Mark Payne, lighting designer, director and programmer for Rod Stewart, credits the late Ian Knight, who died in March 2010, for the general concept and set design for the 2011 Rod Stewart & Stevie Nicks Heart & Soul tour.
“I designed the lighting around Ian’s set design, which included eight towers around the main risers.” Stewart’s interest in a New York City backdrop led to the decision to include big screens for video — with Lars Brogaard coming up with the idea of “hanging a portrait screen in front of the main screen, mostly for Rod.”
Along with the two main screens, digital imagery appears across the set’s riser and towers. Payne’s Wholehog 3 console controls it all via a Catalyst media server. Tito Sabatini, based in Brazil, provided the video content, with the production crew and Rod Stewart himself involved in its development.
There’s not a lot of smoke — a reflection of Stewart’s preference for an “uncluttered stage” and Payne’s preference for “clean, sharp images.”
Paul “Arlo” Guthrie, lighting designer/director for Stevie Nicks, who also oversaw her video content, had full access to the entire lighting rig on the tour, but came up with a different visual look and feel for his artist.
“We used two Barco projectors onto a cyc that hung to mask Rod’s equipment during Stevie’s set and projected content,” noted Guthrie, who used a grandMA 2 console and MBox EXtreme media server to control the visuals.
