Audio engineer James Livingston has mixed Vera Blue’s live shows since May 2017 and he was thrilled to be back behind a console for Vera Blue’s recent show at The Sydney Coliseum Theatre.
This show was arranged by Vera’s Musical Director, Ross James, so James received a lot of instruction from him as he had a pretty clear vision on how he wanted his arrangements to sound, which was great for James as it took out a lot of guesswork and back and forth.
Intro tracks and interludes were composed and recorded by Vera to create an immersive experience for the audience from the moment they entered the room.
“Usually we try to make the live show close to the studio recordings but with more emphasis on a band performance,” said James. “Track stems and drum samples are taken from the record with live drums, keys and guitar reinforcing the sound further.”
James brought in his own FOH control setup including a DiGiCo SD11i and SD Rack on an Opto Loop with the monitor console. Added to that were a Waves Axis One and Server One-C running SuperRack, DiGiGrid MGB for virtual soundcheck and record, and a JoeCo Blackbox for the main record.
“I was then using direct outs of each channel into the venue’s L-ISA processor via the Digico’s MADI port,” added James. “DiGiCo has been my console of choice since I started with Vera. It provides me with the flexibility needed for a hands-on show, especially with its snapshot capabilities, Waves integration and ease of recording/virtual soundcheck.”
James used Waves on this show mainly for effects such as H-Verb, H-Delay, Abby Roads ADT and Abby Roads Plates. These, along with some other tools like PSE and X-FBK to help reduce feedback as there were several open condenser microphones on stage and a limited timeframe to get the show up and running.
“As Vera is the focus of each show I try to pay particular attention to her vocal and rarely take my finger off the main vocal fader,” commented James. “Other than that, it pretty much mixes itself.”
Microphone choice for this show was DPA4099s on the strings, Neumann KMS184s for piano, AKG c451 on Glockenspiel and Sennheiser’s MD5235 capsule on Vera’s vocal.
James used the in-house L-Acoustics L-ISA rig consisting of 50 x Kara across five hangs, 6 x KS28 flown centre hangs, 4 x X8 under-balcony fills and 8 x X8 lip fills.
“The L-ISA was ideal for this show due to the ability to be more creative with the placement of instruments across the PA, instead of being restricted to a conventional LR system,” said James. “It really suited the instrumentation and arrangement of this show and I believe helped the audience engage more in the performance.”
James remarked that the biggest challenge of the gig was using the L-ISA system effectively. This was his first time on an L-ISA rig, other than playing with the controller software at home, and without any prior preproduction on the system, he had a limited amount of time to get it all going. Luckily, the in-house tech, David Manna, was totally across the system and could answer any questions he had and had made a file for the L-ISA controller software to give him a running start.
Jordan Tanner of RTA Touring was mixing monitors on a DiGiCo SD12 with the band entirely on Shure PSM1000 IEMs managed by Shure Wireless Workbench.
“By all accounts, the show was fantastic,” concluded James. “It would be great if we could do more than one show with this band set up and system and get more creative with the spatial side of the show.”
LIGHTING
Lighting designer Nicholas Beachen’s only brief from Vera Blue was “just make it beautiful like you always do”. The outcome of a couple of Zoom meetings was that they just wanted to achieve a great looking show whilst being mindful of budget. Seeing as this was their first real show for at least six months saving any money where possible is important at the moment.
“Fortunately, we had a great venue booked that had everything we needed for lighting,” said Nicholas. “We wanted to have a really beautiful show, whilst keeping the light show as dynamic as possible which the Vera Blue shows would normally be.”
With new music and a new light show, Nicholas spent a solid two weeks programming to time code before the event.
“I guess normally we wouldn’t spend so much time and effort for a one-off performance but this was special,” he added. “This has been my first work since March due to Covid-19 so I also had plenty of time to invest in this project. The music played this way with strings band is amazing and it was definitely the right decision spending so much time syncing the lights to the music for this show.”
Being a one-off show, it was decided to save the cost of building custom video content, and that also meant more focus on the lighting.
“There is something really nice about a show with no video and just lighting,” commented Nicholas. “But it can also be hard to achieve. I’ve had a few shows like this before, so I wasn’t super worried when the decision to not have video was made. In the end, this turned out great and I am really happy with what we achieved for this. A lot of that is due to the venue having such a great light show readily available. We moved fixtures from LX4 and LX5 to the floor as sidelight on the band and floral arrangement, as well as a row of Ayrton Mistral-S upstage. Other than that there was nothing additional added or needed in my opinion so we were off to a flying start with the right console and a good set of moving lights and the right amount of statics to light everything well.”
The set-piece was a large singular floral arrangement supplied by Mr.Cook. It was attached to a fly bar mid-stage so it fell behind Vera main position downstage and in front of the grand piano position upstage.
“How good does it look!” exclaimed Nicholas. “We were super impressed. It was funny when designing this show and then during programming, we had some chats about this and the supplier had mentioned not to use any LED lighting on these for the show. I had immediately voiced my concerns for it being placed in the middle of a dynamic light show. But had also reassured them I thought it would be fine under light. I am pleased I was right about that and they looked wonderful! Wow, sometimes things can go right for us during 2020!”
Nicholas remarked that The Coliseum has a genuinely nice light show available and a pleasant crew inhouse who were very helpful in pulling this show off.
As to his favourite lighting moments of the production, Nicholas says there are a few in this show. However, he notes the third chorus of the first song in the set “Everything Is Wonderful” which is a new song so has not been performed before.
“I used a really nice change in colour effects on some rising notes in the music,” he added. “It’s hard to put into words, but it was so nice. As it was the first huge moment, it took a lot of pressure off once I’d completed that section of the show. I was super happy with how it all turned out in the end.”
Unfortunately due to Covid-19 restrictions, Nicholas could not travel from his home town of Melbourne to execute the show. To be able to do the show he would have had to isolate for two weeks and that was not viable for a range of reasons. Dane Boulton acted as his Lighting Director on the show day.
“It all went off without a hitch, I must acknowledge Dane Boutlon for his involvement for this show on the day!” said Nicholas. “Amazing work, thank you Dane.
“Although it was difficult to get going after so much time off, it felt amazing to be designing and programming lights again … I am ready to keep going forever. Bring it on.”
Crew
FOH Audio Engineer: James Livingston
Monitor Engineer: Jordan Tanner
Lighting Designer & Programmer: Nicholas Beachen
Lighting Director: Dane Boulton
Band
Vera Blue: Artist
Ross James: keys/piano/music
Jake Meadows: harp
Vixen Strings: String Section
Photos: Jess Gleeson @jessgleeson
