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FEATURE
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS
“It was a bit like Spinal Tap. If someone else had 60 channels,
I needed 100.” —Michael Tait
Michael Tait has been restlessly pursuing new design concepts for staging
and lighting gear for four decades. This photo was taken in 1970.
Jake Berry was working as keyboard technician
for Yes’ Rick Wakeman at the time, and
today, he is a production manager who has
worked with the best talent in the business,
from the Rolling Stones to U2. “When we did
the Yes stage, Michael was full of ideas,” Berry
says. “Because the stage was in the middle of
the arena, everybody was stressed about how
the building would be able to clear the chairs
in time to get the show out. So Michael came
up with this fantastic idea of a barricade,
which, in actual fact, was a barricade with
drawers, and slots that stored all the drums,
the keyboards and guitars that you could
pack from the inside. So you could actually
work and pack away your instruments while
the crowd was still in the building.”
The Phone Gets Busy
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The stage also made his phone ring.
Once Yes premiered the stage in the round,
Tait got a call from Imero Fiorentino and Associates.
They asked him to design a rotating
stage for Barry Manilow when Manilow
was at the top of his popularity, packing
arenas. “They asked if I could make a round
stage for them that would incorporate a
small orchestra and backup vocalists in addition
to the band,” Tait says.
Although Tait had success with the rotating
stage in the round, Tait Towers was
really a lighting company. “The company
really consisted of all of the lights I built
over the years for Yes, and, at the time,
apart from FM Productions, there were
very few set building companies outside of
Broadway.”
It was also during this time that Tait
developed the swing-wing truss — a truss
system in which the instruments remained
inside the truss while the sides hinged
to create a safe walkway for focusing. Tait
added to it a distributed dimmer-per-circuit
system, which was revolutionary at the
time. “There were test buttons on the full
length dimmer raceway, so you could turn
the lights on to focus without having someone
at the control board.”
Control boards were also of interest to
Tait, who designed one of the first pin matrix
boards in Europe. “I realized that I needed
more than just the standard A and B preset
scenes; I needed to be able to switch large
quantities of lights to be able to keep up
with Yes,” Tait explains. The pin matrix board,
created in 1973, had twenty channels, A and
B scenes, ten pin matrix presets and 12 high
speed preset bump buttons.
Bennett likes to point out that while it
was years before he actually “met” Tait, he
had an encounter of sorts with him when
he was just another Rhode Island kid with a
ticket to a Yes concert. Bennett happened to
be seated in close proximity to the gentleman
behind the light board.
“I was 14 or 15, at a Yes concert at the
Providence Center,” Bennett recalls. “I happened
to have had a seat sitting across the
aisle from Michael [who was running the
lighting board] in a suit jacket and bow tie.
He had this home made lighting console
that was most impressive, especially the
two cigarette lighters, one on either side.
That way he could light his cigarette with either
hand if the other was busy running the
lights!” he laughs.
Tait remembers that console well, and
says it was a 100-channel monster that no
one else had, if even if he didn’t need all
those channels. “It was a bit like Spinal Tap,”
he jokes. “If someone else had 60 channels, I
needed 100.”
Bennett adds that it would be years later,
on a Luther Vandross tour, when they actually
met. “That was the first time I got to
spend time with Michael and see how they
do their stuff.”
If I Had a Million Dollars
The 1980s kept Tait busy
building his client base, which included
the Grateful Dead, U2, Billy
Joel and Bruce Springsteen. The
concert industry had outgrown
its infancy and was headlong
into its proverbial teenage years,
acne and growth spurts included.
When automated lighting came
into play, “I saw the writing on
the wall, and I knew to be in that
business, it would take millions of
dollars.”
That was when Tait seriously
looked at his finances and had a
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startling realization. “All those years, the
set building had been subsidizing the
lighting rental, and that’s why I had no
money in my pocket,” he admits. He sold
all his lights and then took his 15 years
of road experience and focused all his
energy exclusively on set design and production.
The firm began to expand, and Tait
used his experience to create sets that
could be assembled quickly and easily by
anyone, no matter what their level of technical
expertise. Through the 1990s and
beyond, he continued innovating, and a
new facility, more employees, and more
designers knocking on his door would
create further growth. Over the years, Tait
Towers clients have included Reba
McEntire, AC/DC, Roger Waters,
Ozzfest, Pokémon Live and Britney
Spears, just to name a few.
Tait also worked with noted set
designer Mark Fisher on numerous
projects, including U2, Metallica,
AC/DC, the Rolling Stones and Janet
Jackson. “Michael Tait is a clever
engineer/inventor/rock-show
designer who has done everything
A young Michael Tait plays the drums in 1962.
Born in Melbourne, Tait studied engineering, got bored, then ran a nightclub.
After his Surfers Paradise club was shut down for lack
of a liquor license, Tait traveled to England, worked at a
club there, then met and worked for Yes. Here Tait stands
before a set he designed for Yes in 1973.
36 PLSN SEPTEMBER 2008