Good things come in threes. At least that’s what solo artist and White Stripes co-founder Jack White would have us believe, judging by the lighting and production designs for his current tour in support of his 2014 solo record, Lazaretto.
“Three may be Jack’s lucky number,” says creative producer/principal designer/LD Nick Whitehouse. “I was told he really likes the number, and things in groups of three. We even went through the trouble of finding Mole Nine-Lites so we could have groups of three lights.”
The number three is ubiquitous, largely because the tour’s design was inspired by the Whites’ minimalistic logo: a blue circle encompassing three solid bars superimposed upon triple-tiered wavy lines. Although not every aspect of the staging and lighting designs have been encoded with this magical triad, it’s fascinating to discover many aspects of White’s show that are.
“Nick and I discussed general shape with Jack and Lalo [Medina, manager],” says set designer Josh Zangen. “We knew we were going to have fun with it when Jack sent a mock up of the band layout featuring a mixture of Legos, Muppet characters and other action figures. The key visuals we discussed were keeping a very tight grouping of the band, tight color palette and a vintage, analog look. All of those stuck strongly since day one.”
Nick adds, “Because there’s no video, no moving light chases, no sweeps, the focus is really on Jack and his band of exceptional musicians. Jack performs right in the middle of the action. It’s a very small set up on stage; everyone’s crowded ‘round. We wanted to emphasize that.”
Classic Vibe
Calling White “old school” is an understatement. It’s no secret that White has an affinity for American popular music of the mid 20th Century, be it rock ‘n’ roll, classic R&B or country. He prefers recording with analog tape to digital audio recording programs, has been known to work live in the studio, unleashes vinyl releases through his own label, Third Man Records, and currently tours with a violinist named Lillie Mae Rische.
White’s stage show is shaped by a similar sense of organic creative growth. White’s refusal to rehearse, even to tell the band members and the lighting operator the exact composition and sequence of the set list, adds to the creative tension of the show. For instance, for the tour supporting 2012’s record, Blunderbuss, White hit the road with both an all-female (Peacocks) and an all-male (Buzzards) group. Neither of whom knew which band was going to take the stage on any given night. Like a finely tuned Chicago Blues band from the 1960s, the general focus of White’s tour is the musicianship, interplay and the onstage personalities of the performers.
Lighting director Emmanuelle “Gigi” Pedron has been tasked with navigating this spontaneous environment, keeping her digits dancing. “Gigi is playing off the audience’s reaction,” says Whitehouse. “It’s all well and good, doing a pop show, synchronizing every beat. That’s great if an artist wants repetition every night, but this was the complete opposite. Gigi is feeding off of Jack’s moods as the show is going along. There’s no real set list. She has to busk to keep up. It’s like she’s another musician in the band, working the lights as you would another instrument.”
Vintage Gear
Lazaretto, which hit number-one on Billboard’s Top 200 Albums chart, is some kind of retro hybrid of 1970s British glam rock, with R&B, country and riffs with hooks. The basis for the material appearing on Lazaretto was partly inspired by writings White penned when he was just 19 years old — a literary cache that Jack would rediscover years later in his attic. This story dovetails nicely with the vintage musical instruments and old-school lighting technology used for the tour. Band gear such as a Theremin and analog keyboards, worked hand in hand with open-faced Mole-Richardson Skypan fixtures (which were “lamped down” from 5K to 1K).
“LED is in your face in a lot of designs,” says Whitehouse. “I didn’t think they were quite right for this Jack tour.” One of the most visually attractive lighting features is a custom vintage TV set, which displays three bars on its screen. “The set reacts to the audio signal input,” says Whitehouse. “How White plays guitar affects the graphics [on the TV screen] in different ways.” The badass boob tube was initially meant to be a background piece, but when designers first laid eyes on it, the wheels started turning. “We decided to make the lighting console follow the movements of the images on the vintage TV screen,” says Whitehouse. “The grandMA2 controls the lights through the sound-input module. So, what Jack’s doing with the guitar is not only being tracked by the TV’s graphics, but also mimicked by the skypans. Gigi can push up a cue, and a portion of lights reacts to his bass frequencies, another reacts to midrange and the rest to the high frequencies.”
Wholly Trinity
When PLSN took a gander at the rigging plots for the Lazaretto tour, it was revealed that the stage is stamped with a gigantic oval-shaped reproduction of White’s logo. “The perimeter of this logo acts as the boundary for the band,” says set designer Zangen. “We worked within the circular shape of this logo, rearranging the pieces to achieve visual balance and the best use of space.” Within the stage-based logo, some Color Kinetics IntelliWhite Blast fixtures have been placed on the floor in a semi-circle around the drum set. Nine Par 64 wide lamped fixtures are used in total, with five-positioned downstage of the band, near the outer rim of the oval.
Upstage, outside the logo, some ColorBlaze 72s rest on the floor to uplight the set’s open curtain. Depending on the city, either Clay Paky Sharpy washes or Elation Platinum Washes backlight the band. In addition, six freestanding truss sticks, of varying sizes, secure more of these fixtures. “The 4Wall guys came through as far as daily gear, and added everything we needed to make it work,” says Whitehouse.
The mysterious number three — or some multiple of it — is reflected throughout the many physical dimensions of the production’s design. For instance, the 30-foot downstage truss secures Martin TW1 Wash Fixtures or VL500 Wash tungsten models with units bunched in threes. Six nine-light Molefay squares, circuited in threes, are equipped with double L200 gels and line the facing of the truss for maximum audience impact. “The number three plays a key part in all the decisions the artist makes,” says Whitehouse. “If you look closely at the design, the fixtures are all in groups of three. Wherever we could use that number, we did.”
The front truss spans 30 feet, and the total distance covered by the outer trussing system that runs the parameter of the stage measures roughly 45 by 36 feet (LxW). This “outer” trussing matrix houses an inner square-shaped trussing array. A center truss running through it secures three large rectangular light boxes fabricated by Gallagher Staging. Each of the rectangular light boxes, which measure 16 feet by 28 inches by 42 inches in size (HxWxD) has a perforated aluminum mesh face that encases pipes to hold more wash lights. The boxes are divided into three sections measuring approximately 5 feet four inches, and each houses a single Sharpy. “At the edges of the perforated panels, there’s a decorative frame that also acts as a cove light with RGB LED tape, giving us a very graphic, outlined look,” Zangen says. “The perforated metal faces allows for beams, washes or patterns of light, all originating from within the boxes.”
A double-sided curtain on a circular track, along with the three light boxes, serve as abstract reflections of the Whites’ logo. “With flown elements, we are able to reveal bold lighting looks using large older instruments and silhouettes of the band,” says Zangen. Six truss sticks are positioned in two clusters of three (mirroring one another) and are positioned stage left and right. The trusses each secure either one or two skypans.
“We wanted the hanging light boxes to be a dynamic scenic and lighting piece,” Zangen says. “Each box was rigged on its own track and controlled by motors to allow adjustable positions. We could use them in a vertical, slanted or horizontal roof, position as well as to create dynamic choreographed movement for a really wide collection of looks. For certain songs we wanted to highlight just Jack and the band, so we would fly the panels into the roof position to allow for back lighting while the lighting inside the boxes was used as key down-light.”
Blue Views
In addition to the tour’s focus on a single number, one basic color – blue – dominates the set design. White and Whitehouse, by creating and stressing a largely monochromatic design, were attempting to achieve something far deeper and more permanent than a temporary impact on an audience’s emotional mood. It should be noted that at times shades of green, red, and white sneak into the show. “It was a challenge to do, but it makes the show stand out from other tours,” says Whitehouse.
Bathing the set in various blue hues not only coincides with White’s logo and the color scheme of his Lazaretto album cover, it also creates an almost dreamlike, surreal environment. “Blue was important to Jack, and that’s what he wanted in his show,” says Whitehouse. “Jack sent, (as a reference,) a bunch of different colored objects, some being his car, some being his guitar. So, we had a particular color we had to hit, which we managed to do by tripling over Lee 200 gel. That got the right combination of blues and magentas. It looked amazing on the big Sky Pans we used.”
“I think a key to [White’s] iconic color palette and representation of threes is that Jack has a very strong tie to those elements and this allows him to fully immerse himself into the world of the stage and performance,” says Zangen. “It was for that reason Nick and I began with those details for all of our choices for the tour, down to the counts of light fixtures being divisible in groups of three, number and color of stage monitors, amps, truss tower lighting and scenic elements and many other elements.”
“Obviously Jack’s tastes played a big part in the overall design,” says Whitehouse. “I think you’ve picked up on it: the tour is a reflection of his own personality.”
Crew
Creative Producer/LD: Nick Whitehouse
Lighting Director: Emmanuelle “Gigi” Pedron
Set Designer: Josh Zangen
Tour Manager: Lalo Medina
Lighting Co: 4Wall Entertainment
Staging Co: Gallagher Staging
Gear
1 grandMA2 full size console
1 grandMA 2 Lite console
33 Clay Paky Sharpy 330 Washes (alt: Elation Platinum Washes)
10 Martin MAC TW1 Wash (alt: Vari*Lite VL500 Wash Tungstens)
7 Chauvet Professional Nexus 4×4 LED panels
12 Mole-Richardson Skylite skypans
6 Mole-Richardson nine-light Molefays
7 Color Kinetics ColorBlaze 72 LED fixtures
4 Color Kinetics LED iWhite Blast fixtures
9 Par 64 FloorCan WFLs
2 Reel EFX DF-50 Diffusion hazers
