Lighting Co
4Wall Lighting
Venue
Various (tour)
Crew
Lighting Director/Programmer: Mitchell Schellenger
Production/Stage Manager: Brendan McDonough
Tour Manager: Kyle MacKinnon
4Wall Account Rep: Cathy Berbana Lloyd
Trucking Co: Xtreme Transportation
Gear
1 MA Lighting grandMA2 console
1 grandMA2 onPC command wing
2 grandMA NPUs
18 Clay Paky Sharpys
14 Martin MAC Auras
6 Martin Atomic 3000 strobes
5 Chroma-Q ColorForce 48 LED fixtures
12 Color Kinetics ColorBlast TRX fixtures
755 30W light bulbs
1 4’ x 26’ custom light bulb sign
1 ETC 24 x 2kW Sensor dimmer pack
1 Reel EFX DF-50 hazer
1 Look Solutions Viper NT fog machine
More Third Eye Blind tour photos by Steve Jennings at www.plsn.me/3EBextras
Designer Insights
Mitchell Schellenger,
Lighting Director
“The motto of Third Eye Blind is ‘Born in Shadow, Made of Lions, Loud as F**k.’ Visually, we play off of that in order to progress the show in a way that represents the band and their sound. The intro is very dark, strobe hits excite the crowd as the band emerges, providing just enough light to show that they have arrived. The first few songs are also monochromatic, with only backlight. I wanted to really play with shadow and depth to key in on the motto. During the song ‘Wounded,’ the band has fully emerged, we illuminate the signature lightbulb sign — and the cellphones quickly come out.
“We carried a decent little package of gear for the entire tour, however, each venue and its limitations obviously dictated what I put in the air, how much of the ground package we used, etc… I also really relied on hard edge fixtures in the house systems for specials on the band. A lot of venues are starting to add a set of moving LED washes to their systems, so I would typically clone some of my MAC Auras up to the house rig and play around with their gear in that fashion. I really always try to fill a stage appropriately. In essence, some house systems might have 100 movers, but if it overpowers the ground package, you want to tone it down.
“I had a grandMA2 lite and a Command Wing (backup) on the road with me for this tour. The MA2 has quickly become my go-to desk. It is so powerful for touring and I can’t express how glad I was to have it on this run, which leads me into the next question. I had zero time to program this show. I was just returning home from a fall tour, when I got the call from Third Eye Blind’s people. They were about three or four shows into their tour and needed to make a change. I was in NYC the next morning. I had a day to basically ‘transition,’ if you will, and I really saw how much work needed to be done. The first night my bunk became my studio, and I devised a plan to re-design the package with the gear at hand. I wanted to keep as much of the gear as possible — adding shipping costs and time to swap fixtures was not an element I needed in the scenario. The first few shows were punted while I got proper looms built, things labeled, etc., so the rig could tour correctly, all while programming about three to five songs a night. About a week or so in, we were in good shape, with a full setlist programmed.
“This has been one of my favorite camps to work with so far. Despite their rough start in the tour, they were all very welcoming and made it easy for me to focus on getting their show to the level it needed to be at. I always engage a band creatively because it is my job to represent their show and sound in a visual manner, and right from the start these guys were excited to have these discussions. Since I didn’t have normal time to create a show from the start for them It was awesome having their input. It got us to where we needed to be very quickly. A great band and crew always make a tour more successful.”
