When Tyler Childers, who plays a mix of neotraditional country, bluegrass, folk, and a bit of rock, meets up with a creative production team whose credentials lean into rock and pop, the results are a new direction for both. “Since day one, we always had this concept of a traditional rock ‘n’ roll design, mixed with a pop art flare,” says Show Designer Kyle Kegan. The word “incandescent” a.k.a. “warmth” comes up often in discussing the production. “The incandescent look is the foundation of the design. However, all our incandescent lights are mixed with color as well. This pairs beautifully with the upstage canvas of visuals that have been curated specifically for every song of the set.”
“Country music in general has a bit of warmth to it, and we wanted to capture that and chose fixtures accordingly,” adds Lighting Director Jack Davis. All working on Childers’ Mule Pull ‘24 Tour confirm it was a team effort. Emily Cox, Childers’ Creative Director, had the ultimate vision for the show, with Art Director Jamie Lew tackling the details scene-by-scene.
Grandma’s Living Room
Kegan, who founded Denver-based Voyage Productions Inc. in 2013, says Voyage Productions was brought into the project early on after meeting Cox during last year’s Red Rocks show. “We had some great ideas for the future of Tyler’s tour,” he says. After meetings with Childers and the team, they quickly got to work on this tour design.
In addition to his latest album, Rustin’ in the Rain, Childers pulls tunes off six other albums and EPs. There is a bit of busking, as there’s a jam element to a couple of the tunes that keeps it fresh and interesting. “It’s not a timecode show—I’m definitely pushing a lot of buttons,” Davis says. Thus, one of the challenges. “We were faced with a show that changes every night,” Kegan says. “The band is fully live which makes it challenging to create a show of this caliber. We were able to design the execution of the show to be as fluid as the band, but also hit those distinct looks that we wanted. Both Jack and [Content and Screen Director] Adam Skapple have taken this level of execution to the next level, keeping up with all the changes night to night.”
The set was directly inspired from Childers’ Grandma’s living room. “We started there but then put a spin on it to give us the transition from the outdoors to the indoors,” Kegan explains. The band is placed in a comfy living room surrounded by greenery. Davis credits Gallagher Staging for building the riser that fits the whole band without blocking or detracting from the set. They have covered the four-step, two-level space with LED tape, and the band members are spaced out on it. “The stairs are a real cool part of the design,” Davis says. “It’s a wood floor, and that’s where some of those lamps come into play.” Originally, they were going to build the house, but they went with using video to display it instead. “There are three video screens that collectively form a panoramic display showcasing a variety of content,” continues Davis. “Initially centered around Appalachian-inspired scenes, the content has since diversified and expanded in scope.”
Voyage produced the video content for the tour. “We worked closely with Emily and Tyler to initiate the content,” Kegan says. “Then Jamie [Lew] really helped tie everything together, leading the charge on the creative looks for the content.” He brought in some of his Content Producers, including Drew Mercadante, who with his team used Notch for the realtime graphics and contributed to creating some of the content.
Country Road
Davis is the Lighting Director/Programmer, and this is his first tour with Childers. He got connected to the production via Skapple. They crossed paths at Bonnaroo last year, and when Childers’ team wanted to make a change for this upcoming tour, Skapple recommended Voyage. Davis explains, “He and Tyler’s Production Manager Jai had just seen our ODESZA show which they liked, and we were excited to get involved.”
The team wanted to a create a cohesive, dynamic show, based on the music of the recent album. “It’s our first country act, and it’s a cool process for us because we’ve always wanted to get into country, and being able to get in at this level was an awesome opportunity.” The team discussed elements they wanted, key lights and fixtures, and started working on Childers’ New Year’s Eve show at Lexington, KY’s Rupp Arena. “That was the starting ground for what would become the tour’s design, and it has evolved from that show.” The band focuses on the music, and as there’s not much movement on the stage from the musicians, and so they lean into the set and the lights to accent what is happening musically.
Every light chosen for the rig was chosen carefully and purposely. The key light fixture was the ACME Lyra, which was also the key light on the ODEZSA tour, “so we had some experience with that one and liked that it has a good output and good frost on it,” says Davis. Martin MAC Ultra Washes were used for side lights, aiming two on each band member, creating big looks that added to the architectural feel. “We are using some [Elation] SMARTY MAXs downstage in a stylized manner, and that has turned out really cool.” CHAUVET’s STRIKE 1s are also employed. “I feel it’s one of the better LED blinder lights out there, and it too has some incandescent qualities to it.” GLP impression X4 Bar10s and Bar20s are used on the curtain that borders the main video wall. The Robe Patt 2017 is used for scoop effects and as a reflective fixture, which Davis says he is also especially pleased with.
The team wanted a vintage look, and Portman Lights P2 EVOs are a big part of that. Davis says that it really contributes to the visual dynamic range they were wanting to achieve. Alas, those P2s are actually hard to find right now in the U.S., so they supplemented the original design with Martin MAC Ones to great effect. “Sort of a blessing in disguise,” Davis says, as it opened the palette to colors and more options. Adding to the vintage vibe is the Astera NYX bulb, a wireless LED that is used as part of the set design and leaned on in the transition between songs.
Davis makes it all happen on a grandMA3. “We’re liking the new improvements they’ve made to the software, and it’s a lot more stable. We’re up to version 1.97 and haven’t upgraded to version 2 even though it came out right before the tour started. We want to give it a moment to see if there are any bugs or things that need to be worked out before we install it.” When pushed for a favorite moment from the show, Davis says “for the song, ‘Universal Sound,’ we use a 4’ disco ball—a little bit unconventional to the country look of the show, but it works.”
Video Content ‘Low, Medium, High’
Drew Mercadante, of Philadelphia-based SUPERVOID, is a visual effects specialist and media server programmer. This, too, is his first time working with Childers. “We’ve done a few projects with Voyage before, handling Notch and server programming, and that’s what we did here working under Kyle’s vision.”
Mercadante confirms that the band “can get a bit jammy,” so figuring in some flexibility into his programming was called for. “There’s a tremendous number of songs and content that went into the show,” he says. “His band is incredible, too, so it was kind of a daunting task to get brought into, but it was a lot of fun, too.” His SUPERVOID team worked for 2-1/2 months, with some tweaking continuing throughout the tour. “It’s one of those never-truly-finished kinds of things.”
He confirms that the way content and screens are used vary from song to song. There are some songs that have full-on content involving Notch effects; others are more fluid, looped loosely. But it all totals “hundreds and hundreds” of pieces of content. Songs were broken down into high, medium, and low priority in terms of how tightly the content matched the tune. Songs like “House Fire” and “White House Roads,” hit songs that are assured to be played every night, are tight with specific looks developed. “Others were set up for more busking.” Others still were something in between. The video is also being controlled on a grandMA3, and “I don’t think there’s any empty fader or button on that thing. It is totally filled out.”
Video content had a sepia treatment to it, adding to the Americana feel, and there are plenty of rural images treated in different ways, “almost Appalachian psychedelic kind of like mixture of things,” Mercadante says. There are parts with animation that was slowed down to 12 frames a second, where there would be texture effects using the virtual background “like a rough paper texture overlay going on the content with a finer, textured overlay. At times it kind of looks like they’re paper cutouts that are laid over each other. Depending on how you look at it, it either looks like stop motion or that the computer is about to explode.”
“We are absolutely pleased with this show,” Kegan says. “We already have so many ideas cooking for the future iterations of Tyler’s tour. But as I always say, it always starts with the artists we work with, and Tyler and the band are nothing short of incredible. So, for us it’s an honor to be a part of this show and we are here to just support Tyler’s vision from show to show.”
PRODUCTION TEAM
- Creative Director: Emily Cox, Formation Creative
- Show Designer/Director/Lighting Designer: Kyle Kegan, Voyage Productions Inc.
- Art Director: Jamie Lew, Voyage
- Producer: Chaz Hamman, Voyage
- Lighting Director: Jack Davis
- Lighting Programmer: Devon Brown
- Lighting Crew Chief: Evan Rodecap
- L2: Seth Williams
- Lighting System Tech: Dan Alaimo
- Lighting Techs: Dallas Bowshier, Conner Jones
- Content Producer: Ryan Smith
- Notch Design & Programmers: Drew Mercadante, Larry Barnes
- Animators: Nick Schoener, Marco Cardenas, Karl Fekete, Matt Kepler
- Video Crew Chief: Michael Alleman
- Video Director: Jon Hurley
- Content and Screens Director: Adam Skapple
- Video Engineer: Joel Harrison
- LED Techs/Camera Operators: Cory Mascari, Nate Parris, Brian Roberts
VENDORS
- Lighting: Voyage Productions
- Video: Moo TV
- Playback and Content: SUPERVOID
- Staging: Gallagher Staging
GEAR
Lighting
- 20 ACME Lyra
- 9 ACME Pixel Line IP
- 35 CHAUVET Strike1
- 14 Elation DTW Blinder 350 IP
- 10 Elation Smarty Max
- 18 GLP impression X4 Bar20
- 7 GLP impression X4 Bar10
- 48 Martin MAC Ultra Performance
- 40 Martin MAC ONE
- 16 Martin MAC Ultra Wash
- 23 Portman P2 EVO
- 22 Robe Patt 2017
- 7 Astera NYX Bulb
- 1 Robert Juliat Dalis 862
- 4 MDG theONE Atmospheric Generator
- 1 4’ Disco Ball
- 2 grandMA3 full-size Console
- 1 grandMA3 light Console
- 1 grandMA3 compact Console
Video
- 460 Triton Black Widow 5.9mm LED Panel
- 4 NovaStar MCTRL4K Display Controller
- 2 Disguise gx 3 Media Server
- 1 Ross Carbonite 2M/E Switcher
- 3 Hitachi SK-UHD7000 Camera
- 1 Fuji DigiPower 101x Long Lens
- 3 Panasonic AW-UE150K Robotic Camera
- 1 Barco S3 Event Master
- 1 Atmos Shogun Studio II Recorder
