Tones And I recently toured Australia playing multiple shows in six major cities. Originally slated for last year before the world caught a pandemic, the show presented high production values thanks to the entire crew behind the production including lighting designer Matt Smith, video content director Rachael Johnston and audio engineer Edwood Gresack who ALIA caught up with.
Ed started working for Tones and I in May 2019 having received a call from one of her managers whose band he used to mix. Ed comments that when mixing Tones And I, he focuses on bringing clarity to her vocal, while still making the music feel big.
“For this tour, we added a twenty-piece choir so that made it a bit more difficult to get it all to sit properly,” he added. “Due to social distancing, we couldn’t treat the choir in the standard way with a couple of pairs of stereo condensers. Instead, the choir were all on wireless handhelds with IEMs for monitoring. This impacted in several ways especially open mics onstage had the potential to raise the noise floor. On the positive side, we now had a choir that wasn’t anchored to one position, so they were now a dancing choir, which made for a much more engaging, interactive show.”
The tour utilised in-house PA systems with Ed saying that the Riverstage PA of d&b J-Series on D80 amps with four J-Infra Subs and eight J-Subs was his favourite.
“For this tour, I used an Avid S6L with a Waves Server,” said Ed. “It sounds amazing and with its knob module can operate similar to an analogue desk with channel strips. So unlike most other digital desks, I can work on two channels at the same time.
“I’m a big fan of parallel compression. Tones has a huge dynamic range and parallel compression helps me make sure the soft and loud parts are all equally huge.”
For Tones, he tours a Shure Axient Receiver, KSM9 wireless and a Shure PSM1000 IEM system with everyone onstage on IEMs. Sam Harper mixes monitors on a DiGiCo SD12.
Ed comments that 8th Day supplied the touring package and they did a great job.
VIDEO
Six months before the tour, Rachael Johnston had a meeting with production manager Claire Casement and Toni Watson (Tones And I) to discuss the direction of video content for her upcoming tour. Toni was very clear about the creative direction and impressively talked through her vision for the entire show, from intro to end frame in that first conversation.
It was really important for Rachael to move within the visual broad strokes that Toni had painted, whilst bringing in her own extensive experience of live video show design and operation.
The show starts with an impactful audiovisual piece, including words flashing on the screen from Marianne Williamson, spoken by Coach Carter, which lead into a stormy tornado scene showing glimpses of Toni’s history – her white van and busking signs.
Rachael also brought some video concepts to the table including a commissioned piece of an exaggerated human anime puppet, lip-syncing the words to Dance Monkey and a reflective watery generative visual piece for Toni’s cover of Outkast’s Hey Ya.
Toni added some new songs from her forthcoming album at the very beginning of the tour, and with her brief for new single Won’t Sleep being ‘creepy with multiple eyes!’, Rachael had lots of fun putting together some schlocky horror scene flashes complemented by LD Matt Smith’s weighty red strobes.
Rachael worked very closely with Matt to ensure lighting and video were harmonious in colour and movement which was vital as there was visual content required for almost every song.
History and narrative are important to Toni, and audiences can see this mirrored in visual pieces for songs like Johnny Run Away – a dreamy homage to Australia’s Byron Bay.
“For Toni’s protest song, The Kids Are Coming, we wanted to create a chaotic and powerful moment using real silhouette protest images layered with video strobe, text and vignettes of boots marching,” said Rachael. “I worked with Claire and Matt to create a colourful finale, choreographing visual fireworks with real fireworks, which along with the choir on stage, provided a special ‘Colour Purple’ moment for the end of the show.”
Video Supplier / Screen Tech was Robbie Nelson.
LIGHTING
Lighting designer Matt Smith of Colourblind created a visually stunning show utilising 18 x Ayrton Mistral, 4 2x Martin MAC Aura XB, 48 x Marin Atomic Dots, 18 x GLP JDC-1 and four Ayrton Eurus used in conjunction with zactrack. Control was a couple of MA Lighting grandMA3, one full size and one light.
Matt used lots of colours or as he commented ‘threw the paint at the wall’! There were big bold looks with the 20 piece choir to intimate looks with only Tones on stage.
“The lighting worked in harmony with the video content,” commented Matt. “All ready to be placed on Timecode in the future.”
Production manager Claire Casement added that it was important to border the stage and make the show interactive.
“We needed to find the balance of production elements and staging that worked for a solo artist and also the 20 piece choir,” she added. “The lighting floor package and large upstage screen set the scene and backdrop that the artist required, whilst also keeping the stage design tidy and symmetrical.”
Claire noted that the importance of a big opener and closer of the show was exceptionally significant in keeping the audience on edge and adding that element of surprise Tones And I wanted for her fans.
“We started the show with Tones And I riding out on her tricycle which brought back exciting times in the artist’s history and we closed all outdoor shows with a three-minute fireworks display,” she said.
Suppliers
Audio: 8th Day Sound
Lighting: SWS Melbourne
Video: Mediatec Asia Pacific
Fireworks: Foti Fireworks/Bright Nite Fireworks/Bright Star Fireworks
Photos: Jack Neale, Cat Strom
