For the first time since 2001, legendary pop pioneers Sparks bought their singularly spectacular live show to Australia. Ron and Russell Mael have had many incarnations over their incredible 26 albums, from art rock, glam, electro-disco and new wave to synthpop, influencing generations of artists from Duran Duran and Depeche Mode to Bjork, Beck and beyond.
To coincide with the release of their recent album, The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte, Sparks embarked on a world tour, with shows at Royal Albert Hall, Primavera Sound, Hollywood Bowl and Glastonbury, where Cate Blanchett danced on stage, reprising her role in the duo’s iconic The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte video.
Their Australian tour saw them make their debut at the Sydney Opera House with lighting designed by Matthew Kemp of Quantum Creative.
“This tour started in May going through Europe, into America and then we’ve done some Asian shows in Japan and now we’re finishing up over here in Australia,” explained Matthew. “This is the 26th album for Sparks spanning 50 years so they have had a lot of show experience before and we’ve tried to give them something completely different. It’s very much a show design from our point of view. Sparks are very clear about their identity and do not follow the norms. If everyone’s going right, they’ll happily go left.”
Matthew translated this into the show design with a concept primarily featuring ‘pods’ upstage. These pods are racks of eight Martin VDO Sceptron tubes that are two high. Inside all those cells, Matthew has got eight pixels, so he has an eight by eight grid resulting in a small 8-bit matrix.
“That was the starting point for the design as these guys pioneered synths and all that art-pop sound,” added Matthew. “I’ve tried to bring that 8-bit sound through into the lighting by creating those 8×8 grids which give those matrixes. I use them independently, as whole tubes, as whole pods, and as small display surfaces. However, the show is not driven by video in any way.
“Some people have seen the show and said ‘Oh, you could have done that with a video wall’. But that’s not the point of this, this is not a video product. This is us taking a neon tube and trying to do something new with it. We go through a lot of different notions musically and the tubes help us to stay visually fresh for an hour and 45 minutes.”
There’s one song that features some bit mapping towards the end of the set but that is the only time the tubes are not driven directly by DMX effects. They go from being used as individual frames to big swathes of colour. As a very low-res matrix sometimes the tubes are also used to write text.
For the rest of the tour, Matthew used Astera Titan Tubes but comments that the Martin Sceptrons have been perfectly fine and cloned easily.
“We’ve had to change some colours and make them work for what we need,” he said. “But they’ve stood up well, the adaptation’s been great. In fact they disappear into darkness when they’re not on slightly better than Titan Tubes do because of the different front on them.”
In the rig, Ayrton Eurus replaced the Perseos used elsewhere with Matthew remarking that was two and a half minute job to fix those! Similarly, Martin MAC Aura XIPs replaced MAC Auras.
“Again, same back engine so totally a wonderful swap for us,” he said. “Actually, they’re a bit brighter so that’s always nice to have a bit more headroom if we need it, especially as the Eurus are brighter. I also have GLP X4 Bar20s and that is our rig. Outside of the complexities of the pods, it’s a fit-for-purpose rig. It does what I want it to do and it gives me everything I need without it being over the top.”
The six MAC Aura XIPs are on floor stands and used as pairs from the side. The two very upstage, one on each side, are very much for the band isolated on risers. Ron has his keys position so he’s got a pair for him. The downstage pair is for Russell the dynamic, enigmatic frontman running all over the place.
“One of the briefs from management was they want to see Ron and Russell like they need to pop,” stated Matthew.
For control, Matthew used an MA Lighting grandMA3 light running in MA2 mode explaining that he decided to run MA2 to make it easy to take it around the world.
“I know it so well as all my shows the last nine years have been on MA2 so it was a no-brainer,” he added. “It’s my platform of choice and I can get the most out of it without too much trouble. It’s a fully time-coded show with a Luminex backbone from here to stage and a Martin P3 system controller.”
Matthew says that the Sydney Opera House has provided a couple of challenges in terms of the schedule of the day.
“It wasn’t the friendliest, but it’s been fine and they’ve been wonderful getting us in,” he remarked. “Our normal schedule is 10 am load in and I think we had access to this place at 4 pm! But credit to MPH Australia for delivering the package for us. They’ve done a great job of making it super friendly.”
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