USA - Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Sammy Hagar was on the road for two months over the summer with his Best of All Worlds tour that played across the USA with a line-up including Joe Satriani, and a lighting design created by Jamie Fadden featuring Robe moving lights prominently on the rig.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based Fadden started working with the prolific artist four years ago and took over the LD position in 2021 and is also LD for Satriani. For this tour, a completely new lighting design was produced utilising 22 x Robe BMFL Spots and 10 x BMFL WashBeams, 40 x MegaPointes, 42 x Spiiders and five Tarrantulas together with eight Forte FollowSpots running on four RoboSpot BaseStations. All lighting equipment was supplied by Felix Lighting.
Fadden also produced most of the tour’s video content and the band risers were part of her scenographic domain, which ensured a harmonious visuality that permeates throughout the energetic set, with Hagar drawing on his immense back catalogue from the start of his career to the present, including several classics from the Montrose and Van Halen eras.
A large upstage LED screen helped ramp up the visual drama and Fadden’s lighting and video treatment resulted in rich, fully blended scenes, for which she needed powerful and flexible lighting fixtures, leading her to Robe.
The overhead lighting scheme comprised five trussing pods, rigged with MegaPointes. Each pod featured eight MegaPointes surrounding a Tarrantula in the middle. In most venues these were raked for additional depth, and the MegaPointe’s adaptability was further appreciated in recreating some effective old-school ‘ACL bar’ looks.
The Spiiders were rigged on stage left and right side torms in a four-two-four configuration, and more Spiiders were deployed on the mid and upstage trusses to give the most effective wash coverage.
A row of 16 x BMFL Spots upstage on the floor were chosen for aerial effects and potent blast-through, low-level back lighting, paired with another six rigged overhead on the mid-stage truss.
The Forte Follow Spots were positioned on the front and back trusses, four on each. The rear ones were used as regular rig fixtures for potent rear highlighting, where they worked nicely with the mid-stage BMFLs, while the front ones excelled at the all-important task of following. Two were dedicated to Hagar, one for Satriani and one for bass player Michael Anthony. The RoboSpot BaseStations and operators were typically located behind the video wall.
This was Fadden’s first time using a RoboSpot system, but she was very impressed with how well and efficiently it worked, and it won’t be the last. She likes having control over the followspot parameters from the console and thinks they can make shows a lot more dynamic than traditional spots. They are also vastly more practical to tour.
“The Best of All Worlds tour has been an interesting journey and huge fun, and the band are always a joy to work with,” says Jamie. “It has been a great experience working with Felix Lighting and their outstanding team – including crew chief Greg Kunit, who also delivered all the CAD and other technical drawings, and lighting techs Justin Souza, Christopher Hassfurther and Jose Baraquio.”
