Tori Amos “American Doll Posse” World Tour

Tori Amos is eclectic to say the least. Presenting a mix of alter-ego personalities - Santa, Clyde, Isabel, Pip and Tori herself – on her current “American Doll Posse” World Tour, the American pianist and singer-songwriter requires a lighting rig equally as diverse.´

Lighting design for the tour, which is wrapping up a European leg before heading to Australia in September and then North America, is handled by Dave Farmer and Dan Hardiman of THC Design.

With a playlist well over 90 songs, Dave, who handles lighting and set design as well as lighting operation for each show, needed to be well-prepared. “Tori has a huge back catalogue so it was essential to have Dan and myself programming on [lighting design software] in order to get the bulk of the tunes programmed before we started rehearsals.”

That’s a big playlist!
Dave says the design brief was fairly simple, with Tori requiring strong key lighting. One of the four characters opens the show each night and after a costume change Tori does the second half of the show as herself. Dave and Dan therefore created four different openings based around the style of each character.

“The decision on which character opens the show is taken late in the afternoon so we had to make sure the changes required for each opening could be made swiftly,” Dave says. “I toured with Tori two years ago when she was doing solo shows and discovered very quickly that she changes the show every night and can/will do a different version of each tune depending on the room, audience and her own mood. This led me to compile a list of working tunes I knew she would play during the tour. When the list went past the 90 tunes to program mark - bearing in mind the new album has 23 tunes - we sat down to have a long think about fixtures and gobo choices.”

MAC fits the bill
That brainstorm resulted in Dave choosing 20 MAC 2000 Performances (10 upstage truss, 7 floor and 3 downstage truss) along with 4 MAC 2000 Washes and other automateds for the downstage truss. All Martin lighting was supplied for the tour by PRG.

“We were looking for a fixture that could project on to the set, key light the band and create action in the audience. We also needed color mixing to give us as many looks as possible and of course smooth transitions between looks. The MAC 2000 Performance seemed to fit the bill. I was initially concerned about only having five gobos to select from, but being from a projection background we could see the possibilities available to us using the animation wheel. It is very important to select your gobos and animation wheels in order to maximize the looks available to you. Oh, and of course we had to make all the lighting and soft goods fit into 32ft of truck space too!

“I am a big fan of the MAC 2000 washlight so they go on every job I do. I like the hot center to the beam and find four wash lamps can easily cover the performance area. I also like the collimated beam available when using the zoom function - great for extra impact when you need it. The Performances were an ideal antidote for programming the 80 core tunes we needed. They are also a high output lamp which is useful for the variety of theatres and arenas we are playing.”

Reliability crucial
For the US leg Dave will be adding another 10 Performances and more LED to make the stage presence bigger for the larger venues. Dave says that fortunately they have had very few problems with the lights. “Reliability of units is crucial on this show. I have just over 100 tunes programmed in the desk and a new set list every night. Not having time to run through all the tunes and check they are correct it’s essential that all programming is based off palettes and the lights respond to desk commands accurately. The show has a lot of big projection looks so any units developing a fault would be very obvious to the audience.”

Lighting Designer: THC Design - Dave Farmer, Dan Hardiman
Lighting Supplier: PRG
Account Handler: Robin Wain - PRG
Lighting Crew: Colin Green and Will Keating

Lighting Equipment (Europe):
20 x Martin MAC 2000 Performance
4 x Martin MAC 2000 Wash