Words can't describe it. Photos don't really do it justice. Even videos posted on Youtube after every one of their concerts can't quite capture the immersive laser experience at a Ghostland Observatory concert. The visuals for the band's current tour, in support of the just-released album, Codename: Rondo, are almost wholly derived from laser effects synched to the electronic beat of the music, which work with simple house washes, haze machines and occasional strobe effects to electrify the atmosphere in venues typically seating 5,000 or less.
"We now have 16 lasers on this tour, and over 120 watts," notes George Dodworth, owner of Lightwave International, who also works directly with Ghostland band members Thomas Turner (electronics) and Aaron Behrens (guitar and vocals) to create laser looks synched to the beats of the songs, which are performed live without timecode with laser tech Derek Abbott manning the cues.
Synching Lasers to the Beat
For the band's current tour, Dodworth programmed the laser looks in Ghostland Observatory's studio in Austin in late October, meticulously matching the visuals, beat for beat, to each of the six new songs Turner and Behrens added to their performance list.
"The trick was slicing the main program into beat-accurate loops that follow 8, 16 and 32 count measures," Dodworth notes. "As long as you nail the downbeat, the content follows perfectly."
"We do about 20 songs per show, and that runs maybe an hour, hour and a half or two hours, depending on the number of encores," says Ghostland's Turner. "We have maybe 40 songs in our repertoire." Lightwave has synched laser looks for each of those songs.
While the lasers are precisely timed to the beat of the electronic music in programmed "building blocks" for a look that is consistent, show to show, Dodworth emphasizes that "the show is absolutely 100 percent live and 100 percent operator-controlled. There is no timecode; it does not fit the personality of the band or the music."
In that regard, Dodworth adds, the laser operator "performs like a third member of the band. The setup at FOH is more like a musical instrument than a control system.
"It's very intense," Dodworth adds. "A 90-minute set flies by in what feels like minutes, and it's an absolute rush."
Although Abbott is the laser tech for the tour in support of Codename: Rondo; Jesse Parker, currently out with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, has manned the laser cues for Ghostland Observatory as well.
Minimal Lighting Effects
Turner and Behrens have long taken a minimalist approach to their show visuals. "When we got started, we just had a red wash on stage, for a raw, punk rock feel, and we try to keep that element," he noted. The shows also eschew additional musicians and video walls, so there's no real need or interest in keylighting for I-Mag, followspots or a big moving light rig.
"Sometimes we run into situations where the house lighting designer wants to show off all his lighting fixtures and what they can do," Turner says. "We'll have to tell them, ‘No, we don't really need all that.' We would need to make sure the lighting is positioned to stay out of the laser zones.
"In the past," Turner continues, "we tried [Martin] MAC 2Ks and MAC 700s for a tight, white beam, for sort of a spaceship headlight effect, on fixed positions. But it took a lot of time to make sure everything was working the way we wanted it to be. Night after night, it got to be a big hassle. It was exhausting."
Maximum Laser Power
Although the shows now travel with little more than laser equipment, relying on house wash lights and backline equipment, there is plenty of linear firepower. Past Ghostland Observatory tours have featured two to five laser projectors. The current tour uses 16.
And while Ghostland Observatory's touring shows are modest in size, they dwarf much bigger touring productions in terms of lasers rented from Lightwave International. The runner up, according to Lightwave production manager Alan Fuehrer, is Korn with 13 laser machines.
Since throw distance isn't really much of a problem for lasers, the visual design works well in larger and smaller venues. "If you have a 60-foot ceiling and three balconies, there's a new ‘awe' factor, but as long as they're synched to the music, they look cool either way – whether you're up close or farther away," Turner says.
"More is better," Dodworth adds, contending also that "small venues are the very best places to see this show. The density of laser equipment and laser beams is staggering when packed into a small house."
Compact but Powerful
New visual concepts – using laser effects to create what looks like a layer of electrical energy covering Behrens and Turner, for example – have evolved, along with the ability to find "new ways to hide lasers in set designs" now that the laser gear imposes very few limits on placement, Dodworth notes.
"In the water-cooled days," he adds, "a tour often had to reduce to green micro-yags when the proper water and power was not available for the full-color ion systems. Now we operate with no restrictions and no handicap for the smaller venues."
Turner recalls the concerns some venue managers would have when hearing that a laser show was heading their way. "They would be freaking out, because they thought we needed water hoses and generators. Now it's like, ‘Wow, that's a powerful, full-color laser, and it fits into a large suitcase, and it doesn't take much juice."
The smaller, but still-powerful lasers have also streamlined touring logistics. "We have two 15-passenger vans, one fully loaded with lasers, the other with music equipment and merchandise," says Turner, noting that he, Behrens, laser tech Abbott and tour manager Alex Brown can still find a seat.
"The band carries the entire show with them," Dodworth says. "In water-cooled days, a show this scale would require one to two full semi trailers, many hundreds of amps of three-phase power, and water usage measured in double-digit gallons per minute."
Direct Visual Control
Lightwave International is now in the process of giving Turner, who has become something of a laser expert himself, more direct control over the visual show.
"We just added a JazzMutant Lemur as a control device," Dodworth notes, of a "multi-touch system that generates OSC commands over a network." He credited Eliav Kadosh, a new Lightwave employee, for writing the interface for it to work with the lasers. "Thomas is already using one in his performance."
Lasers have become an integral part of the aesthetic of a Ghostland Observatory concert experience – and one the band is not likely to abandon anytime soon.
"It used to be that lasers were seen as ‘old' technology," Turner says, noting the rise of LED video displays. "But we dug them. What's cool about them is that they're retro and futuristic at the same time."
