Kid Rock strikes up excitement with Chauvet in Detroit
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On 12 September, Detroit’s hometown hero Kid Rock christened the multi-use complex by performing its inaugural concert as part of a six-night home stand that sold out in one day. Just before he took the stage, the big arena’s house lights went dark and Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’ (the city’s unofficial anthem) blared over the sound system. When the song’s famous line Born and raised in South Detroit came on, the entire hall erupted with cheers and, as if on cue, the darkness was simultaneously blown away by intense bright light.
This lighting salvo would be the first of many ballyhoo moments in the rollicking Little Caesars Arena kickoff concert that designer Nook Schoenfeld dramatized with STRIKE 4 fixtures from Chauvet Professional. Kid Rock’s longtime LD used 12 of the multi-formatted luminaires supplied by Upstaging, Inc., flying the units 40-feet in the air, six across the front truss, two on the middle truss to light the first ten rows, and four on side truss to provide 270° lighting in the arena.
In addition to providing intense bursts of light at key moments during the two-hour show, which featured a guest appearance by Uncle Kracker, video salutes to veterans and Detroit sports legends, animated stage skits and hard-driving music, the STRIKE 4s helped facilitate Kid Rock’s strong connection to his audience.
“This artist has a close relationship with his crowd and wants to see them,” said Schoenfeld. “We make the crowd part of the show. It’s just one big party, where Kid Rock demands audience participation at times -- and they give it to him. The STRIKEs provided us with some good focused audience light. They have the ability to manually pan/focus each cell wherever I want. I can hang the fixtures straight off the front truss, yet focus the bulbs at one designated section of the arena, without any extra pipes and clamps. My artist actually calls out certain sections of the arena at one point during his performance. The STRIKES allow me to light up certain sections while leaving others dark. Bob (Kid Rock) and I appreciate that.”
At times, Schoenfeld also used the STRIKE 4s to set the stage for the concert’s stunning laser light show. “The STRIKE fixtures serve as a tool I use to close everyone’s eye for a fraction of a split second,” he said. “Then when they open their eyes again, they would see a cool laser look fill the entire arena. The reaction is like, ‘Where did that come from? Holy cow, that’s cool.’”
“I work hand in hand with Scotty Wilson from PDI, who programs and runs my lasers,” continued Nook. ‘We follow parameters, so we coexist. I will never bring up the STRIKEs if we are at a part of the show that demands a big laser look, because that would defeat the purpose of what we’re doing. But we trade off quite a bit, so I can slam the audience in the face then black the Strikes out in zero time while he slaps in a solo laser look. The audible gasps Scotty gets us are lovely.”
Schoenfeld who drew his plot in Vectorworks and programmed the show at Upstaging’s Previz suite for a week with his “old pal Eric Wade”, says that the power-packed show at Little Caesars was the result of how his lights were used, not how many were on this rig. “I don’t require a lot of lights, but what I do like to do is use everything that I have on my rig to its maximum potential, and spread it out across a wide span,” he explained. “We aimed for a big rock show in Detroit, and following this approach, that’s exactly what we provided.”
(Jim Evans)
