The band has been on this current world tour since the middle of 2008, with the schedule stepping up after the release of their third studio album Day & Age in November last year. It finishes up in February 2010 after visiting Asia and the Far East.
Killers' lighting designer Steven Douglas has worked with Gearhouse SA before on a Kanye West tour three years ago, and says he was confident that the production and service would be "excellent" when it came to the SA leg of the tour.
His original full production touring rig has several different permutations to allow for the variable availability of equipment in the different territories and for the type of show - whether it's their own headliner, a festival set up, etc. For the SA leg, he spec's a straight truss 'festival friendly' adaptation of the rig.
His design - in whichever format - is based on a mix of retro and contemporary elements to suit the band's distinctive musical style. In SA, there were five over-stage trusses plus a drapes truss at the back, with two side trusses - all of which replaced the circular architecture of the original rig.
At the back, were six columns of Lighthouse R16 LED screen (supplied by Gearhouse's sister company LEDVision), each made up from 16 panels.
The Gearhouse Lighting crew of three was chiefed by Jason Fritz. It was the first tour for technicians Nicholas Barnes and Wanda Mkhwanazi, and they were joined by two locals at each venue.
Douglas used a combination of Robe and Martin Professional moving lights. Upstage in between each of the LED columns were five ladder trusses, each rigged with three Robe ColorWash 700E ATs and three i-Pix BB4s.
On the overhead trusses were 34 Martin MAC 2000 Washes and 28 MAC 2000 Profiles and a smattering of Atomic strobes, together with some PARs on the front truss to create a basic stage wash. Fifteen square four-way Moles on the front truss were used for audience blinders.
A total of four MAC 2000 Washes and four Profiles on the side trusses were used for lower cross stage wash lighting. On the floor were seven MAC 2000 washes and six MAC 2000 profiles and seven Atomic strobes, all positioned underneath the screens at the back.
Douglas used a grandMA full-size console to control all the lights and also to run his own Arkaos media server, which stored and played back video content for the Lighthouse columns, and pixel mapped sections of ColorWeb inbuilt into custom backline cages.
Adriaan Van Der Walt and Tom Gordon from Gearhouse Audio looked after the 'house' sound installation, which comprised a standard Gearhouse tried-and-tested sonic formula for the Dome, the main hangs of which were already in place from a show a few days previous.
The main left and right hangs were 12 L-Acoustics V-DOSC cabinets a side with three dV-DOSC under-hangs. A flown array of six Kudo out-fills helped radiate the sound throughout the Dome's voluminous space and 20,000 capacity, together with 12 L-Acoustics SB28 subs per side on the floor and some dV in-fills around the stage lip. The whole system was driven by LA8 amps.
They utilised two digital consoles - the Killers' engineer James Gebhard used his own touring DiGiCo SD7, while Gearhouse supplied a Yamaha PM5D for opening act Zebra & Giraffe, engineered by Marinus Visser.
(Jim Evans)
