues and we could adapt the system to every venue size.
    “Because of easy rigging systems and good pre-calculation using the SoundVision software, we were very fast in building, tuning and rebuilding the system. Also, the LA-Network Manager offers a very good tool to remote the amplifiers, time align the system and tune it with the given filters.”

EXPENSIVE CANDY
“I’ve always had a fascination for gadgets and electronics but at 16, thanks to some good friends, I got to experience standing behind a console during a concert. I was hooked and I started working for my cousin’s band as the roadie,” said Monitor Engineer, Paul Bostic.
    “Fascination turned into a job and the job turned into a career. In the bigger picture over the years, it was the transition from analogue to digital that’s kept me interested in what I do and with the natural evolution of hardware and software finally being applied to the audio industry, the technology horizon has made amazing changes that enhance the experience for the artist and the fan. It’s like being a kid in a candy store except the candy is really expensive!
    “Looking back, I consider myself extremely lucky to have worked with such great artists as Paul Rodgers, Alice Cooper, Foreigner, Twisted Sister and countless other acts. I hope there’s at least a few more years left but, more so, I love making all that technology work.”

    For speakers, Bostic used SB218 side fills and 115XT wedges. “I currently only use one wedge downstage left. The artist prefers ear attenuators and a basic drum mix. The side fills are redundancy in case of an in ear failure.”       

    His mixing desk, a Yamaha PM5D, is a console he considers to be “bullet proof”. Said Bostic, “Logistically, it’s economical, versatile and easy to get if you’re ever in a pinch.”
    For IEMs, Bostic highlighted the importance of having a support network behind the company. “For in-ear equipment, I’ve packaged what I consider the best available gear based on quality, service and support. Shure PSM 900’s and PSM 1000’s, pro audio Helical antenna, WinRadio frequency scanner and Ultimate Ears UE18’s. I choose these products because these companies truly give the best service and support when you need it the most.”
    In total, monitor world dealt with eight stereo and three live mixes whilst also tracking 32 mono and six stereo mixes via Ethernet on Dante interface cards.

A CONSUMMATE PROFESSIONAL
“Of course every artist is different; most have a good and bad side,” concluded Bostic. “But in the many years and bands I’ve worked for, Alice is truly the most unique. When the artist Alice Cooper hits the stage, he’s a consummate professional in every sense but, for those lucky enough to know him on a personal level, he’s much more: funny, charitable, creative and dedicated to his fans and he really takes great care and a personal interest in his crew.”
TPi

http://alicecooper.com/

www.alexandrapalace.com