USA - On its latest world tour, metal band Underoath wanted to remind its fans of where the group got its start, while celebrating the 20th anniversary of the successful album, They’re Only Chasing Safety. The set begins with what appears to be a dingy living room and gradually evolves into an expansive, modern show with intense lighting effects provided by Sonus Productions out of Moorestown, N.J.
“I always try to tell the story,” said Lenny Sasso, lighting designer for the tour and director of touring accounts at Sonus Productions. “Essentially for the band, this tour was telling the fans, ‘This is where we came from. This is how we wrote the record’.”
With the minimal initial visuals, Underoath gave a glimpse at the physical practice space in which They’re Only Chasing Safety came to life. The setlist featured a playthrough of the album, then added newer music as well as more lighting and production elements along the way. By the time the end of the set neared, Sasso described the visuals as “full tilt”, complemented by a pair of X-Laser Skywriter HPX M-10 fixtures.
“We built the intensity of the show visually, and then later in the set during the new music, the lasers pop in around three-quarters of the way through the set. All of a sudden, laser effects appear during one of the new tunes and it creates a wild energy that carries all the way through the end of the show,” Sasso said.
For one of Underoath’s newer songs, Teeth, Drew Mercadante (Sonus Productions/Supervoid,) lighting/laser programmer for the tour, explained that the band wanted a “really heavy, full-red breakdown” and the lasers outperformed expectations.
“I had never used the lasers in full, pure red before, so I was initially a little worried about whether they’d punch through enough,” Mercadante said. “But no, it was super bright. My favourite part about it was that the universal colour preset of the lasers matched so well with the other lights and I didn’t have to adjust much to match the rest of the rig.”
Bill Charles, touring lighting director for the tour and Sonus Productions’ operations manager, also gave his perspective on the design from his spot at FOH on the road with Underoath.
“It was really fun because the fans have been listening to that album for 20 years and were really on board with the initial throwback-style look. From my experience seeing every single show, it’s a nice progression from that to the more modern, clean design. Then when the lasers kick in, it just takes it over the top,” he said.
In addition to the visual impact that the X-Laser Skywriter fixtures added to the set, they also gave the Sonus crew impressive design and workflow flexibility, especially considering the evolving nature of the set throughout the tour run.
Sasso explained that Mercadante and Jason Giaffo initially programmed the entire show on grandMA 2 – including the Skywriter HPX M-10 lasers – and Charles easily made the on-the-fly additions and adjustments as needed. This was all possible thanks to X-Laser’s Mercury firmware built into the Skywriters.
