Every year I design the set and lighting for a traveling rock show called “A Taste of Chaos”. Ten bands will perform on 2 stages every night. Each year I take a few young kids and try to school them in the art of setting up and lighting a rock show. Some pass with flying colors while others flounder miserably.
This year I have 3 name acts that could each draw 2-3000 people per night tops. But on the same bill together we can draw 8000 punters, which qualify as a decent draw in any arena. I try and design something that looks cool, yet is affordable and easy to set up. But that soon changes as many bands want something a bit extra. One band may want 20 extra strobes. One will want to use all four back drops. One has a massive set they can’t live without. So pretty quickly, my 2 man crew doubles in size along with the lighting package.
My friend Tommy runs this show for me every year. He is a capable lighting director, crew chief, rigger and all around get 'er done type of guy. He usually runs the lighting for the headline act, but his main job is to school the kids. We agree that he goes out and lights all the acts for the first few gigs, then lets the kids each light a band or two for their 30 minute sets.
Then we sit back and chuckle as the kids flounder for a few gigs. The number one thing I tell them is to “Never Leave the band in the Dark”. But of course, they do. Sometimes for 5-10 seconds til they look up at the stage and shit themselves when they notice the entire stage is as dark as the arena.
The number two fault they all have is that they are trying to do too much. Rather than set a nice pretty scene for a verse, they would prefer to move the lights constantly, have them chasing intensities, while bumping colors on every beat. I swear that if they had one more hand, the strobes would be constantly going off as well. The one thing I do notice, is that all these bands look the same when you run the lights in this manner. Doesn’t anybody want to do things differently?
Eventually I get up and simply grab their hands, look them straight in the eye and impolitely yell “Stop it”. They look at me amazed, because they actually think they are doing a great job and are totally into it. But eventually they get it. I don’t know if that is because they are afraid of me or they realize their mistake. There is one simple rule here. When the music is fast and furious, so can the lighting. But as soon as the music slows down, the lights need to as well.
