Chaos’ crew tries to keep it fast, cheap and under control.
The third annual A Taste of Chaos tour certainly lives up to its name for its hard-working crew. With eight screamo/post- hardcore bands, six audio people and four Lighting crew, plus a truncated load-in time after the first few shows, over its two-month cross-country trek, the growing event has become a test of speed and endurance for this well-oiled touring machine. This year, it is also a challenge for Chaos crew chief Tommy Green, and 30 Seconds to Mars lighting director Rob Smith to allow the show to build up in intensity for a big visual payoff by night’s end. It’s a true lesson in the principle of “less is more.”
When PLSN dropped in to visit the tour at Nassau Coliseum in Long Island, New York, things were running smoothly. Every show had been opening with a 15- to 20-minute set from a local band (a contest winner sponsored by Ernie Ball), followed by 30- to 35-minute sets from Evaline, Aiden and Chiodos, 40-minute sets from Sense Fail and Saosin, and 55- to 60-minute sets from 30 Seconds To Mars and headliners The Used. With load-ins starting around noon, doors opening around 4:30 p.m., the first band often on by 5:00 and a frequent curfew time of 11:00, things had been rolling fast and furiously.
A big challenge was the set changes, with 15 minutes, at most, between bands, some of whom wanted big sets. “The specific layout we have for all of the other bands — aside from The Used and 30 Seconds To Mars — are trusses just staying in a fl at position,” says Green, who serves as the lighting director for The Used, and who has worked previously with Metallica, Eric Clapton, Sting and John Mellencamp. “For all the other bands, it’s solid colors, no strobes — just something so it builds up a little bit. We get on to Saosin and Senses Fail and throw a little more color and strobes in there, mix them up. Then, when we get to 30 Seconds To Mars and The Used, it’s the full package, just blowing every thing up.”
With all the excitement and flashiness generated by the show, one might think that Green, Smith and crewmates Jim Frederickson and Josh Wagner had plenty of lights to play with, but in fact, the rig had only approximately 50. “They’re all moving lights,” remarks Green. “If you look at the way it’s set up, as few lights as there are, it actually looks very big when you actually fire it up. It looks like a massive rig compared to some of these 100- to 150-light rigs you see sometimes.”
“You need to choose what you do with them wisely,” observes Smith, also the lighting designer for Saosin, who has previously worked with Journey, Lionel Richie, Steely Dan and the Boston Pops and Boston Symphony Orchestra. “Anybody can take 250 moving lights, point them out at the audience, and everybody will go, ‘Wow!’ If you can do that with for 40 or 50 lights, now you’re accomplishing something. That’s the key to it all.”
With its limited budget, because of its low ticket prices, and even with The Used and 30 Seconds To Mars splitting the cost of the floor lighting package that was not in the original bid, the lighting crew is working with modest but effective means. Active on the trusses are 11 Robe ColorSpot 1200s, 22 High End Systems Studio Beams, 18 Martin Atomic 3000 strobes, approximately 12 LED PARs, six Lekos and four Moles. Specific to the two main acts are eight Color Kinetics Color Blasts and 10 Robe Color Spot 575s for the floor. Two Reel EFX DF-50 hazers are used for atmosphere.
While The Used have done moody videos and 30 Seconds To Mars indulges in fl ashier clips, they reverse those principles in concert. Green observes that The Used want a big, blown-out show that draws attention to them and is different from what they have done in the past. There are lots of big, bright spotlights employed for The Used, notes Smith, while “The 30 Seconds To Mars guys are into moody, dark, shadowy-type looks,” he says.
“Lots of big, bright spotlights for The Used,” adds Smith. “For half the songs for 30 Seconds, I don’t use the spotlight. And if I do, there’s usually a Lee 180 dark blue or dark purple in it so you can barely even see it. The Used have a gag at the beginning with the kabuki drop, and we throw a gobo up with their logo, so everybody screams and yells at the top of their show.” While The Used set starts with shadows and silhouettes, it soon explodes into a full-on rock show.
“For 30 Seconds and The Used, we also move the trusses to change the dimension a little bit,” says Green. “For 30 Seconds, we’ll actually drop the trusses down so they’re angled at 45 degrees. For The Used, it will start fl at and low, then it will pick up and fl y out, then back down again, and then the center will pop and the two ends will come down. There is probably a total of five or six different positions that we play with to give it a little dimension and to see it build up more.”
The kabuki drop is a black shark-tooth scrim, about 24 feet by 40 feet, that flies in on the downstage edge. Three ETC Source Four PARs light up Quinn (stage right guitar player), Jeph (bass player) and Bert (lead singer), with a couple of PARs focused on the drummer Dan. “We do a little shadow work on the scrim prior to it dropping,” says Green. “Then there’s the big hit, the scrim drops, then everything opens up. It’s amazing how inexpensive that is and how much effect it has.”
“We’ve got a hand rheostat out in front of house,” adds Smith. “We wondered how we could get dimmer control all the way in front of house for this Leko, so we went to Home Depot and bought a hand dimmer. That hand dimmer and an $18 steel gobo probably gets the biggest reaction out of the audience — more than thousands of dollars of other gear could.”
“We had strobes in the air, and they added four strobes on the ground,” says Green. “For The Used, we have four spines. There are four pipes with what looks like a ribcage hanging off of each one, and on top of the ribcage is a fan. There’s a lamp inside the fan with red and yellow fabric. When the fan kicks in the fabric shoots up, and from a distance it looks like flames. It’s inexpensive and works well.”
The members of 30 Seconds To Mars imported Chinese lanterns from England for their show, twelve of which appear onstage. “Again, it’s a real simple set up,” remarks Green. “It’s just 60-watt incandescent light bulbs with a mogul base hanging down inside it. It lights up, the red fabric glows, and you see a Chinese lantern. The kids just love it.”
The Chaos rigging package is also simple: a cable bridge with three active trusses on the stage and one downstage, with the stage being anywhere between from four to six feet off the ground. A 40-foot turntable allows one band to set up while another is performing.
The lights are being run from a Martin Maxxyz console with a wing attached. Green and Smith praise its creators, who they say labor hard to fix any problems. “We did have one small snafu during one show where it seemed to lock up, but we quickly jumped over to our spare and nobody was the wiser,” recalls Smith. “We were all thankful for that. It’s like any of these new consoles that are coming out now. They have software revisions coming almost daily.”
“They’re very quick about it, and if you call up one of the Maxxyz guys with problems, in 10 minutes time you can download revised software from their FTP site and literally have the problem fixed,” says Green. “They’re really quick to make it work. I’ve been using a Maxxyz console now for three years, and they’ve been really, really good service-wise. I had a lot of problems at the beginning, but it’s smoothed out and become very dependable. I love programming on it because it’s quick and easy. If you haven’t ever touched a Maxxyz before, you can learn how to program it in 20 minutes.”
Such programming proficiency certainly has helped in dealing with the two main Chaos acts. Smith and Green estimate that there are probably around 2,500 cues between them. “It’s nice to spread that out,” says Smith, “because when it’s one guy who has to deal with all of that, it’s a whole lot of stuff to try to keep your head wrapped around, because you have to have the songs memorized to a point where you know exactly when everything happens.” At the same time, the LDs have worked with the bands to evolve and alter their shows to suit their individual tastes. Fredrickson handles the Ernie Ball winners and Chiodos, Wagner works Evaline and Aiden, Smith tackles Saosin and 30 Seconds To Mars, and Green takes on Senses Fail and The Used.
Green acknowledges that it’s a big challenge to give each group a different look with the same lights. At the end of the day, they have managed to pull it off working with an economy of means. Maximizing the potential in a minimum amount of gear certainly comes from years of experience. Luckily, the tour had a veteran designer and creative LDs willing to give them just that.
