Trey Anastasio rocks out with Robe
- Details
Marc is currently on tour with the artist with whom he’s worked since 2012. It is the third TAB tour that he has designed, and this time, the design brief was to break everything right down to basics and take a pure-lighting approach with no video, scenic or backdrops.
The touring lighting package also had to fit into a 15ft trailer towed behind the bus and dovetail into a ‘top’ package being supplied by the local promoters at each venue. So Marc looked for small, light and bright fixtures and chose 25 x Robe Spikies and 13 x Spiiders.
These are positioned on nine three-runged lighting ladders flown from the upstage truss at different heights, creating a chevron shape across the back of the stage to provide a dynamic background element to the stage.
Each ladder is rigged with two Spikies (one on the top and one on the bottom rung) and a Spiider in the middle rung. The remaining Spikies are on the floor clamped to C-stands and mimicking the shape of the chevron above.
Marc has worked with various different Robe fixtures for many years on a variety of projects and knows they are “roadworthy and full of good features”, and previous TAB designs have featured MMX Spots as the workhorse profiles.
The Spikie was new to him and the intention was to use them as sculptural beams and for texturing the performance space, while occupying very little space in the truck. The Spiiders were also new, picked for their hybrid functionality, a light he could use as a solid wash / beam with a face that looks interesting in its own right.
For Red Rocks, the BMFL Spots were specifically chosen over other hard-edged fixtures for their intensity, their wide zoom and the “almost infinite” amount of beam and colour combinations available to create eye-catching high-impact beam effects. They were positioned in a row on the ground about 30’ from the upstage rock formations.
Marc knew from previous experience that he could drop in any colour, heavy saturation levels, overlay multiple gobos and animation disks, zoom all the way out and still have enough light to “make those rocks really stand out as a visual element”.
The dramatic rock formation is dominated by a majestic tilted disc-shaped rock that sits behind the stage, with a massive vertical rock angled outwards from stage right and several angled outcrops angled outwards to stage left forming a cradle utilized as a 9,500-capacity seated area.
It’s an absolutely breathtaking natural environment that completely dispenses with the need for a stage set.
Apart from integrating the scenery into the performance, it was webcast live, which required additional attention to lighting levels and balancing to ensure the cameras had plenty of options and substance to work with.
Marc is using a Hog 4 full Boar for control on the road, and the lighting kit is being supplied by VER. There’s a special cooperation going on with monitor engineer Mark “Bruno” Bradley who allows the lighting department to place a side light in his space each day. Chase Nichols is the lighting systems tech and all the technicals are being coordinated on the road by production manager, Paul “PI” Ingwerson.
(Jim Evans)
