After recently topping the US Billboard country airplay chart with his 12th No.1 single, Drunk On A Plane, Dierks Bentley and director Wes Edwards have just added the CMA (Country Music Award) Music Video of the Year Award to the song's other accolades.
The country artist's 2014 tour is called Riser, after the recent album of the same name. It kicked off in May in Charlotte, North Carolina, with sold-out shows in amphitheatres and arenas across the United States and Canada - concluding in December.
The tour further builds upon Chris's impressive lighting design and rig for Dierks Bentley on last year's Locked & ReLoaded Tour with Miranda Lambert - also controlled using the Jands Vista system.
"I can't say enough positive things about Jands Vista," says Chris, who first used the Vista platform in 2008, and subsequently invested in his own T2, S1 and M1. "I know Vista will handle whatever I throw at it. We did a massive show at one venue where we had 23 universes of instruments running, with only our tour floor package. The entire lighting rig (besides our floor package) had to be swapped over and the console handled it all."
Chris continues, "Dierks is really into the visual aspect of his performances, and the Vista platform, in my opinion, puts me in the best situation to succeed in making his shows detailed in a shorter amount of programming time."
Chris is using his S1/M1 as a tracking backup on the Riser tour, in addition to his main T2 desk. The consoles network through a Pathport VIA switch and output DMX via Pathport OCTO Artnet Nodes.
"It all works wonderfully, and it's extremely fast," says Chris. "I also love the speed of editing very detailed timing via the timeline."
In addition to the larger venues, the tour also plays a selection of fairs, festivals and casinos, meaning that Chris has to reconfigure the lighting rig based on venue capabilities.
"Without the fixture swap/cloning features of the T2, I would not be able to get through a touring cycle without having to start from scratch on the non-tour dates. The timeline is one of my favourite things about the Vista platform. When I'm programming I can bang out my cue lists and then go back and get into the details per cue, per instrument, per parameter, to adjust all of my timing, etc. It is extremely fast to edit a song once the looks are in. I do quite a few 'follow' cues, and making detailed timing adjustments is a breeze within the timeline."
For the Riser tour, Chris is using a huge rig (provided by Rod 'Red' Gibson of Christie Lites), including the new Martin MAC Quantums, MAC Viper Wash DXs, MAC Vipers, MAC Auras, MAC 700 Profiles, Elation Platinum Beam 5R and Atomic Strobes, along with some conventionals.
(Jim Evans)
(Jim Evans)
