Pick a song…any song
The lighting direction for Billboard-charting rock band 311’s Summer Unity Tour was nothing short of a guessing game. With a collection of 210 songs, none of which sound the least bit similar, 311 covers virtually every music genre: alternative rock, punk, ska, reggae, hip hop and even the occasional, gasp, mushy ballad (they cover The Cure’s classic melodrama “Love Song”). Lighting Designer Joe Paradise paused long enough to speak to us during the tour’s Las Vegas show at the Pearl Concert Theater, The Palms’ new concert hot spot.
Paradise says the biggest challenge was finding a common thread in their work, considering no parallels exist in the band’s sound. “I’ve worked for a lot of bands that have a common theme throughout their music — they either sound really hardcore and punchy the whole time, or really airy and spacey the whole time,” he says. “But with these guys, they have multiple personalities.”
Filling in the Gaps
Paradise toured with the band last year, although he admits he didn’t have a chance to fully immerse himself in the creative process. Because he joined the crew at the last minute, the lighting design was primarily “utilitarian.” “Last time, I didn’t design the rig, so I had to work with whatever was given to me,” he says. “I kind of pushed the budget this time.” Now in the driver’s seat, Paradise had the chance to create a design that covers the band’s expansive cross section of music and effectively “fills in all the gaps.” In fact, this tour’s original concept was already simmering in Paradise’s mind before receiving the pivotal phone call from 311 asking him to work the gig. “Basically, I wanted something that looked like it was reaching out and pulling people into the show,” he says. It took him three days to produce the design; however, several cuts were made for budgets, trusses and some LEDs.
To create a mesmerizing, attention-grabbing design, Paradise used Martin ShowDesigner software to plan and render his ideas to an AVI file, which he considers a more effective and impressive way to show the band what he had in mind. “(311) okayed it as soon as they saw it,” he says. “Literally, within a day they told me, ‘Go for it.’”
Because the band performs at venues that range from portable stages to stadium-size arenas and everything in between, Paradise says the design had to be flexible — a quality he believes makes or breaks a good design. “Fifty percent of the venues (on this tour) are exactly the same, and the other 50 percent are completely different from each other.” The band even played outside on the city streets of Kansas City, Kan., a makeshift venue that required some last-minute changes. Paradise and his two lighting techs, Todd Turner and Steve Schumi, rigged as much of the gear as they could fit on the load-bearing roof and ran with it. “We had to make some adjustments, but it worked out,” he says.
When asked about his thoughts on the Pearl, he noted the stage could be deeper because it is a tad cramped for the crew, who had trouble fitting some towers on stage. But other than that, “It’s a beautiful place,” he said, adding, “The venue greatly affects the design because there are some places that it doesn’t matter what I do, I’m just looking at it going, ‘This doesn’t even look like my show.’”
Lining Up the Pixels
Once the band approved the design, Paradise spent just over four days in preproduction at Upstaging Inc.’s Chicago facility, where he set up a vir-tual rig using VectorWorks. He then programmed songs using color pallets and focus positions. The lights are being run from a Martin Maxxyz console with a visualizer and playback wing. Active on the trusses are 13 Martin MAC 600 Washes, 16 MAC 700 Profiles, 4 MAC 2000 Profiles, 8 Martin Atomic 3K Strobes with color scrollers, 19 Coemar ParLite LEDs and 24 Pixel Range 1044 PixelLines. Two Jem ZR 3S and two Reel EFX DF-50 hazers create a calm, ambient atmosphere. In addition, Paradise is also using a Martin Maxedia video server to feed the PixelLines LED strips.
“I was going to program right through the console, but there are so many individual channels that it would take me months to get what I wanted,” he says. “I’m actually putting video through the PixelLines.” This method is less tedious than video programmed directly from the lighting console, which he says can result in a blocky, rigid appearance. “When you add the video going through (the PixelLines), there are more diverse colors, and the video appears to be more colorful and organic.”
The video is primarily stock clips with some custom video of textures and movements that is highly pixilated. The batten strip is five feet long and comprised of 18 cells, so no matter what video clips are used, the audience can’t tell what is depicted in the low-resolution rendering. Paradise uses pixel-mapping on the Martin Maxedia server, which allows him to view the layout on screen and format the video clips by changing the size, reso-lution and placement. In some instances, the video is actually five clips in a row in various orders. Paradise is switching the video via the lighting console that “talks to the video server.” “I can do video and lighting in one; I just had to build it into a cue,” he says. “If the video was high resolu-tion, I would have video guys out here producing it.”
Instead of FOH followspots, Paradise used Martin MAC 2000 Profiles; there are handles installed on each one, and the pan and tilt are disabled. As a result, the only effects operating from the console are color, intensity and gobos, resulting in a more seamless show. “A lot of places we go, there aren’t FOH followspots,” Paradise says. “If I have a bad spot operator — or two, or four — I don’t have to count on them because I’m the one who is controlling everything. All they have to do is point and shoot, which makes the changes and intensity more smooth and even.”
Programming in Peace
After preproduction, Paradise had four days of rehearsals with 311 in Los Angeles. Ironically, Paradise says he didn’t program songs while the band practiced the live versions and would often leave during rehearsals. Instead, he would program at night with his MP3 player loaded with all the band’s music. “(311) came in during the day, and I would leave and come back at night when they were done making noise so I could program in peace and quiet,” he says. Programming songs with the recorded versions can cause additional design challenges, considering many bands will perform a song differently than how they recorded it — 311 being no exception. Paradise says the solution is simply trial-by-error, as he continu-ally tweaks the design throughout the tour.
With such a vast quantity of songs, Paradise says it would be “silly to program all 210,” so he decided upon a list of 65 tracks, which he believed they would perform — a tactic he jokingly admits to having “failed at miserably.” “I sat in on rehearsals, and they only did six songs out of the 65 I had programmed!” Paradise says he is sometimes disappointed with the set list, which often changes drastically from night to night, and he doesn’t receive until right before a show. “I’m like, ‘Ahh, man, they’re going to start with that and then go into that?’” he says. “Some of the segue ways and the order is disappointing to me as far as the entire flow of the show.”
When 311 graces the stage with their presence, Paradise hopes his design engages the audience, whether through a dramatic color scheme change, different patterned strobes or some kind of chase that follows the music. He says a great lighting design brings attention to the show itself, not the light show. “It’s all about repetition and listening to the songs to find subtle nuisances and creating gags for each song — special effects that are more interesting than just the lights coming on or changing colors and movement,” he says. “Some kind of visual wow.”
GEAR
19 Coemar PAR LEDs
2 JEM ZR 33 fog machines
8 Martin Automatic Strobes with color scrollers
13 Martin MAC 600 washes
16 Martin MAC 700 profiles
4 Martin MAC 2k profiles
1 Martin Maxedia console with playback wing
1 Martin Maxedia video server
2 RealFX DF-50 hazers
24 Thomas 1044 pixel lines
CREW
Sound Company: Upstaging Inc.
Lighting Designer: Joe Paradise
Lighting Techs: Steve Schumi, Todd Turner
