Ray LaMontagne passes through with Adlib
- Details
The UK dates saw the artist get up close to his fans in an intimate touring environment, joined onstage by Wilco bassist Jon Stirratt. It’s the first acoustic tour by LaMontagne for seven years and has been “extremely successful”.
The production team was led by production manager Mark Jones. Adlib provided an L-Acoustics K2 sound system with system tech Mike Thorpe and the lighting rig was looked after by Adlib’s Kevin Byatt.
The K2 was actually specified by Mark Jones and LaMontagne’s FOH engineer Ryan Pickett was very happy to go with that decision, “It’s such a smooth and ‘musical’ speaker and that’s why Mark chose it and why I love it so much,” says Ryan.
The K2 also gave him and Mike the consistency they needed venue to venue, which was a mix of theatres and Apollo style rooms.
The average setup featured 10 or 12 x K2 elements flown left and right, with two KS28 subs a side on the ground, together with some Kara and ARCS which were used as front & side fillers primarily for the stalls downstairs.
Ryan specified an Avid Profile console, while monitor engineer Rob Elliot used a DiGiCo SD12. Both artists utilised Sennheiser IEMs.
Jeremy Roth has been a lighting professional since the 1990s and now concentrates on touring and art installation work with light and other visual media. He joined the Ray LaMontagne team in the autumn of 2017 after LaMontagne saw one of his shows for Wilco.
The design for this UK tour – his first with Adlib - was a continuation of last year’s acoustic tour, with the main parameters being that the rig needed to fit into a bus trailer for the US legs!
The design is comprised of three layers with a downstage portal acting as a proscenium to help draw the audience in and towards the two performers in the centre, particularly when they are playing large rooms with their own large architectural prosceniums. Their own proscenium is a hand-painted muslin drop giving an illusion of depth with a cut-out portal.
Moving light fixtures - four x Robe BMFL Spots and four Martin MAC Quantum Washes - were concealed behind the portal and downstage legs and used to project custom gobo patterns onto the scrim and backdrop.
Other fixtures on the rig were minimal - eight MAC Aura LED washes, a Claypaky Mythos2 and two GLP X4 Bar20s.
(Jim Evans)
