At the age of 11 Brock Hogan attended his first concert, Def Leppard’s Hysteria tour. Ever since that moment, he knew he wanted to be involved in lighting. He began in the industry as a stagehand for a local production company in Boise ID. After several years of working every gig he possibly could and always asking questions, Hogan worked his way up from a pusher to lead rigger. In 2001 he began working at a local venue called The Big Easy Concert House (now The Knitting Factory). Within a year, he convinced them to let him learn lighting.
Brock Hogan
Lighting Designer/Director
“At first it was mainly the club nights and operating for local acts. Within a couple of years, I had met many touring LD’s and eventually was given an opportunity to hit the road as a lighting designer. With a very small budget I had to utilize the house lighting systems. I also spent a few seasons lighting for Ballet Idaho and Eugene Ballet, mainly their collaborated production of The Nutcracker. I finally got the opportunity to carry my own lighting on some small club tours for acts like Butch Walker, Cobra Starship and Boys Like Girls, all of which are affiliated with Crush Management. In 2010, I was offered [the chance] to design for their recent roster addition, Train. I’ve been with them ever since, while designing for other artists such as Good Charlotte and Matt Nathanson as well.
“When I first began the design of the current ‘Picasso At The Wheel’ tour, I had a brief conversation with Pat [Monahan] and Jimmy [Stafford] (the band’s singer and guitarist) to see if they had anything they would or would not like to see. The only thing they said was, they wanted less pop and more of a rock feel — ‘think Tom Petty,’ I believe Pat said. With that, my first thought was to use more scenic elements and less video and content. With the tour routing being primarily outdoor venues, utilizing soft goods would be challenging. The idea of the ‘pods’ wrapped with a scrim seemed to be the most logical approach. I wanted the design to play to all viewpoints of the venue, not just the seats straight out from the stage. That’s when the idea to make the scrims three-sided came to mind, to give all audience members as full of a view as possible. Adding to that, the layers of pods from up to down stage, and each on independent wenches, I was able to create a lot of depth and various perceptions from every vantage with minimal gear.
“My main inspiration was the album title itself, Bulletproof Picasso. Even though the album doesn’t really have any literal connections to Picasso’s work, I couldn’t help but find inspiration in it, especially his cubism period. So there began the thought of creating a show with a lot of broken up geometry, especially the video element and set. Once I had some rough drafts completed, I presented them to the band, and they seemed to love it. Over the years working with Train, I find myself always trying to one up myself, and the guys have shown complete trust in what I do, so I do have quite a bit of freedom when designing for them.”
Lighting and Video Support
LMG Touring is the tour vendor for lighting, video and audio. Craig Mitchell, their rep, was on hand for the opening night when PLSN caught the show.
“I have nothing but great things to say about LMG. They are always going above and beyond to make sure we are taken care of 100 percent. They are always open to any suggestions I have to offer, no matter how large or small the task.
“The fixtures I chose for this show were based on a few different aspects. I knew I wanted the Vari-Lite 4000 Spots, as I had the opportunity to take them for a test drive on our album release show at [New York’s] Radio City Music Hall last September. The gobos, dual animation wheels and color mixing made it an obvious choice. The Robe CycFX 4 was crucial to achieve some of the looks I was going for, from the cyc lighting of the pods to creating a ‘raining’ top wash, additional punch for audience lighting, and even running tilt and dimming effects across them. They are quite impressive fixtures! I originally had the Robe Robin 600 LED Wash as my main wash fixtures, and to use the rings feature. I have used these for several years now, and they have never let me down.”
Some New Additions
Speaking with Heather Busch and Tommy Hall of Robe Lighting earlier this year, Hogan discovered their latest fixture in the Robin LED series, The Robin 1000 LEDBeam.
“It’s quite similar to the 600 Wash, with the main difference being the upgrade from 10-watt LEDs to 15-watt, and, of course the zoom feature. It has an amazing beam when zoomed down to its 4-degree field, then the nice wash it creates when zoomed out to its max at 63 degrees. The Robe Robin Pointe was an easy choice as well. With the band wanting more of a ‘rock’ feel to the show, you can’t go wrong with lots of beams, especially grouped in 4’s to get that old ACL look. The six-faceted linear prism is one of my favorite features, along with creating a wash by using a zoom and frost combination. It really is quite versatile for such a compact fixture. I’m using Vari-Lite 3015LT’s as specials and Vari-Lite VLX for my downstage wash fixtures. I have the Philips Showline SL640 as audience lighting and for strobe effects. The set lighting is done with Chroma-Q Color Force 48s.”
Some Old Faves
As far as software and control, Hogan says he’s a grandMA guy 100 percent. Along with full knowledge of the console that comes with years of experience using the brand, he refers to his grandMA desks by their nicknames.
“After my grandmothers, ‘Joyce’ and ‘Irene’ — instead of ‘main’ and ‘backup’ (long story).”
Staging & Set Design
Accurate Staging provided the staging and set. Hogan has worked with them for years, so he said the choice was obvious. The idea for the set design was again based on creating random geometry. With so many of the band members in stationary locations, Hogan thought of creating multi tier layers, with various angles, just to give it more dimension. One request from the band was to have a closer feel, as if playing a smaller venue.
“By layering the risers, I was able to bring everyone closer together without too much obstruction. To add more dimension, each elevation is lit from underneath to skirting. I am able to control each section of lighting to make the various elevations really stand out, almost like blocks stacked on top of each other.
Video, with a Twist
“Even though the video element is smaller than recent tours we have done, it’s still a key feature in the show, however more as RGB lighting fixtures than LED video screens. There are a couple of songs with minimal content, but I wanted to create a random, broken up tile array utilizing the shape of the tile. The only way this was going to happen was with the Avolites Ai Media Server. It is just beyond anything else out there. The ability to control each tile individually like an RGB fixture, yet run content across the entire array or even each pod’s group individually is simply amazing! For all of the concept and plot drawings I used Vectorworks, because why wouldn’t you? Currently, I have 28 songs cue stacked, with yet another to build tomorrow. If I didn’t know better I would think they enjoy challenging me sometimes, since they love to mix things up by adding a new song to the set list. I don’t mind, it keeps things challenging, which is always a good thing.
More Kudos to the “Crüe”
“Our fearless leader is Sam Mitcham, who is one of the greatest tour managers out there. Without him, we are not here. Our production is led by David Ellison and his assistant Tara Fritz. Aside from the ‘core crüe’ (that’s just how we like to spell it because its kinda funny) of back line and audio engineers, we have what I like to think of as the roadie equivalent to the basketball ‘Dream Team.’
“The backbone of this entire production is the automation, provided by SGPS. Eric Pearce is a pleasure to work with, and once again he came through for us. The SGPS touring crew consists of crew chief/operator John Lunio and his right hand man Tony Dorman.
“Lighting/LED and video, provided by LMG, [includes] LED and media servers tech, Charles Teer. This kid knows all, and he has been a key contributor in assisting me with programming, especially with a short amount of time to do all of it. Lighting is led by crew chief Olivier ‘Oly’ De Kegel, technician Brian Bukovinsky and dimmer tech Billy Watkins. Each is a key contributor to making this production happen.
“In addition, we are carrying our own I-Mag package, to feed the venue projectors/LED screens. It’s a small camera package — two hand held, one FOH wide shot, two robo-cams and a few POV cameras for keyboards and drums.
“Our video crew consists of director Terry Babbs and his assistant/camera operator, DJ Stokes.
“I absolutely love working with Train. They take really good care of us and I feel blessed to work for a band that keeps me busy year round and truly appreciates all the work I do for them.”
Train’s 2015 “Picasso At The Wheel” Tour
Crew
Lighting Designer/Director: Brock Hogan
Lighting Crew Chief: Olivier De Kegel
Lighting Techs: Billy Watkins, Brian Bukovinsky,
Lighting Co: LMG Touring
LMG Rep: Craig Mitchell
LED/Media Servers: Charles Teer
Video Co: LMG Touring
Video Director: Terry Babb
Video/Camera Operator: DJ Stokes
Production Manager: Dave Ellison
Tour Manager: Sam Mitcham
Stage Manager: Tim Peffer
Staging Co: Accurate Staging & Productions/Tye Trussell
Automation Co: SGPS/Showrig/Eric Pearce
Automation Crew Chief: John Lunio
Automation Tech: Tony Dorman
Soft Goods: Sew What?/Megan Duckett
Rigger: Elmer Vallejos
Carpenter: Minh Quang Nguyen
Trucking Co: Janco
Gear
Lighting:
2 grandMA2 consoles
40 Robe Robin Pointes
15 Robe Robin 1000 LEDBeam
90 Robe CycFX 4 fixtures
46 Vari*Lite VL4000 Spots
9 Vari*Lite VL3015LT Spots
6 Vari*Lite VLX Wash fixtures
10 Philips Showline SL Bar 640 fixtures
15 Chroma-Q Color Force 48 fixtures
Video:
2 Avolites Ai Media Servers
40 LMG Touring Custom 8mm LED tiles
For more Train “Picasso at the Wheel” tour photos by Steve Jennings, go to www.plsn.me/train-on-plsn.
