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| Q. How and why has
Beyond the Darkside gone so far in creating such a show with such attention to
detail which must have cost so much time and money?
A. It all began
when front man Kevin Hunt was young … about 13 years old. Says Kevin - "I frequently
used to go to a friends house to play as you do at that age, and it was there
through constant repetition of his friend playing his favorite albums that I was
first introduced to the album "Wish You Were Here".
The album Wish You
Were Here grew on me really quickly as I have always been more into the musical
side of things rather than just lyrics, and Pink Floyd really do place a lot of
emphasis on the music between its verses and choruses. It wasn't long before I
purchased the album myself with my pocket monies and earnings from doing a milk
round. I played the album constantly at home and found my father too really enjoyed
the music, it was something he related to himself as he had heard the music many
times in programs he watched from the news to documentaries but never knew who
actually played the music. Before long I started to buy all the other albums such
as Dark Side of the Moon, Meddle and later as they were released Animals, The
Wall up to the Division Bell - I bought them all. I actually remember wearing
out Dark Side of the Moon and had to replace it a few times as it was constantly
played over and over again. Even when I went to sleep I would place the album
on my record player and lift the record select arm so it would play all night.
I went to see the band play whenever I had the chance, and when they
played at Earl's Court and did the original The Wall concert I was totally sold
- and I realized that was the way I wanted to play shows as a musician. Their
show was not like any other concert I had ever experienced as it was so theatrical,
and the Quadraphonic sound and the visual production was mind-blowing for its
time. Since that concert I have always strived to create some sort of show around
what ever act I was in, buying production and building props and putting on the
best production I possibly could. I never actually dreamed then that I would be
doing an actual Pink Floyd show myself later in life, particularly with the size
production we now do, but I guess that is what becomes of having such a passion
for Pink Floyd music, and looking at the creative geniuses they were with their
foresight in using the most innovative technology available, and for staging such
phenomenal stage shows like they always have.
After many years myself
playing around Europe in original acts, supporting many big acts and even gaining
experience playing bass guitar for such people as Robert Plant (formerly of Led
Zeppelin) I finally ended up marrying an Australian girl and moved to this wonderful
country. We even used Pink Floyd music at our wedding - playing the album Wish
You Were Here while we said our vows.
When I came here I found myself
at a bit of a loss at first as the music culture here in Brisbane was so different
to what I was used to - there was not much choice back in the early eighties in
Brisbane for original acts and I found myself playing covers. It was not really
what I liked doing at all, playing such a diverse range of music - it was not
really working for me and I started to think about other musical options that
would enable me to make some kind of living.
After playing covers for
4 years - it was around the time (1989) that acts started to spring up such as
Bjorn Again, The Australian Doors show etc and from that point in time I started
to wonder what I could do along those lines. It took a lot of thought over at
least 6 months before I finally decided I would do a Pink Floyd show and shortly
after that decision MTV announced that they (Pink Floyd) were about to tour and
MTV was to show their new production "A Delicate Sound of Thunder" on TV. Again
they totally blew me away. I just sat there watching it in awe and started to
wonder how the hell I was going to copy this act.
It seemed at the time
it was going to be an impossible act to reproduce as it was not just a case of
just putting on costumes and dressing up like them, as that is not their style
- the band themselves have always been very low-key, not the rock star types -
instead, they always performed mind blowing theatrical productions to let their
music speak for them. It was after many months of looking around at production
companies I finally came across a local company in Brisbane called Acoustic Technologies
and formed a relationship with the owner Harry Lloyd-Williams. From the very beginning
he listened to my ideas and decided he would help me set up my first show called
Floyd the Concept. Acoustic Technologies supplied me with a brand new 20'000 watt
quadraphonic sound system, and a light show that at that time consisted of 18
digital fixtures, a circular screen and the equipment to produce the videos that
were needed for the visual backdrop. It was, for its time, the largest show of
its kind to be presented in the RSL and clubs, and soon gained momentum through
word of mouth. I decided back in 1992 I had to buy our own system and since then
it is has become something of an obsession with me. It has now grown to such a
size it can now only be | | |
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presented in its entirety in major City theatre's /
Entertainment Centres and has played venues such as Sydney's Opera House concert hall, Melbourne's Crown Casino's
Palms room, Adelaide's Festival Theatre, Perth's Burswood theatre and Brisbane Lyric Theatre just to name a few.
There are quite a lot of Pink Floyd tribute shows
in the world, and I have already strived to make this show totally unique to all
the rest. Pink Floyd means different things to different people - some fans prefer
the music to be presented in a very simple manner without the benefit of modern
technology - but Pink Floyd themselves have always been innovators in technology,
so that is the way I decided I would go. Floyd were one of the first bands to
really use synthesisers - and used them quite extensively to add a new dimension
to their music. In fact many of their sounds couldn't really be reproduced without
the benefit of synths, so we incorporate that aspect of their music into our shows
as well - because that is how Floyd have developed over the years - using as much
technology as they can to produce something really special and unique. We try
to make our show look and sound as authentic as possible - but we aren't trying
to recreate the 60's-style Pink Floyd. We want Beyond the Darkside to look and
sound as much like Pink Floyd looked and sounded the last time they toured - which
was very different to how they looked and sounded in the sixties, and often their
live renditions of songs is much more complex than the original recordings.
This show is custom built and wholly owned by Beyond the Darkside to deliver what
we truly understand is a Pink Floyd Experience everywhere it performs. Many other
bands are claiming to give a true Pink Floyd experience but fail to deliver what
really is a Pink Floyd experience as much of what makes the band a totally different
to every other band has been overlooked.
Q. So what does Kevin (Beyond
the Darkside) regard as a Pink Floyd Experience?
A. The fact is
that since the early seventies the band have always taken to technology using
synthesizers and studio effects in their music and most people have grasped that
that is how the music was produced but what most people / bands have failed to
see is that the band also have spent a lot of its time and money on developing
both it's sound and visuals to match the conceptual aspects of their music. Since
the release of Dark Side of the Moon the band has worked extremely hard on developing
what we all take for granted in today's high tech audio presentations - Surround
Sound. The album Dark Side of the Moon was recorded back in 1972 in Quadraphonic
(in today's terms that would be 4.1 surround sound) - it was totally innovative
and unheard of for its time and every show Pink Floyd have played since that album
has always been presented live in a surround sound mode. Apart from seeing Pink
Floyd and Roger Waters no one else is doing surround sound live - which is why
Beyond the Darkside uses Surround Sound.
It is entirely different to
sit in a live venue and have that huge HI-Fi sound you are accustomed to hearing
when you sit back in your arm chair with your headphones on, actually happening
around you in 5.1 surround sound live at a concert. You can hear such things as
the wind effects and helicopter sounds etc move around the venue - the explosions
actually make you feel you are in the thick of it, my guitar sound in songs such
as Sorrow actually rotate around you, and the effect is very dynamic. What Pink
Floyd do is really a totally different experience musically and visually to any
other band? That is why Rolling Stone magazine gave Pink Floyd the title of 'the
greatest rock and roll act in the world' - out staging all other acts including
the Rolling Stones.
Lighting, lasers and visuals also feature very heavily
in Pink Floyd as again; they were one of the first bands to ever use a light show
and projection as a visual interpretation of their music. They used to call the
circular screen they project the visuals onto their "eye to the 3rd dimension",
the circular screen they actually nicknamed "Mr Screen", and it has always been
a very important aspect of their show. They also heavily invested in the world's
top moving lighting company Varilite who were the innovators of all the moving
lights used by most major acts in arenas today. You can see very clearly if watch
any Pink Floyd video footage of their concerts, that they only use the very latest
lighting production, and they use it in vast quantity that is unrivaled by any
other acts.
Their whole concept on lighting from the Delicate Sound of
Thunder tour has been to use only the latest technology in lighting (being digital
lighting) leaving the old incandescent lighting (Par Cans) that most bands use
far behind. This is a concept we also have adopted - we only use digital lighting
fixtures in huge numbers - currently 150 digital fixtures, and also a 10-watt
copper vapor laser.
I understand that when Pink Floyd toured in 1994
for 2 years, most of the Varilite fixtures around the world were being used by
them, which caused the Rolling Stones to have to sit and wait for their tour to
finish before they could go ahead and do the Voodoo Lounge tour which was also
built and run by the same people Pink Floyd use.
Q. What other things
in your production do you use that are different to any other Pink Floyd shows?
A. We have spent a great deal of money - a ridiculous amount actually
- and many hours designing and building our light show. Props such as the "Hey
Teacher" array on the floor at the front of our stage had to be designed and built
(by ourselves) especially to suit our own stage size, and to purchase it outright,
ready-made, was totally prohibitive. We also designed our own opening mirror ball
effect to reproduce Floyd's original concept for Comfortably Numb, again, the
cost of buying it elsewhere was completely out of our league. You must remember
that we are entirely self-funded - we have no financial backing from anyone -
so we have had to be very innovative and creative ourselves, to reproduce the
Floyd concepts we use in the show. All the of effects have basically been designed,
developed and built by myself, our Lighting Director Athol Sargood who after joining the show moved us to a new level with his lighting skills, and another
key partner and Bass player, Michael Kitching. The laser was specially imported from Europe, but
we had to design the build the laser effects we use in our show. We have purchased
two inflatable "Pulse" pigs from the UK that belong solely to our show, and I
don't know of any other Floyd show that uses them (apart from the real thing of
course!). They alone cost in the vicinity of $38'000 dollars, but they are a very
special effect, unique to Floyd in their concept, and we felt it was essential
that we have them to create that authentic "Floyd" look and feel for the show.
The show itself has enormous logistics to deal with - we currently use
2 x 40 foot high-cube shipping containers filled to the brim with equipment. Moving
40 tons of equipment around Australia from city to city obviously involves huge
costs, and the venues we present the show in also have many associated costs.
The show takes 2 days (usually the day before and show day) to set up,
all-up usually involving 19 people just behind the scenes as well as the 9 artists
on stage.
When we played Europe we presented the show in the same way
as the Cirque de Soleil show using a 6 mast tent that seated 2,500 people. We
had 11 semi trailers, 100 people, consisting of band, crewing staff, tent staff,
security, management, catering etc. It was a very huge undertaking playing 4 nights
in 33 cities selling around 7500 tickets in every city. Being part of such a big logistical event was a huge experience
for us.
Q. What do you see as being different with the Beyond the
Darkside show to other tribute shows?
A. We regard Beyond the Darkside
as a theatrical production rather than just "a tribute band". It is a very personal
project to us as we have spent well over 17 years of our lives and millions of
dollars developing this show to what it is today. We have studied the all aspects
of Pink Floyd from the band themselves to the people behind the scenes copying
every detail we can and spending every last cent we have ever earned to perfect
this show to what it now is. I have had some artists with the show since its conception
but like most shows we use only top professional musicians and have a pool of
people to choose from as it depends on their availability. We have had many renowned
top musicians from such bands as Australian Crawl, Leo Sayer, Renée Geyer, Icehouse,
Choir Boys, Noise works, Dragon, Mondo Rock, Tina Arena, Richard Clapton just
to name a few.
Basically I have 8 other artists that play in the show
along with myself being 3 x backing singers, 1 x drummer/backing singer, Keyboard player/singer, second
guitaris/singer, Bass player, sax player and myself on main vocals and guitars. |
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