Pink's raunchy, ballsy performance matches her meteoric rise to fame. With musical integrity and credibility high on the agenda, activism and attitude worn with style and sincerity, three albums and a string of memorable and danceable singles in four years, the talented Missundaztood transgresses the bounds of prediction and musicality. The high energy theatrical performance encompasses multiple genres from sleaze rock to sugar pop, R&B to urban blues, in a addictive break-neck tuneful romp.

Catching the show amidst the tensile elegance of Munich Olympiahalle, it was one of those where the moment you walk in, you know it's a happy tour and a chilled atmosphere. Pink makes a point of learning everyone's names at the start of the tour, and engages in active communications with her production team throughout - and that really completes the picture you'd like to have of her. Aside from all that, her chameleon visuality means there's always a surprise in store.

As well as a five-piece band, Pink is joined on-stage by three dancers. The show is divided into three distinct acts, each reflecting elements of Pink's musical development and expressive journeys. By the third section, the beat and the adrenalin are pumping as the show winds up to a fever pitch denouement.

Unsurprisingly, there's plenty of video I-Mag and eye candy. Live video director is Deb Collins, who works in tandem with Jason Harvey, assistant director and engineer. They worked together last year on the Cher tour for the same management team, and were then asked to present ideas for Pink.

The pair exude a great creative chemistry. "Debs mashes the buttons and I do the cameras and playback," explains Harvey. They mould a constantly morphing collage of fast cut looks, colours and ambiences, and have great fun doing it, says Collins. They're also really enjoying working with the team from XL Video who are supplying the tour's hardware package via Blink TV to Twenty Four Seven Music Management.

There are four live cameras, arranged in the standard format of one at FOH, two on track and dolly in the pit and one hand-held onstage. The screens are two softs either side of the stage and an 18 x 13ft Unitek 17mm LED onstage, all of which take a mix of I-Mag and playback. The LED is managed by Stuart Merser, with Larn Poland and Mark Cruickshank making up the balance of the XL crew. The FOH camera is operated by rigger Bart Durbin.

Show director Jamie King supplied the majority of the video playback material. It's a miscellany of promo videos and specially shot footage, news archives from events like Vietnam and graphic images like spinning pills, blood and fire. 'Family Portrait' features a collection of stills of Pink's family.

Collins and Harvey have also had the chance to add some of their own ideas and artwork to the show. Harvey created some lightening and energy type effects, and runs Adobe Premier on his laptop, so it can be integrated with the on-screen content at strategic points in the show. They are also editing some live footage as they go, and have created a set of credits for the end, listing the full production team, plus an unexpected message to the audience - "The end... now f**k off", which has gone down an absolute storm, especially in Europe.

SET & LIGHTING
The set is designed by Mark Fisher, who worked closely with LD Ethan Weber and Pink herself on formulating the stage look. Construction was by Brilliant Stages and its most immediately striking feature is the wall of speakers effect - big, bold, brash, not to be messed with and very much setting the tone of the show.

The set's lower 48ft long walkway (rented from Tait Towers, who also supplied some of the walkways and risers) features 12 large industrial factory cladding panels with inset three foot dummy fibreglass speakers, butting into each other. Up above, thereare various steps with more inset dummy speakers. Brilliant also made all the handrails, and some general bracketing to support the vertically mounted Pixelline LED battens. Their brief was to distress the entire set in a "soot and pigeon shit" style, which they managed with great effect.

Brilliant also made the bird cage in which Pink makes her entrance from above, and supplied the double-braked variable speed CM motors and rigging used that make it fly. It's Ethan Weber's second tour with Pink, and both US and European sections of the tour saw kit supplied by LSD Fourth Phase. Weber has just purchased his own new Avolites Diamond 4 Vision, his first ever owned console, to use for the tour and future projects. He believes the D4 Vision's timing features are excellent, and loves the inherent improvisational facilities, as he very much likes to run and feel his shows 'live'. The rig is hung off vast amounts of trussing up in the roof and the lamp count includes 34 Martin MAC 2000 profiles, 32 High End PC Beams, 23 Studio Colors, 10 Vari*Lite 1000s, 24 Martin Atomic strobes, over 100 Pars, truss spots, five FOH spots, plus assorted Moles and colour changers. Weber also specified 10 James Thomas Pixelline battens which are arranged across the set at floor level, and used for creating general 'energy' onstage, for jazzy chases and for high impact moments. It's the first time he's used the Pixelline, and like many, he's impressed with their awesome brightness and intensity.

IT'S ONLY ROCK'N'ROLL... AND WE LIKE IT
Sound world is presided over by the two Daves - Moncrief at FOH and Lagodzinski on monitors. It's no surprise that audio has it's integral place in the Pink production equasion, and the pressure levels are well cranked up to rock! Moncrief has worked with Pink since the start of this year. He's using a 'standard' set up of a Showco Prism system and a Midas XL4 console out front.

Equipment suppliers Showco/Clair Brothers also serviced her audio needs on previous tours. Throughout Europe, the gear is supplied by Audio Rent, based near Basle in Switzerland, which maintains a stock of Showco equipment.

Pink's incredibly dynamic voice - a rich cocktail of smoky, bluesy, dubby, dirty and at times Joplinesque - is strong to work with. Naturally, Moncrief tries to leave it as clean as possible, with just a touch of chorusing and reverb and a Summit TLA 100 tube limiter across all her vocals. As he succinctly put it, "Her voice says it all; it's the message of her art."

The compressors are all dbx and the gates are a combination of dbx and Drawmer, plus there's a range of effects from Lexicon, Eventide and TC. System drive is a proprietary Clair iO system.

The five-piece band are all extremely talented and tight, and also need minimum interference - just a touch of reverb and one delay is all that's used in the entire show. There's some compression across the band to rein them in a bit. A track runs in eight of the 20 songs in the set, and the rest are pure rock'n'roll, which sound fabulously big and attitudinal when almost left to their own devices. Apart from the quality of her voice, Pink is also good to work with as a person, Moncrief reveals. She uses a Shure Beta 57 wireless mic and the rest of the band are on SM58s.

At the Olympiahalle, Moncreif had the system stacked six wide and three deep, a combination of Prism enclosures and eight subs a side on the floor. The snow loading in Munich prevented them using the usual 8 x 4 configuration, but the low trim height of the PA also meant that losing the extra row of boxes helped with the sightlines.

In monitor world, Dave Lagodzinski uses a Yamaha PM1D console, taking full advantage of the internal compressors, gates and effects. Everyone is on IEMs with Sensafonic moulds - with the band split between Shure handheld and Shure wireless mics. There are also Clair R4 sidefills and some Clair 12AM wedges. Pink utilises one ear mould and gets a feel for the room from the side fills and wedges in the other.

It's very much a rock 'n' roll vibe on-stage, and the biggest thing about the show is being able to feel and groove to the music... which results in that distinct, superlative, loudly infused meltdown of sound, visuals and spectacle that is Pink live.

Pink - Key Personnel & Suppliers:
Management : Roger Davies for RDWN Pty Ltd/Craig Logan for Twenty Four Seven Music Management