They say it’s a “Long Way to the Top, If You Want to Rock and Roll.” If that entails playing in a garage band and spending years of your life trudging through every back alley loading dock and taking what they’re giving to make a living until you finally get a few breaks in life, you just may win a Parnelli award. LD Rob Koenig has paid his dues, with over 20 years of schlepping gear and banging faders he has worked his way up the ladder to become one of the most sought-after lighting professionals in the touring world.
Rob wore many hats this year. He’s the lighting designer for Metallica. He’s a lighting director for Guns N’ Roses. He’s a programmer for Eric Church, Carrie Underwood and other tours and events as well. Perhaps it’s just the well-deserved payback he’s earned from years of working his way up through the ranks.
In the Beginning
Koenig is a born and bred Floridian, having grown up in the town of Satellite Beach, near Melbourne. Rob started out learning music at an early age, thanks to his fathers influence. Eventually, he found himself banging drums in a band and thinking that a career in the music biz may be a good one. But lighting wasn’t really on his mind at the time.
In 1992, Koenig decided a career path as an engineer at a recording studio was something he would like to pursue. So off Rob went to Full Sail University for an education. He remained in Orlando and found work doing local audio gigs. But getting his foot in the door at a recording studio was not easy, and live audio didn’t turn out to be what he really wanted. “I was 22 years old,” Robe explains. “I wanted a job doing audio, but in the end, I wanted to be a studio guy, and the live audio jobs weren’t really of interest to me.”
Koenig hooked up with a local production company, AIPS (All In Production Service), in 1996. After about six months of learning the ropes as a stagehand, a position opened in the lighting department, and he went for it. “We had a system of about 48 PARs and some Dataflash strobes,” he says. “A smaller band would come to Florida and need some production to play a bunch of regional shows. The promoter would contact us, and off we went.
“We would play four to five shows in a row and, of course we drove a box truck at night,” Rob continues. “If we were lucky, we got to go to the shop to prep the next gig. There was really no sleep back then.” The band Spacehog was doing some shows down his way, and Rob got his feet wet — his first crack at being a band’s LD. “I got pretty good at running four consoles at once,” he jokes.
Working around Orlando, Rob met plenty of young musicians. He had some friends in a band called Tabitha’s Secret. “I did Lights and Drums for them — the original meaning of the word, ‘LD,’” Rob jokes. This band turned into Matchbox Twenty, eventually becoming huge. “We played a lot of clubs, then grew into playing theaters. It was a lot of work, but it was fun.” The band blew up into a huge arena act with a couple of hit records. “This was definitely a case of the band getting huge, and the crew getting fired,” Koenig laughs. “To be honest, I really wasn’t confident enough to design an arena production back then.”
Moving Forward
Koenig got his own first taste of arena rock when he got a call to fill in for Louis Ball on a Deep Purple tour.
“Louis had to temporarily step aside for personal reasons, so I was asked to fill in for him,” Rob says. The band felt he did a good job, and everyone seemed pleased with his work. “Eventually, Louis was able to return to the job. The band thanked me for my services and simply told me that they were loyal to their LD. To this day, this means a lot to me. I was heartbroken to lose the gig, but it showed me that there actually was some loyalty in this business.”
While he had been out working with Matchbox, his wife Lourie gave birth to their daughter Cleo. Rob made a decision to spend more time around home. He took a gig as an LD at the House of Blues in Orlando, supplementing his income by tech’ing lights at the Orlando Vari-Lite shop. He worked the club from 1998 to 2001. “I tell you, this was a great experience. I got to meet a lot of LDs and see how they set up their show. I met a lot of bands as well. I even got to program lights for Howard Ungerleider when he came through with Van Halen.”
But the road calls. Eventually he went back on tour with some friends in Skrape. It was a long day as he set up band gear, set monitor levels, then ran the lights. “I did everything for this band but mix front of house.” The club band found themselves opening up for the likes of Pantera and Slayer back then. Next, he found himself on the college circuit with Better Than Ezra. “I enjoyed this tour, but we played every single college, in every sort of venue they could fit, it seems. It taught me a lot about working with volunteer labor setting up, and because nothing was ever the same, how to wing it, and make it work.” From that tour he ventured out with Lit, a fun loving Orange County, CA band playing the club circuit.
Rob was looking for his next gig when he got a call from his friend Garrett Rentz. “Garrett had given me work before. He point-blank told me, ‘I need you to go out on tour with this act named Coal Chamber, or I’ll never send another gig your way!’ I didn’t know if he was joking, so I went out.” It turned out to be a blessing in disguise of sorts, as he met manager Michael Brokaw through this gig. Coal Chamber was an opening for connecting with the band named Ministry that Brokaw was also managing.
Butch Allen was out handling production-manager and LD duties for Ministry then. They were an industrial metal band known for having a principal who was a handful. This was by no means an easy tour. “Butch was just starting up his own lighting design company and needed to move away from this tour to concentrate on that,” Koenig says. “He offered me his gig and, for two years, I ran things with that camp.” By now, Koenig was used to doing two jobs for one paycheck, even though it meant he was the first in and the last out every gig.
Rob had paid his dues, and was rewarded for his hard work by getting a new gig in 2005, directing the lighting for Billy Idol in a job he still holds today as designer. We caught up with Rob at the House of Blues in Las Vegas last September, where Idol was doing a residency. Paul “Arlo” Guthrie was designing the touring show 11 years ago when Rob got the call to direct the tour. “Arlo designed this great show that really opened my eyes. He has such a sharp eye. I was just happy that all I had to do was be creative on this tour and not deal with the day-to-day operations.” Come 2007, Koenig took over the whole design, with Guthrie’s blessing. “Arlo was busy with his other projects [Fleetwood Mac, Sheryl Crow]. He’s still a great friend of mine. I’m always attached to this gig in some manner, I’m fortunate that I have developed a trust from management, production management, to replace myself when I can’t be here. I love working with Billy and Steve Stevens, they are just tremendous people to work for.”
In 2007, Idol was taking a break when Butch Allen approached Rob about lighting a new band called Julien-K. Allen was fond of the work Rob had done, and Rob mentioned that if Butch ever needed a director for one of his bigger shows, he should never hesitate to call. Meanwhile, Allen had left his longtime role directing the lighting for Metallica, and the band was having troubles filling the role. Butch told their designer John Broderick that he should go see Koenig’s work when Idol played the Hammerstein Ballroom in NYC. He did, liked what he saw, liked Rob’s timing and brought him on board.
Moving On Up
“When I first started running the console on Metallica, I was referred to as ‘6,’ just the number. I was actually listed in the tour itinerary under that name.” Apparently there were five other people who tried to fill Butch’s shoes before Rob took the console for good. “Lighting this band came easy for me. I knew all of their music dating back to when I was a kid.” John Broderick designed and Troy Eckerman programmed the “World Magnetic” tour in 2008 and left Koenig in charge to operate it.
In 2012, Butch Allen introduced him to the Eric Church camp, programming the Chief tour. Rob also programmed The Outsiders tour, a show Koenig worked on directing for six months before he had to return to Metallica. It was a very intense show to run, with Rob calling cues for spots and automation. He worked closely with Butch on coming up with an amazing looking show. “One thing I’m proud of is the hungry young man we found to take my place out there. Gavin Lake approached his job with devotion and a willingness to learn. I passed the baton to him, He’s their guy now, and I’m quite OK with that.”
That led to a call from Butch telling Rob that Carrie Underwood was going out “in the round.” Carrie Underwood would tour with a phenomenal design (see Designer Insights, page 46). Butch designed it and Nate Cromwell, a Carrie Underwood team member, was tagged to operate it for the year. “We programmed for 10 days straight, then I had to go due to prior commitments. Since programming wasn’t completed, Butch brought in Cat West to finish up programming. It was a monster of a show that just made great use of the latest technology. It’s a tough show, but Nate does a great job with no timecode. After it started, I was asked to previz the European run, because that show is not In the Round and they had no time or opportunity to do it while out on the road playing the U.S. dates.”
Everything’s Coming up Roses
In February of 2016 Rob was contacted by his colleague Phil Ealy. Phil had been the LD for Guns N’ Roses back in their Use Your Illusion days and they reached out to Phil about designing their upcoming reunion tour. Because Ealy works directing Kenny Chesney in the summer as well as Britney Spears, Ealy felt the Rob was someone that he could rely on to take on a lot of the programming duties as well as take the show on the road.
The pair had to keep it under wraps for about a month while the band got together and a production was designed. Rob explains, “The first show was at the Troubadour, the old rock club in West Hollywood. It was awesome, just so much fun. We brought in a little lighting package. This was one of those vibes that you never catch in an arena. From there, they did a few arena shows at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Mexico City stadium for two nights, and a couple weekends headlining Coachella. Then they started prepping for the tour.
“I got about four days of programming setting up a show file at my office before I headed to Upstaging, the lighting vendor for the tour. Phil joined me there. We spent a week in their previz studio and we had just one night with the actual rig.” Then it was off to Detroit, where they had three nights to rehearse with the band. “We rebuilt half the show there.” They watched a few songs and were happy with everything, leaving the design team to finish up the visuals.
We caught Rob again as Metallica was about to play the new U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. “I left the Guns N’ Roses Dodger Stadium show last night, caught a red eye to Minneapolis, did an all-nighter; programming straight till doors.” After a few months of LD’ing the most talked-about rock show (GNR) of the summer, Rob is looking forward to getting back on Metallica, working behind the board for some headline stadium shows around the globe (with a set design created by Dan Braun), and the band’s first record release in eight years —
Hardwired…to Self-Destruct.
For more on Rob, check out his website; it’s at www.ignitionshowdesign.com.
