Their just released new album The Unruly Mess I've Made follows up 2012's Grammy award winning The Heist with the band embarking on a major new world tour. The lighting and visuals design is by Paul 'Arlo' Guthrie and the rig includes Robe BMFL Spots and PATT 2013s.
Arlo has worked with production manager Chris Fussell for some time, and was invited on-board to produce a stage design for this new album cycle, a process that started in late 2015 with numerous discussions around ideas from Ben Haggerty (Macklemore) and Ryan Lewis who really wanted to step up the production from their last tour.
The lighting and video is designed to be scalable and deal with assorted venue sizes in different territories. It features several zig-zagged 'finger' trusses and a large upstage LED screen which is automated for the larger shows and splits into three columns. There are also two side stage IMAG screens.
The 22 x Robe BMFL Spots are the key profile lights of the rig. They are distributed on the overhead trusses and the upstage torms, with two on the floor primarily to illuminate a scenic version of the band's flaming match logo that hangs on a centre upstage truss.
Arlo picked BMFL Spots because he likes the gobo 'layering' facilities and the wide zoom range. It's a fixture he has been using since the launch in September 2014 and which has now become a signature luminaire for Robe.
The four PATT 2013s were used just once on the latest European tour, during the song, Kevin. They were positioned on four stands just behind the band.
Arlo chose the PATT 2013s - from Robe's 'tungsten classics' range because "they physically look cool and have a beautiful soft glow".
Tyler Elich is the lighting director for the tour, operating all lighting using a grandMA2 full size console which is also triggering the media servers - in this case MBoxes. Lighting and video was supplied in Europe by PRG out of the UK, and by Upstaging in North America.
(Jim Evans)
