Jones played his acclaimed Only The Names Have Been Changed album in its entirety, and wrapped the set up with a small selection of acoustically re-worked Stereophonics classics. He was accompanied by his guitar, his voice and ample charisma, and backed for some of the set by a string trio and keyboardist Tony Kirkham.
Adlib came onboard through tour manager Neil MacDonald. Adlib project manager Phil Kielty says, "It's been great working with an artist of Kelly Jones' calibre. The show looked and sounded stunning, featured some great teamwork (both crew and production-wise) and the whole vibe was excellent."
Lighting was designed by Paul Moss who was highly recommended by Nick Jevons from Electric Fly Productions. His brief was to make it dark, moody and shadowy with no direct illumination of Jones' face - and no beam movement during songs. Using only 12 moving lights - eight High End Studio Beam wash fixtures and four Martin Professional MAC 550 profiles - all floor-based, plus three panels of starcloth at the back, he produced a tasteful, discreet and highly dramatic show. The eight wash fixtures were arranged in a circular configuration around the performance area, with the MAC 550s slightly raised, and placed in a line along the upstage edge. He operated the show using one of Adlib's Hog iPC consoles.
Adlib supplied a Nexo Alpha speaker system consisting of four M3 tops, four B1 bass units and 2 ST subs a side, complete with Camco Vortex amps powering the mids and tops, and Crown VZ500s driving bass and subs. At front-of-house was engineer Dave Roden who has mixed the Stereophonics for the last 11 years. Consoles and monitors (mixed by Dave Retson) for the tour were supplied by Capital Sound, and the band carried their own mics.
(Jim Evans)
