Based in Bakersfield, CA, alternative metal band KoЯn have been around since 1993, selling more than 40 million records worldwide. Their early 2020 tour supported the band’s 13th studio album, The Nothing, released last September. We spoke with lighting designer, programmer and director Thomas “Church” Christmann about the tour design.
Thomas “Church” Christmann
Lighting Designer, Programmer & Director
“Touring with KoЯn is always a lot of fun. I’m happy they trust my work and let me come up with new design ideas.” The design used for the winter tour is the alternative rig of the last summer tour they did in sheds. The floor video towers are still the same, but Christmann changed the lighting rig to compensate the missing parts from the original full setup. “The original design was more complex with automated pods and video elements. This full design wasn’t doable for this tour on price and space, but I’m still very happy with the results.” Prior to the wave of 2020 cancelations due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the plan was “to take this setup over to Europe for the festivals.”
As lighting designer, programmer and director, “Church” says the pressure is mostly before the tour starts. “You have a picture in mind and hope it all nicely blends together when you finally have the full rig in front of you. I like the progress to put the puzzle together. KoЯn is still playing the old-school way. No time codes. We wanted to get creative with the video content. The video programmer, Chris Schoenman did great work to deliver the content in the right mapping for our video towers. I wanted the same picture whatever direction the audience looks at the three side video towers, which are moving upstage-downstage. Chris delivered the clips in parts so I could start them with my lighting cues and catch up if they got out of sync.
“Lighting on this run is very classy and tidy,” Christmann continues. “I’m using cue lists for every song, and bump in extra cues where they need to add up the look. Lighting is very basic — blinders, strobes and spots. The strobes are not only strobes, they are my stage and backdrop wash too. The spots are wash, spot and beams in one, and the blinders are always a must have.”
When “Church” saw the custom video frames on LMG Touring’s Instagram, he says he loved the cool and simple effect, and it supported his design 100 percent. “As I showed my full design for the summer tour to the band, the mirror effect gave that final spark — another layer to work with. We’re not using video on all songs, so I love the fact that the band and audience can see themselves in the mirrors, and the mirror works with video simultaneously. LMG was very engaged and built the video towers in cooperation with Gallagher Staging and our creative team.
“The towers had to carry the video tiles, but they also have to be automated by a tech to move back and forth,” Christmann continues. “For this, we used straight lockable casters. It was a challenge to use the mirror surface and have it ready for travel. We all learned our lessons to work with this product on the summer tour, but it made working with it easy on the winter tour because we were able to improve and implement the past experience. We invented, with help of a software programmer from Berlin, Germany, a computer-based app to call the tower movement at the same time to the stagehands who were pushing the towers. We used little screens inside the tower to send the ‘go’ and ‘stand by’ cues to the pusher with a color code. It worked great, and I think the biggest challenge on this design was the audio monitor part. Mirrors are affecting sound the same as light.”
“Church” does his pre-programming with WYSIWYG at home before going out on tour. He then went to Morpheus Lights in Las Vegas to be onsite to prep the lighting rig for three days.
“LMG was prepping in Nashville this time, but we used this setup already last summer, so they knew what to do, and I trust them. We had two production days at the first venue before the first show. I used the overnight time to program, include and finalize all the songs. This is the most fun part — when you work on the full rig and finally see the result and the effect of it with the music.
“Together with band and management, we look at my designs and improve it with band thoughts. Most of the time, it’s just small changes. This design was already tried and tested last summer, and the band trust me. I’m a big fan of keeping my crew the same if possible. I was very happy to come back and have them all back on my team.
“Everybody helps out if needed, and I loved the exchange of ideas with my lighting and video crew. I’m a big fan of using equipment I know or I have seen in live situations. In conversation with other LD’s or crew members, I get inspiration as well. It also makes me look up gear.
“This tour design included a different kind of Spot light, but I needed to change it due to costs and sub-rental reasons. It happened that I heard about the Ayrton Ghibli, and Morpheus Lights had them sufficiently stocked. I always wanted to try them. When they showed up in my rig on rehearsals, I was so positively impressed that this is my first choice for Spot lights now.
“I’m thankful to be part of this talented and experienced crew and the opportunity to work with KoЯn. All hard workers and with a smile on their faces.”
KoЯn The Nothing Tour
Crew
- Lighting Designer, Programmer & Director: Thomas “Church” Christmann
- Lighting Co: Morpheus Lights
- Lighting Crew Chief: Greg Nunz
- Lighting Techs: Jason Henry, Olu Kiara
- Morpheus Rep: Keith Bennett
- Video Director: Thomas “Church” Christmann
- Video Co: LMG Touring
- Video Crew Chief: Martin Calcagno
- Video Content/Programmer: Chris Schoenman
- Video Techs: Marco Hernandez
- Video Media Server Programmer: Martin Calcagno (Catalyst server provided by LMG)
- LMG Rep: Juliana Stern
- LMG Technical PM: Kevin Maas
- Tour Manager: Matt Peloquin
- Production Manager: Paul Binder
- Stage Manager: Al Bermudez
- Riggers: Al Bermudez (+ local rigging)
- Video Tower Fabrication: Gallagher Staging
- Trucking: Veriha Trucking
Gear
Lighting:
- 2 ChamSys MQ 500 Stadium lighting consoles
- 34 Ayrton Ghibli LED Spots
- 10 Ayrton NandoBeam S6
- 20 GLP JDC1’s
- 29 Chauvet Strike 4’s
- 5 Portman P2 Hexalines
- 10 Portman P1 Mini LEDs
- 2 MDG ATMe hazers
Video:
- 84 Full ROE CB8 LED Tiles in T4 Touring frames w/custom cut mirrored fascia
- 32 Half ROE CB8 LED Tiles in T4 Touring frames w/custom cut mirrored fascia
- 2 Brompton SX40 Processors (used for 4K content)
- 1 Catalyst Media Server
- 8 Custom built three-sided rolling LED carts w/ ground support for ROE T4 Touring Frames (fabricated by Gallagher Staging)
More photos by Steve Jennings:
