An Interview with Jonathan Park
Part 2

Jonathan:

Well, I think that did come from us in conversation. The concept of Radio KAOS became that of a radio station on the road, and it came after Roger's friendship with Jim Ladd, which you know, Jim Ladd had been one of the original DJ's who came on before the second half of The Wall (shows). You know, announcing and sounding dreadful 'Hello ladies and gentlemen, I've got some bad news for you. They left Pink back at the hotel and they sent along a surrogate band to see where you fans really stand.'

He and the girl, Cynthia Fox, did all the adverts that were inserted during Radio KAOS, some of which were highly controversial. Sony couldn't handle some of them because Jim Ladd was really against corporate radio, syndicated radio. He really liked the live radio show which was done by the DJ or the announcer in the area, not beamed in from all over. Now of course, one guy does a show and it's syndicated to 12 hundred stations. He was really against that. And he had this skit about the School of Broadcasting where it was teaching DJ's basically how to be totally anonymous. Eventually and extraordinarily this got pulled from the album and show!

Anyway, we built up this idea. The first drawings I remember me doing were of a radio station in LA with the KAOS symbol. And then somehow that just became enshrined in... You know, you felt, what is it that takes place in a radio broadcast? What is the DJ doing... sitting there at the table with a microphone? I didn't even know at the time in those days what microphones were like on angle poises. I had to get to know about these things.

We were looking for a way of symbolizing precisely what it was like about the DJ... and it would be a sign which said On Air. ...and I think this came from us rather than from Roger. And so we created this separate cubicle, which was like a virtual cubicle of the radio set. And this was our very strong sort of theatrical influence here I guess, of creating this way of having Jim Ladd being there and not being there so he could be part of the performance or not part of the performance. He could just come in and go as was scripted. And of course Roger and he worked really together. I mean they wrote this conversational script, and then Nick Thompson and I wrote the film script for it, out of which came the idea of having this graphic display of what Billy was saying.

I'd had this thing about message boards in my mind for a long time for other reasons. And it just came like one of those blinding flashes... why don't we have a message carrier across... a big one which can have these words scrolling across. You know you've seen them on buildings.

REG:

It was a huge 43 foot message board that was built over the stage riser. Was this also done because Billy's computer synthesized voice might be hard for the audience to understand?

Jonathan:

Yeah, it was difficult to understand, but also it was visually very interesting. And I thought it was like having a rock 'n' roll show with subtitles. And then we had the circular screen above, which was a continuation of the Pink Floyd idea. We went away from the huge projection screen used in Pros and Cons, back to the circular screen.

REG:

Yeah, in these KAOS shows, for the first time since Pink Floyd's The Wall and Dark Side tours, Roger used the infamous round projection screen. I understand both you, Gerald Scarfe, and David Monroe directed the films. What did these films consist of, and what went into their making? What was your role? Who is David Monroe and what parts did he and Mr. Scarfe play in the making and directing of these films.

Jonathan: Well they were actually created... David Monroe was a political film maker journalist who had made a controversial '70s TV series (later a book) called The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, a strong anti-war polemic containing lots of footage of Arms Fairs and the subsequent death & destruction brought about by the those weapons of war (weapons of mass destruction in today's parlance). And Roger had become very involved with TV... Pros and Cons and particularly KAOS and Amused to Death, and also latterly In The Flesh, were about the News as you'd get it through TV, you know the worldwide news and what it's showing and the response to it and the information put out. I mean if you look at the lyrics of Radio KAOS and in Amused to Death in particularly, you'll see extraordinary references forward to what happened that led up to... you know 911 and worldwide terrorism. But this political aspect of Roger which was to do with watching television and how it modified peoples lives by what they saw in it, was part of what came up in KAOS. And the content of this was to a very large degree anti-war and anti-corporate. And that got people involved like David Monroe and also Gerry Scarfe who is very anarchic in a completely different way, a very visual and exciting artist and political cartoonist and actually philosophically very anarchic against the status quo.

And so all of this combined to create these films which portrayed this whole story that dealt with the nuclear war issue. But of course a lot of this had to do with Roger's own life cycle. As indeed all song writers and writers do, they try to avoid the obvious autobiographical influence. The subject is not described as such, and becomes more generalized. And one of the things that of course Roger, like other great creators and writers do, is create the subject so that it is not so specific to themselves in order that it becomes universal. Such as the concepts of The Wall which are universal, and people of all walks of life, of all ages, get resonance's from them.

All in all, Radio KAOS was a pretty ground breaking show, the first really political Rock & Roll show with a story and subtitles way ahead of its time..

REG:

Compared to previous theatrical Waters or Floyd shows, the KAOS show and stage set seemed quite simple. What were the reasons for this. Were there any problems or technological obstacles which had to be overcome?

Jonathan:

After the expense, crew & large venues needed for Pros & Cons, KAOS was conceived as a smaller and adaptable show that could fit into many different types of smaller venues, including the popular Sheds, which Pros & Cons could never play. Adaptability and speed & ease of set-up where the watchword for the design.

REG:

Again after the KAOS tour Fisher/Park went on to create and design sets for many other artists and tours. The tours for the Rolling Stones and U2 for instance incorporated massive stage sets. How did your work with Pink Floyd and Roger Waters prepare you for these huge tours?

Jonathan:

A) understanding the logistics and team required, B) how to minimize the set for trucking while still presenting the large vision necessary for the huge stadium venues &, C) using a story to visualize and create the concept.

REG:

Can you describe these stage sets, and what challenges they presented? What are you most proud of accomplishing during these tours and what did you learn from doing these huge shows?

Jonathan:

Well, they are mostly covered in the book Rock Sets (published in 1992) of Fisher Park's work. Most of the challenges were persuading the managers & promoters that they were affordable and feasible - that was never a problem with the Artists since we were creating the show in direct collaboration with them! I suppose, similar to the previous answer it was combining practical tourability for the crew with the essential & exciting wow factor for the audience. All important - we learned to integrate the special effects (SFX) to enhance the shows and increase the enjoyment for the large audiences, many of whom were distant from the stage. We never just wanted to produce gratuitous SFX just for the sake of it. I think, apart from The Wall, the Stones Steel Wheels & U2's ZOO TV, outside broadcast with their size and narrative context, where ground breaking and changed the perception of Stadium Rock & Roll shows for ever.

I was personally very proud of the staging for the 1988 Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute which combined all the experience we had of putting the Message across, both to the live audience and on TV, with giant specially commissioned backdrops and films on the screens - the camera could not help but transmit the story of the visuals - Oh, and Stevie Wonder played!

REG: In 1990, Fisher/Park designed and created one of the most massive stage sets in all of Rock history, Roger Waters' The Wall, Live in Berlin. Did this come about because Fisher/Park had designed the original Wall set for Pink Floyd in 1980 and 81?

Jonathan:

Yes, but also because we had already talked with Roger about the idea of recreating The Wall on a massive scale somewhere in the world to, say, rival the Great Wall of China! So, when the opportunity of doing the show for the Memorial Fund for Disaster Relief in Berlin came up, it was heaven sent.

REG:

The 82 by 591 foot Wall was Massive. I could see it above much of the skyline in East Berlin from miles away. It seemed that everything for The Wall Live in Berlin show had to be substantially increased in scale, such as the round projection screen and the puppet inflatables. Did you just increase everything in scale? How was the scale of everything calculated?

Jonathan:

No, we increased everything in scale, but we also increased it in intensity, and we also wanted to increase the visual aspect of it. Because when you're doing it in a comparatively small hall, an arena, there's an intensity, but when you're doing it in this huge great open area to a quarter of a million people, you need to give it more visual content. Because people are so far away, they can't see the stage performance and the intricate things that are happening on stage, so you need to create a bigger picture.

So one of the things that we developed, and I'm a big proponent of now, is the attention to these different scales. There's the scale of the show from the person standing in the front row. There's the scale of the show from the person at the mixer desk. And then there's the scale of the show from the person sitting in the back bleachers. And then there's one other scale there's the scale on stage if you're making a video film of it. So there are four scales that are very important to deal with. So you have to present the show in a way that the eye in these four different places can see a show that is meaningful, interesting and enjoyable.

We wanted to up the visual content, which is why we used a lot of big format projections on the front of the wall. And we also upped the level of effects and visuals. And we had to use the front stage to bring on full-sized stretched limo's, motor bikes, trucks, and jeeps. I mean it was a fantastic thing to build. It was like we had a motorway across the front of the stage.

REG: You must have had to build a whole city there? Jonathan: We did yeah. Well we built a whole sound stage there. It was the most dramatic thing to do. It should have been more documented with a documentary of how it was all done. I haven't actually seen the DVD of it. REG: I have it, and though it's much better than watching the VHS video, I was at the concert and it's just impossible to capture an event like that on film and convey what it was actually like.

Jonathan:

Well I haven't looked at it, but listening to the record always makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck, and watching the video similarly. The only thing... I cringe at various points where there are mistakes. Like the... if you talk about communication... when the final encore was being sung, The Tide is Turning, there's a line which says; '...and a billion candles burning.' That's when the pyrotechnics were supposed to take place. But they happened a minute before that because there was a breakdown in communications!

I was not in control of it, I was out front. Tony Hollingsworth had denied me the opportunity of being involved in the cueing of the show. And something had happened in front of the stage, and Wilf Scott had had to go and rescue one of his men, and Mark was dealing with a Swedish operator who was screaming; 'When do I let these fireworks off?' And Wilf was not able to give him his cue because he'd left his station. Which is what you should never do in a show. Whatever's happening, you should never leave your station. But he was frightened that a man of his was going to get burned, because some bricks had fallen down and he was under the bricks. And Mark had said, 'No,' and the Swedish operator thought he'd said, 'Go'! And I've always been irritated that the pyrotechnics at the end haven't been edited into the right place in the film of the show. Because to put off those billion candles burning cost a fortune.

You know, it was my idea to do this, and I had gone around finding the precise pyrotechnics that would burn and flicker as they came down and fill the entire sky above the stage. And all sorts of things conspired against it. Strangely enough, the East Germans, who had no form of command structure that would allow you to approve anything... everything had to be done by the state, which was now in chaos... so a private organization coming along saying, 'Can we let pyrotechnics off from here?' They couldn't handle that. They had no way of approving it. So, I couldn't have the pyrotechnics let off simultaneously from the East and the West. So eventually all the pyrotechnics had to come from the Tiergarten in the West. Which slightly diminished the effect. But it was an amazing show to put together.

REG:

Speaking of pyrotechnics, there were some pyrotechnics announcing the very beginning of the show. After each rocket would explode, parachutes would float down into the crowd. What was it that was located at the end of the parachutes? I wanted to get one but I wasn't located at the right place in the audience and I never found out what they were.

Jonathan:

I think just a little weight!

REG:

Just a weight? I thought it might be something special for a souvenir or something.

Jonathan:

(Laughs) To be honest, I don't know actually. I know that what we wanted was parachutes, so it would be like a parachute drop. You know like the paratroopers landing in wartime. So it had the symbolism of that. It was like a parachute drop on Berlin! You have to realize that the creator of the Memorial Fund for Disaster Relief, Group Captain Leonard Cheshire, had flown over Berlin during the war, and this was his first return to Berlin after all of those years. And he was a wonderful man. And so all of these things created that sort of look. And if you look at the photographs I've got of it and the film, it's actually quite amazing because the perspective, multiplicity & movement works, it just looks like a huge parachute drop even though the parachutes are all tiny. You know they were all off the shelf... those pyrotechnics.

REG:

The lifts for the wall builders had to also be increased in size and multiplied. You had decided to use scissors lifts, but instead built an entire 131 foot, 20 ton bridge. What were the lifting structures constructed of? Were there problems with these lifts as there had been before the original Wall shows?

Jonathan: Yes, when we looked into it, and the scissors lifts couldn't reach the height so, with my engineering back ground, I decided to use a long bridge lifted up at each end by cables running up over heavy duty scaffolding towers. All this equipment was ready made and adapted from steelwork centering used in the construction of Motorway flt-overs. Very convenient and totally adaptable. Surprisingly, it worked perfectly from the get go! The raising and lowering had to be precisely controlled and the bricklayers had to be especially careful not to get trapped getting on and off the bridge when it was moving up and down. Luckily, everything went smoothly, and it was the single most important element in allowing the Wall to be built and torn down - tear down the wall! - on cue.

REG:

Why were the twenty five hundred 3 by 5 foot bricks used to construct the wall made of Polystyrene instead of the cardboard of the original Wall productions? Were there other options that were discussed?

Jonathan:

The original bricks of Cardboard were made to fold up for easier travel on tour. Other materials would have been expensive and tricky to build up in the show with numbers and time scale! We had, for the original Wall show considered Styrene bricks, and thought they would be much more suitable here.

So when a German manufacturer offered to both make them and recycle them after the show, we jumped at the idea. They were an extruded shape with a slot at the top and a tongue underneath and nested together which made them really easy to build and take down (after the rehearsals). Also they were surprisingly light and indestructible!

REG:

Because of potential high wind speeds, you decided to use vertical masts and scaffolding as the structures used to keep the wall in place. What were some of the other options proposed?

Jonathan:

We needed to find something that was virtually invisible to hold them up and we first thought of horizontal cables etc, but these wouldn't have allowed the Wall to be torn down. I then considered vertical masts, and one of the production managers, Chris Teuber, I think he is listed as the technical project manager, (I called him big foot because he was about size 12!) who worked on the original shows, came up with the bright idea of using the light lattice towers that he had seen all over Berlin which were used as hoists on all the building sites... so we had them ready made and they were absolutely right for the purpose of supporting the wall as it climbed up them!

He was also responsible for the extremely simple and ingenious method of tying back the Wall brick to the masts... with a foot long baton attached to a yard of rope that was dropped into horizontal joints and quickly lashed back to the towers and trapped as the next course of brick was built. This held the wall up in any wind (I did proper structural calculations!), and just fell out when the Wall was torn down from the top at the climax of the show - simple and effective, eh!

REG:

A massive amount of sound equipment was used including a PA consisting of 2 39 foot towers on the stage itself, a massive sound bank of speakers at stage front center, a large building in the middle of the crowd housing the mixing boards and lighting and special effects controls, and no less than 15 sound and light towers were located throughout Potsdam Platz. Yet many at the back and sides of the crowd still complained of poor sound quality. Was this because the huge size of the crowd, estimated between 350 to 700 thousand, was not anticipated?

Jonathan:

Yes, but it also stretched the capability of the technology of the time (it would be much better now with all the accumulated experience and technological improvements). Also, I have to confess that someone forgot to switch them on at the start of the show, or there was a failure, and it took a long time to for the sound technicians to fight their way through the dense crowds out to 8 or 12 of the speaker towers!

REG:

The 600 foot long front portion of the stage was as wide as a two lane highway, and had to withstand the weight of countless cars, trucks and other vehicles driving on to it? What went into the engineering of such a sturdy structure, and how was it built so quickly?

Jonathan:

As I said, existing Motorway centering components were used and they were made to be built up easily and quickly.

REG:

The inflatables had to be constructed on a massive scale. The Teacher puppet itself was bigger than a five story building. What problems and obstacles had to be overcome to construct, inflate and move such huge inflatables?

Jonathan: They had to be cleverly reinforced with cable etc, so that they didn't overstress the inflatable fabric, and they were designed so that major parts of them were not seen, only imagined, and so made them easier to inflate and control. We did think BIG. The Teacher was effectively 80 or 90 feet tall with a massive head with 4 spotlights in each eye! He was suspended like a string puppet - indeed I made a model string puppet to work out how he would be suspended and moved - which was hung from a real life 160ft high construction tower crane. The large scale helped with the operation because large tubes from the inflation fans were just not noticeable. Rob Harries (who helped make the inflatable family for the PF Animals Tour) had a terrific team to build, paint and operate the Teacher and the Pig. All that AND tons of rehearsals in the preceding days before the show.

REG:

Why was the Pig redesigned to be a massive 5 story high monster Pig head which crashed through the top of the Wall?

Jonathan:

It needed to be in scale with the Wall, and clearly could not be rigged to fly as in the original Pink Floyd Wall. So to create the terrifying effect of its appearance over the Wall, we arranged for it to push off a few courses of brick as it inflated and appeared - very dramatic (especially in one of the rehearsals when the bricks showered down on to the Russian trucks and drivers parked alongside the Wall waiting for their cue!)

REG:

Two giant 164 foot mobile cranes were used to support and move the huge puppet inflatables and the 'Mother' brick triangle. Truck mounted cherry pickers with mounted spotlight gun turrets were stationed in front of and behind the wall, completing the mechanical choreography. How were all these components synchronized and coordinated to act together?

Jonathan: Yes, this must have been the first and only time that Tower cranes have been used to simulate the well known theatrical fly towers. Many rehearsals directed & supervised by myself and my daughter Clare (who was the performers' stage manager) were necessary, together with a reliable walky talky communication system to give the operators their cues. The communication system took some developing, one system had to be junked because it was unreliable, and was incredibly important during the show when all the show cues were sent from the central control by Mark Fisher. Imagine how difficult it was to keep everything going on cue with the pressure, excitement and noise of the show. We only suffered a miscue with the Pyrotechnics

REG:

For the songs One of My Turns, and Nobody Home, why was a flip up flap disguised as bricks used as a window of sorts into a hotel room mock up inside the wall, instead of the drop down platform used in the original Wall production? Was this again because of scale?

Jonathan:

No! The Room was so high up, 45ft above the ground, that it had to go up, otherwise Roger & the room would have been obscured for much of the audience nearest to the Stage. Also the Room was a more real depiction (for safety AND effect) so that Roger could hurl the TV set and guitar out of the windows in true Rock & Roll mythology.

REG:

Up until a few months before the show, you, along with Tony Hollingsworth and Sigi Paul were in charge of the entire production of the show. This must have been like being in charge for the planning of the construction of an entire city? How was this massive stage with all its intricacies built in only 2 and a half months?

Jonathan:

With lots of preplanning and design work - although the Show was only given the final go-ahead from the East German authorities some 12 weeks before the show, we had already been working with a substantial team for 3 or 4 months before that. It was still a sweat and I had got the original show date in June put back a month to the 21st of July, the eventual show day.

But we had a very experienced team of Rock & Roll professionals who knew the absolute necessity of planning ahead.

REG:

Why did Fisher/Park choose to augment Scarfe's graphics for the show with those of the 4i graphic design group?

Jonathan:

Essentially to tell the details of the story of Pink's odyssey more clearly for the huge audience, but even more particularly for a big visual element to make the show spectacular for all that audience.

REG:

At the end of the show, when The Wall finally came crashing down, because it had to be so high, and the wind velocity unknown before hand, was there ever any anxiety that any of the bricks would fall into the audience.

Jonathan: No, not really, the audience at the front was at least 60 feet from the Wall and, as in the original Floyd show, the bricks were demolished from the top down both for the visual effect of the bricks falling down in front of the wall and safety. REG: You know there was so much engineering that went into the creation of The Wall Live in Berlin, the many intricacies that went into the building of the stage, the wall, the inflatables, the pyrotechnics, not to mention the sound and electronics and projections. It was just so technically massive an event to engineer!

Jonathan:

It was and will ever be I think the biggest rock and roll show ever staged. You know to use tower cranes to move scenery on and off for instance. And that's why it's a shame that it never got a full documentary film made about it. Because it was the creation of the show that would have made an interesting feature after the actual show... You know how it was done... But to me what was fantastic about it was... the way I might describe it was that we were creating a Feature Film of the show live and in one take! Which, when you think about it was a fantastic undertaking because you've got to have your cameras going in and out, dollying up and all that sort of thing. There's no time for, 'oh lets retake that.' The only bit that we retook of course was the performance of Ute Lemper, because on night when she came on stage the monitor system had gone down, and so we couldn't do that song (The Thin Ice). And it also wasn't on the outgoing broadcast because Roger hadn't pre-recorded it because he wanted to save his voice during the dress rehearsal.

But Ute Lemper was such a professional performer. She must have been absolutely devastated not to be able to perform in front of her own people in her own country. But she came back at the end of the show, and after the audience had gone, we rebuilt part of the wall and recreated that moment and we filmed it. So when you watch The Thin Ice (on the video), that's not taking place in the live show, but thanks to her and the editing, you can't tell! And also when she's up on top of the Wall, being the Wife, the cameraman failed to get her. So we recreated that bit of scaffolding tower in London and we re-shot that scene for the film there to include it. So we did most of the Feature Film live with just two retakes... Oh, and lots of sound engineering.

REG:

Well, there was so much going on every minute that you couldn't take it all in, and from the perspective of someone in the audience, though 'The Thin Ice' was missed, a few minutes down time certainly didn't spoil the show.

Jonathan:

Well you were there. You saw the show. I was there, but I saw the show through the anxiety of thinking, I've got to get this right. You see, I was out of communication. And when they had to stop the show, I had to run... because I was the only one who knew what was going on... because I could hear what was going on, and they could see it, but I knew what... everybody had been briefed, but they were all concentrating and we had two lighting designers, and two or three sound engineers and a master sound effects engineer, Nick Griffith, and all these people... I was running around up and down the control tower, you know the mixing desk and lighting desks, screaming at everybody, Just continue doing the show! Just continue as though the show is running... continue doing the lighting. We will pick up the moment they get going, we won't restart. Because they had to understand this. And so when eventually they got the sound back on, we just kept going. We didn't restart the song because there was a broadcast going out that had to be continuous.

Unfortunately, the safety which we were going to do, was never full done. And that was that the whole of the show was to be pre-recorded in rehearsal so that if anything went wrong we could continue with the dress rehearsal tapes and visuals.

It just about worked, but it made me realize that not only should you rehearse a show but rehearse for disasters too. I have used that experience for all subsequent show planning!

REG:

Right, that's what Andrew Zweck, Roger's Tour Manager had stated in the recent interview I did with him.

Jonathan:

And Bill Graham was there. And Bill Graham came running up to me after the show, and his eyes were spinning. And he said, Fantastic! That's the greatest thing I have ever seen. I want it! (Laughs)

I was so sad when he died. He was a great man. He had such an influence in visual rock and roll with the Days on the Green at the California Oakland Coliseum. He created the whole of FM Scenic house, you know that did all these painted backdrops. He was the first who really did the big painted backdrops. The huge settings for The Eagles, and Led Zeppelin, and all of those other bands.

REG:

In 1987 and 1988, the David Gilmour/Nick Mason duo, calling itself Pink Floyd went on a massive world tour, hiring Rick Wright as an added paid musician. Years later, for credibility reasons, Rick Wright was made a full member of the band, and in 1994 they again went on another huge world tour. Were Fisher/Park asked to design or create the stage sets for either or both of those tours?

Jonathan:

Yes, but I declined because I wanted to continue to work with Roger who had become a friend and mentor. REG:

Fisher/Park continued to design stage sets for many high profile groups, concert extravaganzas and other events, until during the mid 1990's your partnership with Mark Fisher came to an end. Can you tell us why? And Mark Fisher actually worked with Gilmour's Pink Floyd...

Jonathan:

...the boys...

REG:

...yeah, the boys (I laugh)...

Jonathan:

That was in fact the beginning of the end. We'd been not growing apart, but were operating like two organizations in one company. Quite a lot of ego's going on and I'd got much more involved with designing, and Mark was... you know we were not always seeing eye to eye.

You know we worked really hard. We worked immensely hard, and so he wanted the challenge of working with Pink Floyd. And because of my friendship and loyalty to Roger and the idea... I didn't want to do that. And so Fisher - Park, our organization, hired Mark out as an independent to Pink Floyd for their first tour (1987 and 1988), and I took no part in it.

And my personal relationship with Dave Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Ricky... Rick Wright if I ever see them, is very friendly. I mean I love meeting Dave and Nick, they are always very friendly, and we always have a, you know, chat and a laugh. But they all think that Roger is the strange changeling who left the family. I don't think they quite understand his drive and his intellectual makeup.

REG:

You went on to design and create the stage set for Roger Waters' In the Flesh Tours in 1999, 2000, and 2002. How did this come about?

Jonathan:

Roger asked me to! As I say, he has been my mentor and I love working with him and translating his ideas into reality... It's always a challenge...

REG:

Your stage sets were originally used to add to the spectacle of large arena shows. Because Roger chose to play in smaller more intimate environments and venues, how did this affect your set design? Was Roger playing smaller venues because he was disappointed with the smaller than expected turnout he got during the KAOS tour?

Jonathan: I think what he really wanted was intimacy and to go back to the enjoyment of the early days. He really wanted to concentrate on the musical aspect of the shows. After all, he's working with Andy Fairweather-Low and other people who are really strong musicians. And so I think it was a change in emphasis. Ultimately of course we needed big effects. And his concept of the show was a show with a big picture and spotlights on the band and no flashing lights. So this was great for me, because I've always wanted to create... rather like we did in Pros and Cons shows using projectionist scenery, because you can tell so many stories, get so many environments without having so much physical equipment. You don't need lots of fly's, you don't need lots of drapes and drops and things like that, it's all in the projector.

REG:

The more simple stage construction, lighting and effects proved more conducive to the smaller venues rather than the spectacular effects of stadium shows such as were used for Gilmour's Floyd performances. Were you happy with the visual presentation?

Jonathan:

Well, the hard thing was creating... a stage set is mundane. It's just a stage with a chicken run, a catwalk, and stairs so that people can be elevated, but also to hide the back stage so that you could clean the stage up. And then the big screen behind, which is meant to be there if you needed it, and disappear if you don't.

And eventually the screen got used in the shows much more than was the original intention, and of course we did bring in lighting. Although it was always very difficult to get the right sort of lighting. Roger has very particular ideas about that. But the idea of having this big backdrop and creating all these different scenes was the big thing.

So rather than creating three dimensional objects on stage, the work became creating visual images which were a backdrop to the song. Either they were part of the narrative to the song, or they were a scene which gave an atmosphere to the song. So when Roger was singing Pigs on the Wing, you were looking at this huge expansive scene of the pig above Battersea Power Station, you know the cover of the Animals album. And then we close in on the chimneys, and then we have a bit of moving film. Eventually, (during the 2002 world tour) when we started using video projectors we could put in a video movie.

REG:

Why weren't video projectors used during the 1999 and 2000 tours?

Jonathan:

Well they weren't used then because they weren't powerful enough. It wasn't until 2000 that they got developed enough, and then we used them in 2002.

We nearly used them in 2000 but I decided that we didn't have time to deal with it. The creation of it for 2002 was actually very traumatic because we were still really pushing the technology in terms of the control and the cueing and timing. Because it's something that people don't realize, that when the band is playing they may or may not play to a click track... they may or may not play to a cue tape. But it means that if you've got a cue where you need to have 10 seconds warning of it, you have to know that cue 10 seconds ahead. And there may not be a musical indication of it, do you know what I mean? So some of those things have to be put down on tape. And that requires the band to have pre-recorded it, and it also requires a lot of technological line up. And all of that can be quite tricky. And its something that people absolutely don't notice. This is where Nick Griffiths comes in. Like me he's worked with Roger since the 70's and has a fantastic memory of all the songs and the effects cues. It's he that creates and records all the sound effects that are embedded in the music, working with Roger in much the same way as I do but creating pictures in sound.

But the thing about cueing a show with Roger is... most of the cues are musical cues, you know the emphasis has to do with emotional context. They're not taking place just abstractly, they fit with the music. And this is a big part of what I want to do as well. I mean I think I bring that to it. You know, I want the drama of the scenic changes to add to the song and take place when there's a change in emphasis in the music. So the creation of all those visuals is actually a huge job.

I don't know whether you saw the shows, but I think it did what Roger probably wanted, which was to create and emotional environment for the show to take place without dominating it. There were moments when it was big and bright and stood up for itself, but the rest of the time it was working I think with the music. So it's effect on you was subliminal. You didn't know that you were being transported or moved by it.

REG:

There was always that atmosphere of understanding or communication between the band and the audience because of the theater that they were witnessing.

Jonathan:

There were many hours in rehearsals with Roger, changing things, changing the emphasis, slightly changing the cues, swapping the visuals around and recreating ideas. And like anything, I could say a third of what was created was never used. And lots of things were eventually simplified, because as a designer you want to cover all the bases. You know, you're working with a client who wants things... but you want to cover all eventualities. And I'm very aware of what the audience is seeing, so I'm wanting to make it visually splendid for the audience.

But then when you talk with the client, such as Roger or Mick Jagger or whoever... but mostly with Roger, you become aware that there's a level at which the song is the communication, the words and the music. And certain things get simplified or edited out in order not to obscure the music, the meaning, so as not to confuse it with too much activity. So the communication of the meaning and music of a song is not diluted or diffused with too many superficial effects. I mean you can produce many more effects, and some of them are great for the audience when they get there, but perhaps they're not letting the music speak for itself.... The quiet enjoyment clause!

REG:

I saw Pink Floyd in '94, and it was a great spectacle, but it was... you know... hearing the music... it was like anybody could have been up there on stage... or playing a record for all the crowd cared.

Jonathan:

It didn't talk to you, yeah. Well Roger never wants to do that. And what of course he has subsequently learned, I guess... sorry about this Roger... is that modern technology does now allow you to play to large audiences. When we did In the Flesh, it started off being booked for 3000 and 5000 seaters maximum, because the promoters were perhaps worried whether the tickets would sell.

But then we started playing sheds (open air amphitheaters) and so forth, to audiences of 20,000, and Roger saw that in the modern era with video projection and sound, that actually you could get a higher level of intimacy with an audience of 20 and 25 thousand than he had ever imagined before. And I think he was quite moved by that.

I remember during one or two of the shows he made a very emotional little speech at the end of it, saying how fantastic it was to be involved in this intimate atmosphere with this huge audience. And that I think is both a tribute to modern technology, you know sound systems and projection systems and so forth, and also to do with the design and creation of the show that incorporates all the experience we've had over the years of getting this type of thing to work on the different scales that I was eluding to.

I mean I never... (laughs) sometimes I did give Roger a lecture on different scales... he is very intimately connected to his vision of the show, and he is not seeing it as a member of the audience, he's seeing it as Roger. And so I have to allow that to go by, at the same time as making sure that that vision can be subtly extended and exploited so that it appeals to the different scales in the audience. Cause Roger has never seen a show sitting in the back bleachers. And I have.

Sometimes when I'm at rehearsals and things, people say, 'What on earth are you sitting up at the back for? Why aren't you down in the best place.' And I say, 'Cause I want to see what it's like for 50% of the audience that pay all this money to come to the shows.'

I'll always remember, once when Tina Turner's manager... when Tina Turner started doing the big shows, and we did the 'Private Dancer' tour, her manager insisted on hanging the lighting 15 feet off the stage. I said, 'You can't do that. When the show plays in places like Wembley, the audience at the top won't be able to see.' And indeed they couldn't. And he said, 'Well she's got to feel the heat of the lights', cause she'd played at small hotels and rooms you know for many years, and because he hadn't got the message.

Of course when the lights were lifted and the big shows took place, everything was OK. I mean, that's one way the designer can have a direct effect upon the show, cause I'm looking at it with the eye of the audience, not with the eye of the musician. And sometimes I have to drag the musicians out to the (mixing) desk so they can hear it or see it.

REG:

Like being a director working with the writer and the actors in a theatrical production.

Jonathan:

Yeah. I mean, the writer gives the information to the director. And most actors take direction from the director. But when you're working in rock and roll, you're working directly with the creator, so it's a much closer working relationship, and everybody on the show is sort of involved in it.

REG:

Were there any differences in the stage set, and/or the effects used between the 1999 and 2000 legs of the US tours?

Jonathan:

Slightly more visuals and different songs, but the major changes didn't take place till the 2002 tour when we started using giant video projectors.

REG:

During the 1999 tour, was there any real danger during the lightning and thunder storm at the Pennsylvania show? It was almost called off, were you in favor of the show going on, or did you think it should have been canceled? Were you afraid for your safety?

Jonathan:

Well I have to say that A). I wasn't there, and B). when I designed the show... and people would say, 'Why is the screen made of gauze? Why isn't it solid material painted white?' I said, Well first, I don't want it to sit there looking like a movie screen, and second, when the wind blows, I don't want it to blow down! Because you know, that is the engineering aspect of it. So the show was designed like that and ably dealt with by The Cowboy, Chris Lamb, the Production Manager, the man with the cowboy hat and the boots, to make sure these things are safe, because they can be scary.

And to go right back to Animals, the opening show of the Animals tour, the first time that Mark and I had ever been participants in a major rock and roll show, there was a huge storm. And the pig was ripped apart by the winds and never was able to be used. I don't think we were able to put the screen up because the winds were too great. We did manage to get the family up. But it was all touch and go. And you realize that when you work outdoors, things can change unexpectedly... and in Houston when we did the Animals show there, we did it in a huge rain storm, and we had all these huge umbrellas coming out on the stage. And by the end of the show all of the umbrellas were full of beer cans, because the audience thought it was great to chuck beer cans in them. So you do have to be aware of these things.

REG:

During the 1999 tour some venue changes were made at the last minute and some were even canceled. Was this due to the extreme demand for Waters tickets in those areas, as well as because the venues were too small for your stage set?

Jonathan:

Yes and yes. The promoters didn't realize they had a hit on their hands!

REG:

During the 2000 tour at the Seattle show at The Gorge, when the tour jet buzzed the crowd, how was that coordinated to happen at just the right time?

Jonathan: Again, I wasn't at that show either. So I didn't know that there was a jet that buzzed the crowd in Seattle. But another story... that takes me back to when we did the Animals show in Cleveland Ohio, and it was at... the Baseball stadium by the lake, it no longer exists. It was right next to where the Rock and Roll Museum and Hall of Fame is. And it was knocked down a few years ago. But that's where the show was. And at that time, the band and often the crew flew around in a 737 jet aircraft which was hired to transport us because we were doing these shows every other day all over the States. And in Cleveland, at the beginning of the show, there were sounds in the quad sound system like in GrantChester Meadows. And then five minutes before the show, you'd hear church bells. And then about 30 seconds before the show the sound of a jet would fly over in the Quad... and very effective too.

But at this show, it was decided that the group's aircraft was to actually be the jet! And it came... and it flew 500 feet over the docks... you know the badlands was near the docks in Cleveland... right over the stadium at about 500 feet! I mean it was fantastic!! And we got fined but $1500.00 for violating Federal air regulations. Of course these days you would not be even allowed to do anything like that, especially after 9/11.

REG:

At the 2000 show in Seattle at The Gorge, Roger was able to have the tour jet buzz the crowd right on queue...

Jonathan:

Oh, amazing... he was going back to it! Ah... right, yes I see! He did recreate what happened at the Animals Tour in 1977 in Cleveland!

REG:

And it was spectacular because the jet came in low inside this canyon by the river and nobody saw it until it was right on top of them above the stage, right on queue. It dove at the audience and then shot straight up with a huge roar from the gusts of the engines. But apparently they had to get all kinds of permits to do it.

Jonathan:

Well I stand corrected then, apparently you could do it in this day and age. But of course that was in 2000, so it was prior to 9/11. 9/11 put the Kibosh on things like that. At Glastonbury we couldn't even do the sheep. I was so sad that we couldn't recreate the aerial sheep from the Animals tour.

REG:

Can you remember any interesting behind the scenes stories from the 99/00 tours you can share with us?

Jonathan: