Robe tours with Phoebe Bridgers in UK and USA
- Details
The LA-based singer / songwriter released her second album, Punisher, in 2020. With live events and touring disrupted at the time due to covid, she is now mid-way through a 2022 world tour which started in the US, before moving to Europe for a festival blast through the summer, and ultimately culminating in a UK headliner tour.
For the US leg of the tour, Spike specified a full Robe moving light rig – with 24 x MegaPointes, 24 x Spiiders, 16 x Tetra1s and six Fortes – all supplied by Gateway Studios & Production from St Louis.
Spike first encountered Robe’s products whilst touring Europe in 2014 and has been a big brand advocate ever since. Most of his tours for the last five or six years have featured either Pointes or MegaPointes.
For the Phoebe Bridgers design, five of the Fortes were positioned on the deck with the sixth used as a centre rear key spot flown on a mid-stage truss. Spike describes Robe’s current most powerful moving light as “fantastic” and appreciates the streamlined size for the brightness and power they emit.
Of the 24 x MegaPointes, 16 were in the air and eight on the floor and they were the primary workhorses of the rig. “They look great and are extremely reliable,” he noted.
Eight of the Spiiders were on floor towers as sidelight, used heavily in place of traditional front lighting, with the rest mostly positioned as flown backlight. He likes the deep colours of the fixture, and also enjoys the option of the flower effect for subtle moments. The Tetra1 bars were positioned along the floor behind the row of performance risers and were used for creating beautiful kinetic flowing effects.
In moving to the UK and Europe for a run that largely consisted of festivals, the choice was made to only travel with a floor package, rather than the entire flown rig as well. Whilst attempts were made to secure the exact same Robe fixtures for the fixtures they would carry, some concessions had to be made as per availability. That said, they were able to obtain the eight Robe Spiiders and eight MegaPointes, which were supplemented with some other fixtures in place of the Fortes and Tetra1s. All fixtures were supplied by northwest London based Colour Sound Experiment.
For the final UK headline shows in Manchester and London, Liverpool based rental company Adlib supplied the flown rig for all shows including the upstage Forte, and the 16 x over-stage MegaPointes.
The show was a careful blend of lighting and video, all cued from Spike’s Avolites Diamond 9 330 console in tandem with a disguise d3 media server rack. Spike was also responsible for the design and creation of all the playback video content.
The tour is scheduled to continue touring Latin America in the fall, and on to early 2023, when they will visit Australia as part of the touring Laneway Festival.
