There are so many sad stories regarding the recent Orlando Pulse nightclub massacre. LD Kevin Cauley shares one of them. Cauley has been doing lots of programming lately, including the May 26 Red Nose Day live broadcast from Los Angeles for NBC, which raised money for needy children. He was now starting on programming this season of La Voz Kids, a Spanish version of The Voice for youngsters, produced by Telemundo. “The show tapes three rounds in Orlando over a four or five month period,” he explains. “We had just reconvened for the third round. The attack (at Pulse nightclub) happened the night before.”
Jonathan Camuy, 24, was a Telemundo employee and crew member of the show. The night before he was scheduled to arrive on site at Universal Studios Orlando for the new round of shows, he stopped in at the Pulse nightclub for Latin night. He was one of the 49 victims.
“From what I’m told, along with general production duties, his primary role was audience loader,” Cauley says. “We heard a report that he was found in a position that suggested he was shielding a mother in her 20’s from the killer during the attack. Another sobering story I heard was that once the story broke that next morning and the victims’ loved ones realized that their friends or family may have been involved, the entire club was filled with the sound of ringing cell phones that went unanswered. Truly awful.” Cauley, a Los Angeles-based LD, adds that Orlando is “a bit on edge right now.”
Weezer’s Summer Outing
LD Robb Jibson has designed Weezer’s summer tour — the set, lights and content — in his first foray with the Los Angeles-based band. He travels with its early days before handing the console to lighting director Franklin Antonio.
“It’s pretty fun and unique,” Jibson says. “We created a fun beach scene loosely based on the current album cover,” he explains, pointing out the life guard stand. We did some stuff that was new to me: vinyl printing on aluminum! And a printed carpet! We also did some custom fabrication. We have all these plastic reflectors built into the truss sections.”
Keighley Gets Back on the Bus
For the first time in more than 20 years, David Keighley returned to the tour bus as a member of the crew. He was reprising his role from the 1980s with Adam Ant, again as LD but with the added title of production manager this time.
“I designed the look for the show and worked with my programmer/operator Pete Watts with the lighting design,” he says. “We kept the look ‘basic rock ‘n’ roll’ — a simple three-truss system — as Adam wanted to keep the look and feel of the show in the same vein of an early 1980’s show. Adam played his number one album from 1981, Kings of the Wild Frontier, in its entirety for the first 45 minutes of the show. The reason behind the tour was that Sony has released a special 35th year anniversary box set of the Kings album. Adam and the band then played another hour of his hits and songs from 1978 to 1985.”
The U.K. tour was a sellout, Keighley says, starting in May with the final June 11 show as headliner of the Big Top Stage at the Isle of Wight Festival.
So, after wearing many major management hats over those years, how did it feel to get back to where he once belonged? “The strangest thing was sleeping on a tour bus again,” he decides. ”Luckily, I always enjoyed ‘bus life,’ so I slipped back into my bunk like it was yesterday. This tour was a great experience and reminded me of just how hard we all work when on tour, but also just how much fun it is when you have the right crew and artist. It was really a very satisfying and great experience.”
It Takes a Tribe
Production designer Bruce Rodgers and his Tribe Design just launched Dierks Bentley’s “Somewhere on a Beach” tour, and Rodgers is deep into the next Cirque Du Soleil “Big Top” tour for 2017. Meanwhile, he just surveyed the Houston NRG Stadium (formerly Reliant Stadium) for Super Bowl 51. He’s also working on early designs for the September Apple Music Festival in London and starting fabrication for the 2016 MLB All Star Game Home Run Derby competition performances. He also begins the installation in late June on the 2016 International Teamster Convention in Las Vegas followed by the 2016 Democratic National Convention later in July in Philadelphia. As if that’s not enough, Rodgers and Tribe Design are also designing the Garth Brooks’ concerts at Yankee Stadium in early July.
Dead & Company Alive with More Lights
LD Chris Ragan, touring with Dead & Company this summer, reports a massive uptick in fixture counts for the larger outdoor venues. “Lots of new fixtures. We have tripled the counts for bigger venues; we’re playing a few two-night runs in stadiums this tour. I just needed more fire power over all to compete with the ambient light in the outdoor venues.”
Quick Cues
LD Mike Duncan just finished with Meat Loaf and now hits the road with kd lang’s new project with Neko Case and Laura Veirs, called Case/Lang/Veirs. The three, who recently collaborated on a new album, and promoting it on this summer run.
LD Ryan “Stumpy” Campbell toured with City and Colour (a.k.a. Dallas John Green) on his Canadian run in June.
Neil Scrivener is lighting director for Old Crow Medicine Show’s tour in the U.S. “It’s a Mikey Cummins original design,” he says. He’s also busy with Gladys Knight in Europe.
LD Carl Burnett is preparing for the next and final leg of Robert Plant & The Sensational Space Shifters’ Lullaby and the Ceaseless Roar tour, a five-week European run July 1-Aug. 6. Prior to that, he’s been updating his website, honing his design software skills, and revisited his tech lighting days with James Morrison’s festival shows in Europe.
Craig Caserta is flying coast to coast as lighting director for LD Tom Sutherland on two TV shows. One is MTV’s Wonderland, which showcases new musical talent. It starts this fall, airing live on Thursday nights from Los Angeles. (Jason Mack is the second programmer and Don Winters is the gaffer.) The other show — also live, but from Miami on Sunday nights — is season two of La Banda, a Latin American singing competition created by Simon Cowell and produced by Ricky Martin.
Marc Janowitz is touring as production manager/LD for Flight of the Conchords’ North American tour through the end of July.
LD David “Gurn” Kaniski is working on three tours this summer. Bush is touring with his design in July /August, with lighting director Matt Guminski. Meanwhile, Kaniski will do double-duty touring with Rise Against, which starts up again with a series of one-offs around the country and Canada; and in between those dates, he’ll tour with guitar legend Jeff Beck in July-August. “I am able to juggle both,” he says. “Rise Against is just one-offs for now.”
Programmer Steve Garner is spending July helping Who Wants To Be a Millionaire move to its new home in Las Vegas. He’s programming for LD Chuck Noble.
Keep Debi posted with your late summer news. Reach her at dmoen (at) plsn.com.
