With the UK shows as the largest, they decided to go for full production for these dates. Lighting three totally different acts - who join forces at the end of the show for a half hour super jam - was a major challenge, explains Bramall-Watson - who needed to make each set look unique and individual using the same, expedient rig!
The basic rig consists of two pre-rigged trusses front and rear, fully loaded with Pars, a mid truss, Martin MAC 500s and MAC 2000 Performances for the core moving light and effects fixtures, and four vertical A-type truss towers on the floor. The vertical towers each contain a bar of ACLs and are up-lit with a toner fixture and completed with a MAC 2000 Performance on top. The towers help create depth, dimension and a simple visual perspective on stage. The cyc is washed with High End Studio Colors.
With two drum kits, five techs and a hectic onstage area, floor lights tend to be moved in a nightly basis - according to space - and fitted in around everything else that has to go onstage. They are touring their own Avo Sapphire 2000 console everywhere: "A nice fader-friendly board," comments Bramall-Watson. He spent two weeks listening to the music prior to the tour - which had no pre-production or rehearsal time at all - designed the rig and devised three very different lightshows.
Fripp's show is a spacey, ambient soundscape, all created and played on guitar, which lent itself ideally to moody cyc projections, with Fripp moodily situated upstage - almost unseen. The MAC Performances are used extensively for this section. Steve Vai's set is a lot louder, more abstract guitar music, and at times highly improvisational - with interesting and unpredictable riffs and timings, so the lighting is adjusted accordingly, with simple looks to reflect the complexities, ambiguous sounds and power of his playing. Bramall-Watson is not a big fan of non-gratuitous use of moving lights in this situation. His formula is straightforward: "The audience come to see all these guys play - they want to see their fingers, so I keep them well lit! Vai's set sees a myriad of bold saturated colours and beam patterns.
For Satriani's set, the cyc is reinvented as a jazzier visual prop. His music is much more traditionally rock 'n' roll in format and construction, so there's plenty of opportunity for beam and colour work to vary the lighting. Bramall-Watson is working with Bandit crewmates 'Scratch', Dave Lee and Ian Jenkins. He comments that "Bandit UK's done a brilliant job all-round - their service and back up is very impressive."
Audio Rent in Basle is supplying sound (as it's a Showco/Clair Brothers account) with speakers for the UK section coming from Canegreen. The FOH is mixed by production manager Doug Nightwine.
(Lee Baldock)
