Jason Aldean’s “Six String Circus” Tour Automates Engagement
“Jason [Aldean’s] fans are really engaged, so the challenge was pushing the limits of being modern and big in a way that matches the high-energy of those fans,” says creative director Raj Kapoor. The key? Automation. Kapoor has been working with Aldean for three years, and on this show specifically for almost a year. “We were talking about it last summer, and from the first conversation with Jason’s team and Mike [Swinford], it was decided to do something really different,” he says. “Yet we wanted to continue the edgy, rock-meets-country designs we’ve been doing for him that push the limits.”
Pyro to Lasers
Last year, for Aldean’s “Burn it Down” tour, there was a lot of… well, burning-it-down moments. “We did a lot of pyro with that tour, and this time we wanted to get away from that,” says the show’s designer Mike Swinford of UpLate Design. Strictly FX supplied all that pyro last year. This year, they stepped up with lasers. Four 15-watt lasers are on the back wall, and there are smaller lower-powered ones that scan the audience. Aldean’s creative team was inspired to go in this direction because of what Swinford had done at the previous CMA Music Festival. “Jason’s management said they wanted less video and a lot of lighting, like big rock show lighting.” Heading that way, Swinford made the decision to get away from conventional discharge lighting. “I wanted to embrace something new and fresh.”
The Video Mix
Kapoor’s team (including Rita Bland) designed and produced the show as they have Aldean’s last three outings. “Last time out, we had more of a story-based content approach, with the visuals fitting in the real world,” he explains. “But this time out, I wanted a combination of emphasis on I-Mag and more abstract content, plus use videos as a lighting source to the point where you couldn’t tell where the lighting ended and the video began. Everything was to work in conjunction with each other so that the audience wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t.”
Moo-TV supplied the video. “When it comes to this show, there is simply a ton of talent involved,” says Andrew Burnett. “From Swinford’s always innovative and exciting designs, to Raj’s creative direction, to the incredible amounts of energy that Jason and the band bring to the stage; this is definitely a show you need to see.”
Lighting and Rigging
Bandit Lites supplied the lighting gear. “We have been working with Jason since he first started his headlining career,” says Bandit VP Mike Golden. “He is an incredible talent, and his show is high energy from beginning to end. For this tour, we simply once again supplied the fixtures requested and the creative team of Mike Swinford, Mark Butts [co-programmer] and Keith Hoagland had no problem putting together an extremely dramatic show.”
Swinford hails from Oregon and started doing lights at age 15 for the local sock hops and bands. “Everyone was into psychedelia in those days, so I would do things like taking an LP and poking holes in it and use my family’s slide projector to make my own strobe light!” he laughs. He made his way to Los Angeles in 1976 where his first gig was with Black Sabbath. He toured with different bands after that until he hooked up with Alabama in 1985 when they were at their rock-star peak. A few years after that, they talked him into moving to Nashville, and then, as his reputation grew, he was able to get off the road and focus on design only. In 1995, he founded UpLate and developed an impressive client list. He’s been designing Kenny Chesney’s tours since 2001, and he’s done extensive work with Rascal Flatts and the CMA Music festivals plus a lot of TV events. This is his fifth tour with Aldean.
Swinford wanted an overhead rig capable carrying a lot of weight yet could move wherever his imagination wanted it to. He looked to SGPS/ShowRig’s Whirlygig rigging truss. He had used it before, but this time he was interested in pushing the envelope with it. “I talked to [SGPS owner] Eric Pearce about how much I could load them up, yet also be tour-friendly to the point they could just be rolled into a truck easily. ”There are a total of five pods — one hung in the center, with two flanking each side. “They move quite a bit,” Swinford says. “At one point they track all the way downstage and position in such a way they make a wall behind Aldean.”
“There are five active Whirlygigs, and they carry pods with 36 Ayrton MagicDot™R in each,” explains Keith Hoagland, tour lighting director. “The Whirlygig units have three active and separately controlled cable winches within them. We have three pick up points on our custom Dot pods that allows us to spin, tilt, raise, and lower them as well as they track upstage and downstage throughout the show. The only limit of the 360 spin is the actual data and power cable that connects to the pod to power the Dots. Otherwise, they are free spinning units.”
“We knew how versatile it was, and the different angles it could give us,” Kapoor adds. “They went through the list of songs and created a variety of preplanned positions, not being sure how they would translate until we saw them in real life, and only then would we know exactly how long it would take to move from position A to position B.” It was complicated, as he says there are some songs with 30 automation cues. “There was definitely some trial and error in rehearsal.” When it was worked out, they set up a demonstration for Aldean and his team, and “Jason was pretty much blown away by it,” Swinford says.
Another key element of the look is the Ayrton MagicBlade™R fixture. “I knew they were bright, and could pan and tilt, and offered a lot of flexibility,” Swinford says. “And I love that you can run them either with a server or full DMX Mode.” Ayrton’s MagicRing™R9 fixtures were also used, which Swinford hadn’t used yet, but just knew they would make great floor lights. In addition, Ayrton IntelliPix™R units are placed in the center thrust pod. Swinford went for a slightly different take on hiding the set while the opening acts played. Rather than rely strictly on the kabuki reveal, he was inspired by what the Foo Fighters did recently with a Sniffer by Sew What?. “I liked the way it looked and worked,” he says, explaining that after the opening acts, both kabuki-style part and Sniffer form a diaper system, and the set is changed behind it. When the reveal happens, Aldean is standing above on a deck that turns out to be one of the pods, and he is then lowered down, to great dramatic effect. “Then the pod shoots up. It goes back up pretty high in the air and plays with the other four pods.”
Design Inspiration
“I get inspired throughout the year, and am always taking notes on what I’m seeing at other shows, looking for what would be good for the artist I’m working with,” Kapoor says of the evolution of this show. “And technology is evolving all the time. I go to every LDI and think what they offer up there is amazing. Also, it’s interesting to go to these big concerts and see people using the same technology you are but in a completely different way.” Bringing the vision for this tour to reality was challenging. “Programming automation is not quick,” he continues. “And sometimes, it’s more expensive than lighting, because you’re moving huge pieces of steel around that weighs thousands of pounds, so you need to be careful because there are real people on the stage.” He says all of this is part of visually keeping up with Aldean’s ever-progressing career. “It’s all becoming part of his world, and how he likes to be presented and matching the energy he brings to the stage.”
Hoagland says now that the show is out of rehearsals and on the road, it has stayed consistent beyond the necessary tweaks given the particulars of that day’s venue. Aldean has added a few songs from the upcoming album, which Hoagland has programmed. Hoagland is doing it all on the grandMA2 with four active NPU units. All are running MA-Net2 except for the 24 IntellaPix fixtures, which only take signal control through Art-Net.
One of Kapoor’s favorite moments is the song “Johnny Cash.” “For that number, it was really cool to create very graphic-novel, stylized look with reds and blacks. Also, I love how the acoustic set looks, how we bring down the pods and frame everything behind him.” Then, of course there’s the show’s finale, “Crazy Town.” “We have all this content and information going during that, so it’s really big and rockin.’ Basically, just when you thought it couldn’t go any further, we take it up one more level!”
Swinford is also proud of the craziness that is “Crazy Town.” “This is the moment when we pull out all the stops and get in your face,” he says. “The pods are doing a dance all through the song, moving through all the axes, and it’s a really strong moment. A lot of designers like to show off everything they can do from the first song, but we like to build. For example, we don’t even introduce much color until after the first couple of songs. I like the show to visually progress, but we throw everything at them on that last song!”
“How we execute this show is not like any other,” Hoagland continues. “It is fair to say we have a tight show between Jason, his band, and myself. It’s funny because a lot of folks think we are running timecode, but we’re not. Timecode is being used by the video department to stay connected, but all lighting and spot calls are executed by myself. It is a fun show, and definitely worth seeing.”
All photos by Todd and Chris Owyoung, taken of the Omaha, NE show, Jan. 22, 2016
Jason Aldean’s “Six String Circus” Tour
Crew
- Creative Director: Raj Kapoor
- Show Designer: Mike Swinford
- Production Manager: Drew Brown
- Lighting Director: Keith Hoagland
- Co-Programmer: Mark Butts
- Lighting Co: Bandit Lites
- Bandit Lites Rep: Michael Golden
- Crew Chief: Jonathan “Neppy” Houles
- Moving Light Techs: Patrick Cowden and David “D3” Hamilton III
- Dimmer Techs: Greg Ogne and Sarah Eucker
- Stage Manager: Joshua Marcus
- Rigger: Dale Long
- Production Assistant: Rachael Harbour
- Stage Carpenters: Shaun Alderman, Patrick Mahoney
- Video Co: MooTV
- MooTV Rep: Andrew Burnett
- Video Director: Milojko Dobrijevich
- Video Engineer: Kevin Fisher
- Camera Op / LED Techs: Jonathan Paine, Tyler Buell
- Camera Op / Projection Tech: Mark Wilcox
- Special FX/Lasers: Strictly FX
- Rigging/Automation: SGPS/ShowRig
- Soft Goods: Sew What?
Gear
Lighting:
- 2 grandMA consoles
- 40 Clay Paky Mythos
- 180 Ayrton MagicDot™R fixtures
- 40 Ayrton MagicBlade™R fixtures
- 20 Vari*Lite VL3500 Wash
- 10 Ayrton MagicRing™R9 fixtures
- 24 Ayrton IntellaPix™R panels
- 4 Martin MAC 2000 Performances
- 6 PixelLine 1044 units
Video:
- 250 G-Tek Innopix 5mm LED tiles
- 115 Roe Visual Hybrid 15 LED tiles
- 80 Roe Visual Hybrid 15S LED tiles
- 2 ME Ross Carbonite Switchers (feeding six HD-SDI outputs to the server)
- 5 Hitachi ZHD-5000 broadcast cameras (“and a myriad of POVs”)
- Multiple Dataton Watchout 6 servers cued both via timecode and by lighting director
