are always welcome
Notes from a 'Red Piano' rookie
Go behind the scenes with Kevin "Stick" ByeLAS VEGAS -- When lighting designer and director Kevin Bye is working in his booth during an Elton John show, he's rocking and rolling, getting into each song, but also very mindful that he's rhythmically programming the powerful lights to augment each one of Elton's legendary songs.
When he's doing the same thing for the "Red Piano" shows at the Colosseum at Caesar's Palace, it's more of a Vegas vacation.
But either way, it's all a labor of love for Bye, a.k.a. "Stick," a talented artist in his own right who has stuck with Elton on the road for the last seven years.
"I just have to make sure that the lighting is there and it's interesting and kind of jibes with all the different songs," Bye told us while checking his craft in the booth before a recent Red Piano show.
"It has to look spectacular, and I have to make sure that Elton can be seen and the band can be seen, and also that Elton can see where he's going. Just little things like that. The people in the first 15 rows get to see Elton and the band close up, and for the people that fill the rest of the arena, I try to pull them into the show and pull them into the actual vibe of the show, just to make it look spectacular and look interesting for the people out there who are far, far away."
Bye said famed artist David LaChapelle's colorful vision of the Red Piano show forces regular concert lighting to take a back seat to the sensory overload of content audience members are thrown into once Elton and his band begin playing. The Red Piano shows feature 18 inflatable pieces of on-stage scenery plus balloons from the ceiling, confetti and an enormous "video wall" the length of the entire stage that plays LaChapelle's arresting motion pictures throughout.
"The lighting on this show is very, very different," Bye says. "This is more video. The video wall is a giant light source, so I have to compete with that. David LaChapelle has very specific ideas of what he wanted for the show, and as a filmmaker and a photographer, he doesn't think about lights or concert lights as part of the show -- it's a tool to use for video and photography.
"And he's never lit a stage show before, so this is just completely different. I wouldn't call it a lighting show. We just try to strive for a really, really clean look across the stage."
Consider it a huge success.
Bye expertly mans the huge neon letters that begin the show, spelling out Elton's first name in old-school fonts that look like they were plucked from the very "boneyard" of discarded Vegas casino and storefront signage that LaChapelle's set design seeks to evoke.
The lights flicker on and off by design, breaking up a seemingly innocent word like "cocktail" into two more risque terms and periodically spotlighting others, such as "horny" and "Botox."
Bye says it's all the product of a lot of work over a long period of time. He and his talented co-workers typically plan a lighting design based on the songs Elton will play and figure out how much it will cost to pull off.
"I don't have a blank check, so we have to keep everything within budget," Bye says, adding, "Basically, you sit down and listen to the music and write lighting cues, time them appropriately, pick appropriate colors and just something to enhance the mood of the song."
Since most of this has already been planned for Bye in the Red Piano scenario, he can breathe, well, at least a little easier at showtime.
"It's very laid back (in Vegas) because we've done this so many times, and the crew, everybody's been around this for so long now," he says. "There's a lot that goes on, but everybody is so professional that you don't really think about it."
What Bye does think about, however, are his favorite songs to light.
"I rock out on 'Pinball Wizard,'" he says. "'Love Lies Bleeding' is a signature song of mine that I spend days, weeks and months on, because once the show is actually in place, I'll just tweak it and re-tweak it, and sometimes I'll get bored with it and want to change it.
"Those two stick out in my mind."
