Robe for Roger Waters’ Us+Them tour
- Details
Pryderi has worked for Waters since 2013 and as LD / lighting director / lighting programmer since 2016. The Us+Them world touring cycle (see LSi September 2018 for production report) started in May 2017 and runs until December this year. Pryderi specified 97 x Robe BMFL WashBeams for the stadium version of the shows and 57 x BMFL Spots and 8 x BMFL Blades for the arena gigs.
Waters himself is involved with every step of the production for all his touring work.
With video a major part of the show - a media in which Waters has consistently innovated through the years - and particularly with the impressive 65m-wide upstage LED screen for the stadium shows and the fly-in Rolio projection surfaces that bisect the arena shows - Pryderi needed some seriously bright and reliable light sources.
The BMFL WashBeams with their even higher output were a natural upgrade progression for the outdoor shows.The stadium shows feature 15 x BMFL WashBeams rigged above the LED Screen and another 10 per side on two special PA mast ‘torms’
These sleek PA towers were custom designed and built by WIcreations for this latest leg of the tour. Each one is a half metre diameter, matt black coated round steel tube for a fully streamlined and modern aesthetic. The PA rigging cradles holding the slim Clair Brothers arrays are rigged to the towers via an i-beam hoist system, and another 1 tonne hoist is attached to the base of the tower with its steel travelling up the offstage side of the mast, hoisting up 10 BMFL WashBeams along the integrated PA mast track.
Another 20 x BMFL WashBeams are rigged on two offstage torms at each end of the LED Screen - 10 units per torm.
Eight BMFL WashBeams are split over two FOH Towers (4 per tower), and at the base of each of the four FOH Towers is a floor mounted BMFL WashBeam.
The arena show overhead lighting is rigged on three trusses, with 12 x BMFL Spots on the downstage truss.
Another 14 x BMFL Spots are on the mid-stage truss and 15 on the upstage one. Two left and right vertical torms each feature six BMFL Spots per side, and on top of the stage left and right ‘bunkers’ are another four BMFLs per side. The bunkers are part of the sub-stage ‘technical underworld’ construction which protrude slightly above the deck and are convenient for positioning lights! Down below are custom designed areas housing monitor, playback and backline worlds.
Twenty-two floor-based BMFL WashBeams provide piercing aerial looks, and a backlight wash down onto and across the stage, and on this version of the show, luminaires are again linked to the tracking system and used for following Waters.
The 8 x BMFL WashBeams at FOH in the stadiums are utilised for band key lights and primary follow-spotting, and the four fixtures floor mounted at FOH pick out the giant Pig, that gets walked through the crowd in Pigs (Three Different Ones).
Pryderi is using a grandMA2 for control and being the lighting designer, director and programmer for the tour comes close to satisfying his control freak streak he reveals!
Upstaging Inc. from Chicago – with the account handled by John Huddleston – was the lighting supplier for the 2017 North American tour and for Europe / Mexico in 2018 plus the ‘universal’ FOH / control package for the entire tour.
Neg Earth from the UK supplied the European stadium shows in Paris and Italy and the 2018 Latin America tour where Dave Ridgeway and Lindsay Markham take care of all the co-ordination.
UniPix from the UK came onboard after the 2017 north American leg of the tour and are supplying the LED screen worldwide.
(Jim Evans)
