Production Profile

Whenever Cher goes on the road, it’s big news, and this year — for her eighth solo tour — you can expect a big production as well. Cher’s current “Dressed to Kill” (D2K) tour, which promotes her Closer to the Truth studio album — is currently underway, having kicked off in March at the US Airways Center in Phoenix it will wrap up in October with two shows at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre. Gross for the 63 mostly sold-out arena dates is expected to top $15 million.

While plenty of artists are doing tours based on performing an entire hit album, it seems a bit unusual that Peter Gabriel is doing one. Then again, So, released in 1986, is a juggernaut in the annals of pop that landed in that rare sweet spot: the intersection of Popular Hit Boulevard and Critically Acclaimed Alley.

Seemingly having far more fun than should be legally allowable, Jason Mraz spent March stopping at 1,500 to 3,000 seat rooms along the West Coast and performing with indie folk/rock quartet Raining Jane. Prior to this foray, the two musical parties have been collaborating here and there since 2007, and they are now about to push a full studio album out the door.

“Combining the shows is going wonderfully well,” Howard Page declares, as the current Paul Simon/Sting tour was getting underway in early February. He’s an honest man so there’s no reason to not take him at his word, but on paper, the current Paul Simon/Sting tour sure looks complicated and daunting. First, you have two very different performers with different styles of music (though both share a devotion to great songwriting). They perform together. They perform separately with their respective bands. Their bands perform separately and apart. Simon does Sting songs. Sting does Simon songs. At one point Simon’s guitarist joins Sting for a tune. It’s a spin-the-bottle of possibilities.

It never got as cold as predicted, but that didn’t make the Super Bowl XLVIII Halftime Show any easier.

It was the most-watched Super Bowl halftime show in history, and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Bruno Mars, the diminutive ball of vocal dynamite whose ability to avoid controversy made him the NFL’s pick for the halftime show at Super Bowl XLVIII, delivered an estimated 115.3 million viewers for the Feb. 2 event. They watched him and his hand-picked “special guests,” the Red Hot Chili Peppers rip though a 12-minute set at MetLife Stadium, which was prepared for sub-freezing temperatures but at showtime, Mars’ gold lamé jacket may have been plenty against what turned out to be an almost pleasant evening, with temps around the 40°F. range.

Drake is one of the few artists who successfully bridged the gap from acting to becoming a major musical artist. Born Aubrey Drake Graham, this Toronto native originally achieved critical acclaim in the role of Jimmy Brooks, a student on the popular Degrassi: The Next Generation TV series, with his poignant portrayal of a promising high school athlete whose career was cut short when the character became paraplegic after being shot by a fellow student.

Classical-crossover sensation Sarah Brightman’s Dreamchaser World Tour kicked off in Guangzhou, China in mid-June. Now, having just completed the Asian and North American segments of this 67-stop marathon, the show is currently playing in Central and South America, and goes back to China in January 2014, followed by the Middle East, Russia, Finland and Eastern Europe in February. It’s truly a “world” tour.

The artist wants a dinner club sound and vibe — nothing too surprising about that, except for the fact that the artist is on a world tour playing packed hockey arenas.

Amidst rave reviews from top media outlets from The New York Times to Rolling Stone, Taylor Swift’s Red tour is currently in full swing. The country-pop queen is working her way across the U.S., headlining 58 shows in 45 cities in 29 states and three provinces in 2013. Three DiGiCo SD7 systems and a d&b audiotechnik PA, provided by Eighth Day Sound Systems, deliver sizzling sound on the tour. The trio of SD7s are in place at FOH and two in monitor world — one for the band and one for artist monitors.

If anything’s predictable about Todd Rundgren, it’s to expect the unexpected. A brilliant songwriter/guitarist/synthesist with talents both onstage and in the studio, Rundgren’s career (solo or with his band Utopia) has spanned just about every musical genre, ranging from rock to pop to smooth soul to edgy electronica and most recently, EDM. And even at 65, he shows no signs of slowing down, hopping from continent to continent to promote State — his 24th studio album, as well as a series of “An Evening with Todd Rundgren” shows to stay in touch with the legions of fans of his catalog standards such as “Hello, It’s Me” and “I Saw the Light.”