Congrats to all the 2015 Parnelli Award winners, including Lighting Designer of the Year Sooner Routhier for Imagine Dragons, Lighting Director of the Year Cosmo Wilson for AC/DC, Set/Scenic Designer of the Year LeRoy Bennett for Maroon 5 and Video Director of the Year Mike Drew for Rascal Flatts. .
Mark Junior Jacobson is working on a new Tool festival rig, which debuts at the Monster Mash Festival in Tempe on Halloween. Breck Haggerty is working on the video aspects of it as well. “We plan to put it into full use next year sometime,” Jacobson said. He’s also designing a theatre tour for Puscifer’s November to December run. As he recently joined IATSE 728, he’s put in some time doing fill-in TV gigs as well.
LD Mark Wheatley returns with Ian Anderson on a new tour titled Jethro Tull: The Rock Opera. “It’s essentially a greatest hits show, and it has been pretty well received so far,” he said. The tour kicked off in October in the U.K., played two shows in Russia, hit South America using local production and starts in North America in November.
LD Joel Reiff had a great experience lighting the Hollywood Vampires at Rock in Rio in Brazil, which he calls the “World’s Best One-Off Gig.” He’s now back out with Peter Frampton on an acoustic tour. It follows their full band summer tour, where Frampton co-headlined with Cheap Trick on most dates. “Talk about two amazing bands. LD Larry Melero with Cheap Trick and I had a blast working together, though I must confess I considered poisoning his after-show cocktail so that I could light them just once. He killed it every night, and their entire crew (and band) rocked.”
LD/video director David Davidian has been donning quite a selection of hats lately. There were three with Reiff and the Hollywood Vampires as tour manager and production manager, while helping out with video. He then sported another cap as tour manager for Alice Cooper.
Tony Bennett’s longtime LD Ron Farino reported in after wrapping up a successful 45-date tour with Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga. “We spent most of the summer in Europe, finishing up the year in the States with just Tony. Tony just celebrated his 89th birthday, and the crowds and applause continue to grow!”
While LD Ed Warren prepares for Mumford & Sons’ Australian tour in November, he’s also updating the production design for their U.K. arena tour in December. Simultaneously, he’s got designs in the works for Bears Den, Father John Misty, SBTRKT, Petite Meller and Rhodes.
LD David Sherwin of Light Image Design recently started a world tour with Foals. Next stop: South America.
LD Seth Jackson of 3srCreative has completed a busy festival season with C3 Presents, serving as the festival lighting designers and coordinators for Lollapalooza, Landmark Festival for the National Mall and Austin City Limits. “Next year looks to be an even busier and possibly international festival season,” he said. 3srCreative is also designing the first full production tour for the a cappella group Straight No Chaser’s 2015-2016 tour.
LD Scott Pearson continues to light Kansas, compiling 97 shows this year with “not much time to do anything else! Next year is lining up to be pretty special with lots of dates booked already. Plenty in March, April 2016 in the U.S.”
While LD Bryan Schrumpf continues house lighting duties at the Austin City Limits Live at the Moody Theatre, he has other projects going on. “I now have assembled quite the previz studio and have been working on lighting design for a downtown club project and a church conference as well as having LDs come in to plot and visualize their projects.”
LD Chris Ragan recently started touring with Dead & Company, which consists of former Grateful Dead band members Mickey Hart, Bob Weir and Bill Kreutzmann. Although Phil Lesh is absent, Dead & Company also includes John Mayer, Oteil Burbridge and Jeff Chimenti. The U.S. dates run Oct. 29-Dec. 31.
LD Craig Gaff and LD Lawrence Upton have formed a new alliance. “We started our little boutique design company, UV Lighting, this past summer with tours with Jane’s Addiction, and The Offspring.”
LD Marc Janowitz is doing double-duty as LD and PM on My Morning Jacket. He’s also putting Trey Anastasio back out on the road.
LD Gregg Maltby finished Boston for now, went out with Huey Lewis & The News until the middle of October, then hit New Zealand and Australia with Neil Diamond for five weeks.
LD David “Gurn” Kaniski has been juggling tours, one-offs and special events including Offspring, Jason Derulo, Rise Against, Women in Film Awards, St. Lucia Jazz Fest. He’s currently coming up with designs for several projects into next year including Derulo again, as well as Adam Lambert and Universoul Circus.
LD John Dickson lists “lots of one-offs,” including a USO gig at Ft. Bliss in El Paso.
LD Andy Hurst has designed and programmed a number of tours. He’s out running the console on The Prodigy, and sent operators out on Faithless, Madeon, Knife Party, Sigma, Netsky, and Rebel Sound.
LD Han Henze of Keylight LLC is designing the lighting for two new shows at CMT, whose Studio 330 in Nashville is currently undergoing renovation. He’s also been programming for various LD friends, including CMT’s Crossroads for LD Mike Swinford with REO Speedwagon and Sara Evans; and for LD Monica Rose for two television shoots at the Ryman Auditorium: Nitty Gritty Dirt Band 50th Anniversary and The Americana Awards.
After a year of touring with Todd Rundgren, LD Martin
Thomas is assisting regular touring LD Ryan Campbell on a brief run with Canadian band Our Lady Peace. In addition, Thomas returns for his 12th anniversary with Alan Parsons for several US, Mexico and Central American dates. Another milestone — of a more personal nature — was the tour of colleges he scouted out with his youngest son just before LDI.
Smashing Pumpkins Tour Update
After the launch of the Smashing Pumpkins’ 2015 tour — and very shortly after the “Wide Focus” feature on the tour was written (it was printed in PLSN’s Oct. 2015 issue, page 56) — Todd Erickson was brought on board to shape the lighting looks. After starting as a lighting tech, he took over lighting design duties and expects to serve as the LD for the band’s next tour.
What holiday shows are you working on? Share your news with Debi Moen at dmoen@plsn.com.
