The Rolling Stones’ 50 & Counting tour, marking a half century since the band performed their first shows in late 1962, also marks the last time the band can tour with a set design dreamed up by Mark Fisher, whose creativity could be seen in the design for every one of the band’s major touring sets since 1989. Fisher, the 66-year-old founder and managing director of Stufish, passed away June 25, a day after the Stones’ final show on the North American leg of the tour. He died in London after a long illness.
“Everything else flowed from this,” said LD Patrick Woodroffe, of Fisher’s creative adaptation of the band’s iconic lips and tongue logo into the set design for the tour, who spoke to PLSN before Fisher’s passing. With a long roster of special guests, including former band members Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor, 50 & Counting stands as a commercial, creative and critical smash hit — one of the most talked-about tours of the year.
Patrick Woodroffe
Lighting Designer
It started with three lighting trusses with PAR cans…
“I started with them back in 1982 with just PAR cans and, over the years, with technology changing — the Stones have always looked forward, rather than backwards. But for the 50th Anniversary tour, it was only right to play songs from their early career and have staging, lighting and video content that would reflect this. The choices that we make in terms of color, pace, focus and so on develop from tour to tour, but they are always different, simply because the lighting design is different each time. Sometimes there is a scenic background to light, sometimes there is a video screen to play against, sometimes nothing at all. There’s the technical aspect of the lighting, and then there’s the instinctual aspect on how a song will look. It all starts with the music. So although a lot of the songs have the same feeling — “Sympathy for the Devil” unsurprisingly is always lit in red — the way they appear to an audience is always different.”
Iconic Lips and Tongue in the design…
“Set designer Mark Fisher said it was a no brainer to have the Stones lips and tongue logo in the set design to form the stage itself. Everything else flowed from this. At the same time, we wanted to have a show that developed scenically with the video, and so the stage set reveals the large rear LED screen by degrees throughout the show. It wasn’t a difficult decision to follow the line of the circular runway that describes the tongue part of the logo and the curved top lip with a series of lighting trusses. We then framed the rear video screen with an arched truss that raises and straightens out halfway through the show to allow the video screen to be seen.
“The biggest secret weapon is the people that we work with. Mark Fisher is fantastic, it’s always a pleasure working with him on these big tours. Lighting director Ethan Weber and Dave Hill, who programmed and direct the show together, have been with us a long time, so having them makes it a great team. Between the four of us, we have many years of Stones shows under our belts. Ethan and Dave know the music so well and are so much a part of the Stones’ world that having them here again makes the job not only easy but also a pleasure and a delight.”
From Clubs to Stadiums
“For the surprise club shows we did, I get special dispensation from the rest of the lighting team to actually run the lighting board myself. So it makes a change and is wonderful to be able to go to that intimate size venue. This is an arena tour, but we are doing the big Hyde Park outdoor show in July… we had to do that. Playing in the heart of London is fantastic. That will be another stage set up because it’s so massive. For these arena shows, we light the audience as well to bring them into it. The audience is such an intrinsic part of the show that we decided on this American leg to hang on to the audience lighting trusses we used for our pay per view in New Jersey last year. Sam Pattinson produced all our video content with a team of film makers and animators from different places. The balance between archive, custom content and live I-Mag is an important one to get right, and I think in this instance, we’re spot on. Having probably worked with almost every major lighting, video and staging supplier over the last 30 years, for this tour’s leg we have Upstaging providing the lighting in the U.S., and they do a great job.”
Thirty years of my life…
“The Stones have been a big part of my life, some sort of constant to which I’ve always returned, so it is with some pride and certainly a keen sense of privilege and good fortune that I find myself still working with them 30 years later. Even though I know these people so well, the band, the crew, I can still pinch myself sometimes when I think what an extraordinary opportunity this is. Long may it continue.”
Dave Hill
Lighting Director & Programmer
“This wonderful section of my life started in 1988 with a Mick Jagger solo tour of Australia and then, in 1989, The Rolling Stones tours started with Steel Wheels. I have programmed every show the Stones have done since then under Patrick’s leadership. Ethan came onboard in 1994/95 and took over running the shows in 1997 while I spent more time at home with my young family. When the 50th anniversary shows were announced last year, I decided to return to running the shows again, and it’s worked very well. Ethan now takes on all the spot calling and key lighting, which is a crucial park of the show, and it frees me up to concentrate fully on the live performance. The music is still very much the same, but lighting development has been advancing at a phenomenal rate. In 1989, we were still using large amounts of PAR cans, with the VL2 and the newly released VL4. Vari-Lite still dominated the world of moving lights back then. Today we are still using Vari-Lites with the VL3500 Wash FX doing most of the work in the show, but they are complemented by an array of fixtures from a variety of companies to complete the show. The only incandescent fixtures in the rig are Mole Fay audience lights. I’ve enjoyed every moment of the last 25 years and hope for a few more yet.”
Ethan Weber
Lighting Director
“I’m the (relative) new one here, with only about 20 years tenure with The Rolling Stones. Because of the nature of the November/December shows — limited rehearsal/programming time, special guests, pay-per-view, etc., Patrick [Woodroffe] thought it best to have both Dave [Hill] and I involved, and we’ve continued on through the spring/summer tour. Dave did most of the programming, but I have more show experience with them over the past few years, so I’ve been able to help out with some of the practicalities and continuity. For the shows, I call spots, run all the specials, and try to keep Dave from doing too many cheesy audience sweeps. After all these years, I still look forward to going out front every night and being a part of these great shows — not a bad way to make a living.”
The Rolling Stones 50 & Counting Tour
Crew
Lighting & Production Designer: Patrick Woodroffe
Set Designer: Mark Fisher
Lighting Programmer/Director: Dave Hill
Lighting Director: Ethan Weber
Lighting Crew Chief: Ron Schilling (U.S.), Andy “Fraggle” Porter (U.K.)
Lighting Techs: Jason “Tex” Bowman, Chris Keene, Marta Kwiat, Mike Ponsiglione, Brian Reed, Mike Turner, Josh “Skuzzy” Wagner, Mark Weil
Video Content Producer: Sam Pattinson
Video Director: Dave Neugebauer
Assistant Video Director: Nic Keiser
Video Systems/Camera Engineer: Wolfgang Schram
Crew Chief/Lead LED Tech: Ben Rader
Projectionist/LED Tech: Scott Grund
Long Lens Camera/LED Tech: Adam Cline
Hand-held Cameraman/EFP Sound Tech: Scott Lutton
Jib Operator/EFP Camera: Jeremy Miget
Long Lens Camera/Tech: Tom Braislin
Hand-held Camera: Cliff Hannon
Production Manager: Dale “Opie” Skjerseth
Tour Manager: Frankie Enfield
Stage Manager: Kurt Wagner
Riggers: Norman Gomes, Joel Gburek
Lighting Cos: Upstaging (U.S.), Neg Earth (U.K.)
Upstaging Account Reps: John Huddleston, Dave Ridgeway
Video Co: PRG Nocturne (Bob Brigham)
Staging Co: Tait Towers (James “Winky” Fairorth, Adam Davis)
Trucking Co: Upstaging (Account Rep: Chanon DiCarlo)
Gear
Lighting
2 grandMA2 lighting consoles
124 Vari*Lite VL3500 Wash FX
6 Vari*Lite VL3500 Spots
64 Clay Paky Alpha Spot 1500s
69 Clay Paky Sharpys
45 Martin MAC Auras
36 Color Kinetics ColorBlaze TRXs
14 Color Kinetics ColorBlasts
48 2-Light Moles
13 Lycian M2 Spots (8 x FOH, 5 x Rears
4 DF50 Hazers
Video (720p HD-SDI)
1 Vidicon V-18 LED display (40’ x 66’, HxW)
2 L-R rear-projection screens (15’ x 27’ each)
2 Barco 20K projectors, converged
2 Mbox EXtreme media servers, in dual output mode. (One channel is for the USC screen, the other is for I-Mag)
2 Vista Systems Spyder 353 PiP device
3 Aja KiPro digital video recorders
3 Toshiba DVD burners
6 GVG LDK cameras
GVG Kayak 1.5 ME HD mixer/switchers
GVG 32×32 matrix and terminal gear
For more Rolling Stones 50 and Counting tour photo by Steve Jennings, go to www.plsn.me/RollingStonesExtras
