It’s 20 years since The Killers blasted onto the music scene with their iconic ARIA #1 debut album Hot Fuss. In celebration, the band headed to Australia in December with two different concerts. The Rebel Diamonds shows featured back-to-back chart-toppers across the band’s extensive career. A dedicated performance of the Hot Fuss album was performed for Sydney and Melbourne Hot Fuss shows, and a few extra surprises were thrown in.
Lighting designer Steven Douglas also celebrated being with the band for 20 years.
By the time the tour reached Australia, various iterations of the show had been staged since it began in June as the Rebel Diamonds tour. This included a Vegas residency with a completely different set and design.
“It’s the first time we’ve toured anywhere doing two completely different shows,” commented Steven. “We usually have a different set list every night anyway, but this is the first time it’s been two completely different structures to the shows with different intros, different everything.”
Consequently, the lighting rig was designed to cater to both shows, as the time constraints of trying to do an overnight changeover weren’t going to happen. Steven describes the rig as a composite of what they were doing in Vegas and the Rebel Diamonds tour in the UK and Ireland.
When asked how he keeps his designs fresh after working so long with a band, Steven says that the albums are always quite different thematically, which makes it easy enough to change.
“We collaborate with a lot of other people as well, video content creators and set designers, and having new people around me helps freshen things up,” he added. “Plus, there are always new fixtures, hanging positions, and angles to explore. Doing essentially two very different shows in one year, one being a general greatest hits of everything and then one being the first album, it was good to be able to reference some things we did throughout the years. We refreshed some old ideas and put a new approach to them, which tied everything up nicely. Then you know, next cycle, it’ll be a whole new, fresh approach again.”
The show design is a slightly scaled version of the UK/Ire Rebel Diamonds show, and naturally, the diamond shape is included in the form of four diamond-shaped lighting pods. In the UK/Ireland, they also had a diamond-shaped stage.
“It was nice to bring down some of the elements,” commented Steven. “We bought down The Killers and Rebel Diamond signs and the two big diamonds beside the IMAG. We had the wraparound tab track for the intro to the show sourced and custom-made in Australia.”
The four diamond-shaped lighting pods housed 112 x Martin MAC Ones. Steven said they were chosen after much research for their small size and punchiness.
“When I saw the launch of the MAC One, it sparked something because it’s small but bright and doesn’t need much space on either side,” he said. “We could fit in exactly the number we needed to replicate the marquee header on the album artwork. They’re very effective.”
Vegas is a neon and tungsten world. The MAC Ones are a nod to tungsten, and around the pods is a border comprised of one-metre Martin Sceptrons, supplying the neon reference.
“Vegas is at the core of who the band are as a unit and their history, so we always try and give little nods to it whenever we can,” remarked Steven.
54 x Elation Proteus Maximus were the main spot fixtures on this run, with fourteen on the rear truss, eight on the mid truss and six above each iMag screen. Twelve more are on the floor upstage, interspersed with JDC1s. In the UK/Ireland, Steven used Ayrton Khamsin and Martin MAC Ultras in the US, with Steven added his choice was made purely because of the availability of the number of fixtures he needed. However, he was impressed by the Proteus Maximus.
A tight row of 32 x Robe MegaPointes is also on the upstage floor behind the Proteus Maximus. Eight more MegaPoints are located beneath the iMag screens per side.
On the front truss for the keylight are six Robe BMFL Blades with five long-throw BMFLs on a front-of-house truss operated from a ground control system. A couple of Robert Juliat Lancelot followspots are used as backup and for extra fill-in.
Six Martin MAC Ultras were also on the front truss for the non-ground control key light.
The video wall is deceptively large, measuring 22 metres wide, and it gives off a lot of ambient light, so Steven required fixtures that would compete with that. A bright, powerful, full-colour blinder was needed, and hence, the Show PRO Colliders, which Steven said did the job. Fourteen were hung on the mid truss, twelve on the front truss, and five on either side of the stage above the iMag screen.
Fourteen Martin MAC PXL are on the mid truss in pairs of two, and six are on the front truss for added front wash. On the rear truss are 13 x GLP JDC1s, with three flown either side on the ladders. Eleven more are located upstage on the floor.
Astera Titan tubes uplight the drum kit. At the show’s start, Show PRO Fusion Bars downlight the drapes that reveal the band.
Control is via an MA Lighting grandMA3 running in 2 mode. The Rebel Diamonds show in Australia was built from the initial programming time in the UK/Ireland, which migrated through an amphitheatre run in the US and stadiums in Mexico. The Hot Fuss shows more closely resemble the Vegas residency from August.
Lighting gear was provided by Chameleon Touring Systems, with whom Douglas has had a long working relationship over the last 20 years of coming to Australia.
“It was an easy transition into building the show as Lewis Gersbach also toured the show with us in the UK and Ireland in June,” said Steven. “He understood the things we were trying to emulate with the changes we made to the rig to make it fit the available gear, and also, some of the crew have worked multiple tours with me over the years, which made it very easy.”
Photos: Chris Phelps
