At lighting designer, Mick Thornton's request, Bandit Lites Inc. crew member, Shawn Beaulieu has also been brought over to the UK to work on the European leg. The band completed a short tour earlier in the year and a one-off in California just before this leg, which is the first substantial touring work they have undertaken in 2006.
Given carte blanche to produce the show design, Thornton seized the opportunity to introduce Martin Professional's Maxedia digital Media server to the visual equation. This has helped enormously with the seamless integration of lighting and video mediums into one complete visual show.
Thornton came up with a very clean looking lighting 'framework' of two straight 40ft A-type front and rear trusses, complete with two 10ft diameter A-type circular trusses in the upstage corners giving the roof. "I always tend to light a space architecturally in addition to treating it as a performing area" Thornton explains.
There are also five upright A-type truss towers on stage, which are wrapped with white gauze to match the infill of the circular trusses. Fixture wise - the rig contains 22 Martin MAC 2K Profiles, 14 MAC 300 Washes, 12 bars of six PARs, eight 2-lite Moles for audience illumination and six Source Four profiles for key-lighting. Thornton is using an Avolites Diamond 4 Vision - his desk of choice. Bandit is also supplying three Lycian 1.2K HMI followspots and the complete motors and rigging package.
Six 2Ks are rigged on the back truss, used for beam work, four are on the front, and another five on top of the onstage verticals, which are also each illuminated from behind by a MAC 300.
The circular trusses each have three 2Ks and three 300 fixtures attached to them, and further 300s are stationed at the ends of the straight trusses. "The idea is to create a feeling of vastness, with lots of large dynamic looks for the up-tempo numbers," says Thornton.
Beamed onto a 20 by 15 ft screen via a front truss-mounted 10K Sanyo projector, and triggered from the Diamond 4, video material runs for the entire set. Footage ranges from moving wallpaper and textured looks to more literal images, photos from the band's archive and general picture archives, plus selected classic album artwork spanning nearly four decades.
Thornton also created a selection of completely new video content for the tour, most of it shot using his Sony Ericsson Cyber Shot 3.2 Megapixel cameraphone which does both video and stills. These were then treated in the Maxedia - giving him a real chance to get to grips with its imaginative possibilities - and applied to individual songs. He drew inspiration for the new footage from numerous sources including the song lyrics.
One of Shawn Beaulieu's responsibilities is to oversee all the video elements. Working alongside Shawn is Bandit UK regular, Nigel Julian.
"The support from Bandit has been excellent- as you would expect from a leading lighting provider. As usual, every effort has been made to accommodate my needs and wishes, including getting Shawn [Beaulieu] over to work with us in Europe," comments Thornton.
Sound equipment is being supplied by Audio Rent from Switzerland, FOH is being mixed by Tim Lawrence and monitors by Jim Bump. Production manager is Mark Hogue.
(Chris Henry)
