DENMARK – The hyperactive Danish summer tour and concert season is rocking with multiple artists on the road performing hundreds of concerts to many thousands of enthusiastic fans – many outdoors, some indoors, own headliners, festivals, taking advantage of the long daylight hours, milder temperatures and the public’s voracious appetite for live music and performance – a small country that most definitely feels the beat!
More details from Robe (www.robe.cz):
Rasmus Seebach is one of Denmark’s’ best known and most popular Danish singer / songwriter and music producers of the moment, and lighting his 2018 summer tour is Jacob Baekmand who designed a spectacular set, lighting and visual performance space.
The lighting rig includes 24 x Robe Spiider LED wash beams and 16 x MegaPointes – the first time that Jacob has used these – purchased specially for the occasion by Nordic Rentals, and these have been making a lot of impact, together with the Copenhagen skyline set which includes models of some of the city’s most iconic neon signage. The set concept was developed by Jacob with considerable input from the artists.
With so many of the shows on the itinerary being outdoors and several in broad daylight – thanks to a truly extraordinary late spring / early summer heatwave that gripped Scandinavia – bright lights were an absolute necessity … and Jacob is pleasantly surprised that both Spiiders and MegaPointes are making such vivid impressions in daylight, dusk and darkness!
“I always thought it would be the case” he commented, “But they have already exceeded expectations” and in doing so, brought another dimension to ‘multifunctional’.
It’s also Jacob’s first tour with Rasmus Seebach. He was asked on board to bring some fresh and invigorating concepts to the stage, and received a detailed brief from the artist, who is extremely production savvy.
His requests included bringing a theatrical look and feel to the performance space, and whilst he wanted the modern look of LED in the set, he didn’t want a ‘traditional’ TV-onstage LED look.
Rasmus wanted to be able to jump freely around the set and his band and to have multiple options for entering / exiting stage, so Jacob proposed a two tiered LED approach including an opening LED section which operates on hydraulic lifts, similar to a bus door.
The set parameters mean they can only run the full production on optimum sized stages, however the rig also had to be scalable both upwards and downwards to deal with the variety of stages and venue sizes.
So … there are plenty of practical show-to-show challenges!
Jacob spec’d MegaPointes and Spiiders because he wanted to embrace some properly new and cool technology on the tour. Robe is doing extremely well in Denmark right now and Spiiders were recommended by numerous other LDs.
The Spiiders were picked for their sheer output and incredible brightness v size and weight which was “absolutely essential for the outdoor gigs”, especially the ‘friends’ and family’ shows which start at 7 p.m. and are in full daylight he explained.
They are rigged on four downstage totem towers clad in brick-painted fabric in keeping with the cityscape theme, and from these positions they can wash the stage very effectively and also sweep out into the audience. There is plenty of audience participation in a Rasmus Seebach concert and he has a fabulous rapport with his – primarily – young audience.
Jacob “loves” the central LED and its flower effect together with the quality and clarity of the output and the stunning range of smooth and rich colors possible with the Spiider, from delicate pastels to intense saturates, all delivered in a beautiful fat beam! He adds that the fixtures have been 100 % reliable so far … despite having a tough time and a busy schedule on the road!
Not so many people had yet used the MegaPointes as they are one of Robe’s newest launches, however the comments Jacob heard from those who have were all overwhelmingly positive. Based on these, he was determined to check-out the trend and get creative with them for himself!
“MegaPointes are the ‘buzz’ light wherever you go” he stated, and in addition to that, he also wanted to use them – again – for the small size and light weight as they are rigged on the same truss as the large upstage video screen.
From here they are used to highlight the star in his various different positions around the stage.
The Spiiders and MegaPointes are the core of his festival lighting rig, and they are on all the shows.
The top rig will vary from place to place. For some shows, like Copenhagen Valbypark, the stage and the top rig was also from Nordic, a set up that will feature for more shows over the summer, but they will also play with totally different top rigs and stages supplied by other companies.
He is really enjoying creating so many dynamic looks with both these fixtures and also mentions the great job being done by Light Partner, Robe’s Danish distributor, whose hard work in recent years is paying off as the brand is now penetrating all sectors and scenarios. He was also super impressed that Nordic was prepared to purchase them from new for the tour!
The challenge with lighting Rasmus Seebach is that the artist knows what he wants and understands the production process, so everyone is kept on their toes! Much of the visual content is also based on his ideas and suggestions.
Video is being coordinated on the tour by Christian Dreier. He takes care of the content production for their own onstage touring screens which are part of their set and is also the camera director, running – typically – three operated cameras at FOH and a 6-way robo-cam system onstage.
Both Christian from his PPU and Jacob – triggering playback video via his grandMA2 light console also running the lights – can output video content to screen … so the synergy between them is extremely important to the fluid running of the show.
The show is lively and upbeat for the most part, an accessible blend of pop-py and infectious electro beats that gets everyone in a great mood for those balmy summer evenings!
Jacob concludes, “Having the Spiiders and MegaPointes really makes a difference in enriching the depth and feel of the daylight sections of the outdoors shows … and then it gets dark on the indoor gigs, and they totally blow everyone away!”
Jacob is a freelance LD and designer based in Copenhagen specializing in live music lighting and visual design and he also lights a lot of sports TV shows and events.
Photos : Louise Stickland
