PLSN Designer Watch by Debi Moen –
Boston is bringing back memories in concert this summer on their U.S./Canada tour with “More Than a Feeling,” “Peace of Mind,” “Long Time,” “Amanda” and other classic. Though one song advises “Don’t Look Back,” LD Gregg Maltby can’t help but do so. He’s been with the band since 1995, and this is his sixth tour with them.
This year’s tour is simpler than the stage shows featuring the band’s trademark spaceship hovering above, with a lighting rig attached. “The space ship would land on top of the band, and it would scare me to death,” Maltby recalls. Now they’re using a 12-by-48-foot, 18mm video wall to display content instead. “The video wall kicks butt,” he says. He’s got content master/programmer Seth Rappaport (programmer for Neil Diamond) and Mike Hall (programmer for the B-52s) on the creative team with lighting tech BJ Smith.
To supplement artwork on the screen, live I-Mag from four unmanned cameras is fed through media servers, which Maltby triggers on the console. One camera is fixed on group founder Tom Scholz’s mic stand, another two cameras are on the Hammond B3 organ, and the fourth camera points to drummer Curly Smith.
Maltby counts 680 cues for the two-hour show — the same number of cues he built for the 2008 show. But instead of the 75 moving lights they had in 2008, Maltby is using 60 PAR cans on the upstage rig and 60 downstage, with some moving floor lights for extra special beamage. “It’s a fair/festival rig, and it saves us two guys in labor, time and of course budget,” he says. “I hang one moving light truss. The PAR can truss is already there when I get in. I patch it and we run the show.”
One special piece of equipment Maltby created on this tour is dubbed the Jungle Gym: a 40-foot-long ground-supported structure that’s placed under the video wall. “It works killer,” he says. “It’s 6 feet tall and the amp line is 7 feet tall, so I can place lights on top and below it.” A giant gong emblazoned with the Boston logo sits behind the drummer.
Maltby recalls another prop from the old days, dubbed “Bernie,” a giant pipe organ whose size created challenges. This set piece, reminiscent of Spinal Tap, took up two-thirds of a truck, he says. “It was 30 feet long and 10 feet wide and needed two forklifts to move it and four chain motors to hang it. It was so big that we had to chainsaw off part of the roof at Pine Knob Music Theatre (now called DTE Energy Music Theatre, in Clarkston, MI) to get it in. That part of the roof is still missing, by the way.”
For this tour, Maltby suggested to Scholz that they project images of Bernie on the video wall to keep her memory alive, but Scholz rejected the idea, thinking that the substitute would be inferior. So Bernie is gone. But this is the type of attention Scholz pays to all aspects of the production, Maltby points out. “Tom Scholz is all about how the show is presented. He worries about the audience. He leaves me alone to do my design, but when he comes up with a few ideas, he’s dead right about it. He knows exactly how the music should be lit. We even put strobes in his organ, and the lights change along with what he’s playing. He’s the smartest person I’ve ever met, and also the nicest.”
The tour kicked off June 28 and runs to Sept. 8, but Scholz says he’d like to play until the Mayan calendar runs out — Dec. 21, 2012. For a time-lapse video showing load-in, performance and load-out, go to bandboston.com.
Olympics A-Team
Some 40.7 million U.S. viewers were part of the billion who watched the London Olympics opening ceremonies on July 27. Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle led the opening ceremonies, which included performances by Paul McCartney, for 80,000 fans at the Olympic Stadium. The opening production reportedly cost $42.4 million, featuring a cast of 15,000 performers and 25,000 costumes. Production designer is Mark Fisher, known for his mega-spectacles for the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and U2, among others.
The closing ceremony Aug. 12 was set to feature The Who, George Michael, the reunited Spice Girls and Liam Gallagher, among other performers. This creative team included artistic director Kim Gavin, designer for Take That’s Circus Live tour and stadium shows for Lady Gaga and Kanye West. Designer Es Devlin, whose work on the Circus Live shows included the clowns, trapeze acts and others, is also on the team. Devlin’s design also includes Lady Gaga’s Monster Ball US tour. Film director Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot) is the executive producer of all the ceremonies.
Farm Aid Update
Production planning for Farm Aid 2012 had a bit of a jolt when production manager Ron Stern suffered a heart attack. However, LD Steve Fallon, who is creating media content for the event, says Stern is making “a swift recovery.” This year’s benefit for the nation’s independent family farmers takes place Sept. 22 at Hersheypark Stadium in Pennsylvania. The lineup for the day-long music and food festival features Dave Matthews (and Tim Reynolds) with fellow Farm Aid board members Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and Neil Young, along with Jack Johnson and others.
Megadeth Synchronicity
Flashback to 1992, when LD Bryan Hartley was traveling with Megadeth on the Countdown to Extinction tour. On that first tour, he and the wardrobe girl fell in love. They got married and had a daughter, Chelsea. Twenty years later, Hartley is once again touring the world with Megadeth, and the band is performing the same songs from that album. The wardrobe girl is now his ex-wife, and Chelsea is beautiful and 19 years old now, Hartley says. Relishing the weird synchronicity, Hartley is enjoying the circle of life on Megadeth. The band just finished Europe, is taking on the Asia Pacific Rim and South America, and will finish in Mexico. Up next is another circle: Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s tour.
Orchestral Maneuvers
Lighting a symphony requires a complex weaving of design disciplines. LD Jeff Ravitz discusses his orchestral maneuvers when tasked with lighting the PBS special, Homecoming, featuring the Kansas City Symphony and starring mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato with conductor Michael Stern.
“It was a joy,” Ravitz says. Nevertheless, there were challenges involved in getting it just right, he explains. “Symphony musicians are less comfortable being lit than more mainstream performers are, so we had to find the perfect balance between the best angles and the least glare. I convinced the musicians to play without music stand lights, which meant I had to satisfy their need to see the music well. Also, the acoustics in the auditorium are so extraordinary that the slightest fan noise was unacceptable, for both the musicians as well as the audio engineer. And, a symphony hall is not exactly designed with the usual production advantages of a traditional theatre space, so even though the Kauffman has a nice in-house lighting system, the stage and available positions were not completely ideal for lighting a live performance broadcast.”
However, with gaffer Jeff Porter and crew, the production issues were successfully solved. “The program was an honor to be a part of,” Ravitz says. “It was a joy to work at the fabulous Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, a true world-class symphony hall and landmark piece of architecture.”
The show, produced by Kansas City public TV station KCPT, is airing on PBS stations nationwide. A preview can be found on pbs.org.
The Wall in 2013?
On July 21, after performing 192 shows over two years, Roger Waters has finished The Wall. For now, apparently. In a July 6 New York Times interview, Waters reveals what’s on tap for 2013. “I’ve become very enamored of the outdoor show,” Walters said. “It was a super challenge to see if we could take the arena production and made it work outdoors, and it works beautifully, but it is unbelievably expensive. So we are trying to figure out ways to make the numbers add up to go to Europe late next summer, in 2013. This show is such fun to do that I think I’ve got some more in me. The thing that makes it really, really difficult is the weather. You can’t guarantee good weather, so in consequence you have to travel with a roof, and because the show is so big we have to travel with a very big roof.”
Quick Cues…
LD Simon Sidi just finished a stint with Greg Lake (of Emerson, Lake and Palmer fame) and former vocalist with King Crimson. “It was a very small project, but he is such a legendary artist I loved the work, and creating a design on such a small scale reminded me of the old days!” The Songs of a Lifetime tour ran April-May in North America…LD Kevin “Deuce” Christopher is back on Journey’s tour, which kicked off July. Stan Green is out at the FOH with it. …Lighting director Brian Gazo is on the road with Huey Lewis & The News, carrying out LD Gregg Maltby’s design…
Got a news lead? Share it with Debi Moen at dmoen@plsn.com.
