An LD with Heart
On Feb. 19, Dale Doucette was just days away from the start of Heart’s 2012 tour as their lighting and set designer. But he had his own event to run. On this night, he was in charge of a separate benefit concert that he conceptualized and organized to benefit Vermont’s Wilmington Memorial Hall, damaged in the floods of Tropical Storm Irene last August.
The floods ravaged the basement of the 100-year-old venue, ruining lighting and sound equipment, stage props, even the stairs that led down to it. As a long-standing volunteer at the venue, Doucette contributed his production talents whenever he was available between tours over the years with Heart (for the last eight years), as well as Michael Jackson, Dan Fogelberg, Aerosmith and David Bowie.
Doucette reached out to his industry contacts and raised $8,000 in equipment so far to help pull off this first Green Mountain Songwriter Series benefit concert. Another $1,000 was donated during the event itself, which highlighted three regional artists. The Twin Valley Student Network taped the performance, and a DVD will be sold to raise additional funds for the hall.
Doucette still needs dimmers and sound equipment, and hopes the money raised from this first charity gig will help with that need. But he temporarily put that aside for the first date on Heart’s tour Feb. 25 in Anaheim, CA. Heart is playing casinos and fairs, with a speaking date on a South By Southwest (SXSW) panel in Austin, TX in March.
Beach Boys Crew Reunion
The Beach Boys reunite for a 50th anniversary tour — a 50-date world trek with Brian Wilson, Mike Love and Al Jardine joining longtime members Bruce Johnston and David Marks. The band invited “Honorary Beach Boy” actor John Stamos to play as well. John Callahan is tour manager. LD, crew and vendors are being sorted out now. (Update: LD Robert Peterson and Touring Lighting Director Chris Stuba have now been confirmed as the design team.)
Wanting to catch the wave during the reunion year, former Beach Boys LD John Rossi reports of a plan for the Beach Boys crew to gather as well. Reuniting a crew from a 50-year period could bring in familiar faces and good vibrations. “A lot of people worked for these guys over the years, some of us for big chunks of time, as I did,” Rossi said. James Grunke, Beach Boys’ keyboard tech from 1988-91, has set up a public event page on Facebook dedicated to the topic. Any interested BB-related persons are invited to join in the discussion. The date in Las Vegas being bandied about is not nailed down yet, as they are hoping to coincide with a date on the tour. Input is encouraged.
Type Beach Boys Alumni and Friends Reunion into Facebook to find the event page, or go directly to http://www.facebook.com/events/324589067574537/.
Not His First Rodeo
LD John Dickson is starting his 16th year as the LD/programmer for the annual Houston Rodeo concerts. With 20 nightly shows for each year’s event, Dickson does the math. “That’s 320 performances total, almost a year of my life of shows, just from this one long-running gig! But who’s counting?” This year’s rodeo kicked off Feb 28 with the recently-retired Alabama, running nightly through March 18 at Reliant Stadium with Kid Rock, Lady Antebellum, ZZ Top, Reba McEntire, Train, Miranda Lambert, Zac Brown Band, Brad Paisley, The Band Perry, Enrique Iglesias, Alan Jackson and more.
Dickson says each band gets its own looks. “Most bands bring their LD. They meet with us and we program/operate for their performance. We program their show starting around noon on day of show. They usually get about four or five looks per song (intro/verse/chorus/bridge/solo) and then we tweak it live.”
As the rig is hung above the dirt-filled rodeo ring, dust flies after the day’s activities, including the Calf Scramble, Mutton Bustin’, Lil’ Rustlers Rodeo, Horse Barrel Racing and Bull Riding. Dickson can’t count the tons of dust he’s cleaned over 16 years. “Dust is still the enemy,” he notes. “We clean about one-fourth of the rig every night, continuously.”
Feist
LD Brent Clark continues as LD/Lighting Director with Feist, hitting Australia/New Zealand, with the U.S. set for May. “It’s a small show, very scaled down. No moving lights, all side and floor lights. Very stark, but pretty cool. Front projection video that gets projected onto the band as well as our screen. I am not doing any video for a change, so that’s cool.”
Quick Cues…
Production Designer John Orchard recently finished a special Bee Gees engagement… Production Manager/LD Bill Lotzko was all set to go out with Lindsay Buckingham, but a band member’s illness forced a postponement… Snow Patrol is plowing through on tour with the long-running collaborative team of Video Director Blue Leach, LD Davey Sherwin and media server operator/programmer Robin Haddow…LD Mark “Fifi” Miller is busy doing lots of bar mitzvahs and one-offs, but in April he performs a miracle, turning a convention center into a Holy Land. Last year he parted the Red Sea at 40-foot wide by 40-foot deep on a 180-foot stage…
It doesn’t take a miracle to get your news into Designer Watch, just email Debi Moen at dmoen@plsn.com.
