This has been demonstrated loudly and clearly by the sold-out shows being put on throughout the fall and holiday season by Dead & Company, featuring original band members Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann. Playing to sold-out audiences, the 10-stop coast-to-coast tour is serving up some tasty new arrangements of classic Dead songs with renowned rock guitarist John Mayer filling the role of the departed Jerry Garcia on the guitar and vocals.
Contributing to the immersive experience is a beautiful lightshow anchored around a collection of Nexus 4x1 linear fixtures from Chauvet Professional provided by Upstaging.
Jon Pollak designed the lighting rig, but all the looks were fabricated by longtime veteran jam band LD Chris Ragan. The lighting rig features two off centre unsymmetrical arches lined with the Nexus 4-cell COB RGB LED fixtures. When brought to full intensity, the Nexus panels easily illuminate entire arenas on the tour, which included a Halloween stop at Madison Square Garden.
The vibrant colour output of the Nexus fixtures and a group of COLORado par-style fixtures clustered around the base of the arches change to match the centrepiece of the stage, a huge Steal Your Face 3D sculpted skeleton head logo with a circular projection screen mounted in the forehead. Flanking this immense structure are two massive vertically oriented walls, which display IMAG images of the band.
(Jim Evans)
