LD Alastair Bramall-Watson is designing Aerosmith’s tour, which kicks off Oct. 22 in South America, swings to Mexico and ends Dec. 10 in Japan. This is his first time to work with the band, and he’s excited about the opportunity. To prepare for it, he didn’t look back at previous designs but put his own style forward. The longtime LD for Stone Temple Pilots said he was contacted by the band to submit a proposal. He met with Steven Tyler in Boston with the designs and got his stamp of approval. “I couldn’t presume to know what they wanted or didn’t want. I asked what they liked and didn’t like in a show and went from there. The show will be the best show I can give them,” he said.
A month ahead of kick-off, Bramall-Watson offers a taste of the tour design, with many details still awaiting confirmation. “Keeping it simple” is his first rule of design for the first leg in South America. “It’s lots of wash lights, straight trusses, video content,” he said. However, when they get to Japan for the eight stadium shows, the design expands, he said. “It will be bigger and have more excitement to it — curved trusses, more equipment.”
Bramall-Watson designed the set including the runway ramps, along with the lighting, which he will control at the FOH while he is running the lights. Longtime Video Director Casey Tebo designed the content and continues on running the video. As far as “must have” looks for the band, Steven Tyler likes to be lit with a film lighting fixture featuring 6 PAR 64s surrounding a center PAR 64, with the whole fixture opening in a similar fashion to a flower.
After his years at the design helm of Stone Temple Pilots, Bramall-Watson said he’s turning that tour over to someone who, ironically enough, will take it to South America in November. But he hopes to return to STP in the future. There’s no word yet on whether Aerosmith will add more dates in 2012, but it certainly is a possibility, he said.
Sting Gets Intimate
The night before the massive multi-day, multi-band festival Rock in Rio was set to open its doors, festival LD Danny Nolan set aside time to talk about shows on a smaller scale: Sting. Nolan is designing the smaller, intimate venue tour for Sting, who is celebrating 25 years as a solo artist. This is a complete departure from the “Symphonicity” tour Sting embarked on earlier this year. This is the “Back to Bass” tour, with a five-piece rock band as backup, as Sting strips down his history of hits.
“Sting’s solo music is perfect for the theatre stage,” Nolan said, describing his design for it as a mix of classical theatre and rock n roll. “The design has to fit both technically and visually. I will try to stay away from messy trusses and lots of floor lights. I need to think about the floor itself, because that’s what half the audience will see. And a good backdrop is important. I will use a full painted double backdrop with some low res columns to create a 3-dimensional colored backdrop.”
While some artists have mandates over what can or can’t happen with their lighting, Nolan said Sting’s requests are few and understandable. “Stings wants to play his music and wants be comfortable,” Nolan said. “I try to keep it simple and stylish, never more than two colors, and I light what is happening. Sting has no real lighting mandates, but he really doesn’t like audience TV lighting and low folllowspots.”
Sting’s North American tour runs Oct. 21-Dec. 9. Ticket sale demands are already commanding multi-night performances — when possible — at each venue.
Lighting Heavy Metal
For three decades now, LD Mark Workman has poured his passion into lighting heavy metal bands. “I don’t care if it’s in stadiums, arenas or clubs — as long as it’s heavy metal,” he said. “That’s what I do for a living.”
His next design is the co-headlining tour of Anthrax and Testament, aimed to thrash their way through U.S. clubs Oct. 14-Nov. 19. It will be the first time the two bands have toured together in 10 years. “On this tour, we’re carrying no lighting rig. I’m just going to do what I’ve always done every night for three decades: rip the roof off the joint and knock a hole in the back wall of every venue,” he said. “That’s what true heavy metal lighting is all about: relentless, overwhelming power.”
Testament is Workman’s longest-running client for 25 years. He’s known the guys in Anthrax for the same amount of time while working as tour manager. This will be his first tour as LD for Anthrax.
Workman’s love of lighting heavy metal music dates back decades. “I learned from the master, LD Paul Dexter, how to create giant theatrical looks and seamlessly link them together with precise clockwork timing, creating an art form called a rock ‘n’ roll light show. That art form is what’s kept me on a plane and a tour bus for three decades, for better or worse.”
His “Clash of the Titans” tour design 21 years ago with Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax and Testament “was the seed that spawned the ‘Big Four’ shows (Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax),” he said. “If there was a Big Five, Testament is number five.”
Last year’s “American Carnage” tour design with Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax and Testament featured 72 moving lights, 20 strobes with color changers, 10 audience blinders with color changers and a large number of LEDs in the air and on the floor.
This year’s tour will differ in scope, as he’s not carrying any lighting on the road. Except for his personal lighting console, everything else will be local and up in the air, you might say. “On this tour, I’m doing what real lighting designers do every day: turn chicken shit into chicken salad, transforming club rigs into something worth watching, something the fans will remember.”
Miranda’s Revolution Redesign
Miranda Lambert returns to the “Revolution” tour, which started last fall, with a completely new redesign. “The Revolution Continues” tour hit the road Sept. 22. LD Chris Lisle spent two weeks in programming and preproduction, and after babysitting the first few shows, handed it over to Lighting Director Craig Richter to make it happen nightly.
“I am excited to see it all come together,” Lisle said. “The center point of the design is a 24-foot wide video wall, with five curved truss arches spread out throughout the rig. We actually did a complete re-design and started from scratch with the structure, programming, everything. She has a new record coming out in November, so we added in quite a few new songs. The Pistol Annies (Miranda’s three-girl group), plays a five-song set in the middle of the show. In the matter of just a couple of weeks we will get started on the pre-production planning of her 2012 tour, which will be her biggest tour to date!”
Playboy’s Animated Fantasyland
LD David “Gurn” Kaniski’s imagination got put into play when called on to create an “animated fantasy landscape” for Playboy’s party. “It doesn’t get any better than this,” Kaniski said. “Lighting beautiful models in sexy lingerie. And I get paid for it, too!”
The Palm Casino Resort Pools in Las Vegas provided the setting. The biggest area was the Main DJ stage. In addition, Kaniski had a dozen or so little vignettes to light which included a winter scene, some performers (partially nude women) in cages and a “peacock lady” in a gazebo in the water. The water became a lighting surface with 36 gobo rotators with dichroic fantasy gobos treating the surface and animating the surroundings with a color changing water effect. Even the foliage around the area got special light treatment. To embellish the architecture, he created some media content of animated fairy dust and growing vines that were projected from for four digital lights. The entire area was treated with 40 UV fixtures to pop the scenic elements. Add to that a periodic blast of random smoke, snow and haze. All that was left? Guests, who were required to wear costumes or masks for admission to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
Quick Cues…
LD Lawrence “Loz” Upton returns to the Smashing Pumpkins’ camp with their tour starting in October… LD Alex Ares has left his in-house residency at The Joint at The Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. As a new freelancer, he’s filling in on various lighting gigs — one featuring a boxing ring… LD Michael Dalton is traveling the country with “How Sweet the Sound” tour — a singing competition which searches for the best church choir in America…Video Director David Davidian finished up Avril Lavigne’s South American/Japan run. He’s back on American soil with Enrique Iglesias headlining the “Euphoria” tour Sept. 22-Oct. 22 with Pitbull and Prince Royce. Show Designer/LD is Travis Shirley, with Drew Gnagey as lighting director/programmer.
Got a newsworthy gig coming up? Let Debi know. Reach her at dmoen@plsn.com.
