“Can you recreate a 1980s concert look in 2016?” Bruce Springsteen asked of his longtime LD Jeff Ravitz. Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band’s The River Tour 2016 commemorates the release of the double album of the same name in 1980, and Bruce wanted the old vibe of yesterday to flow into his new shows today. A challenging idea, especially since fixtures and video equipment are light years ahead of where they were then. LD Jeff Ravitz has been working with The Boss since 1984, but he shuddered when the phrase “PAR cans” was bandied about. And video? Not much in 1980. PLSN looked at the lighting from Morpheus Lights and video production from Pete’s Big TVs on this current tour.
Lighting: “Simple and Unobtrusive”
PLSN: Jeff, how are you channeling the 1980s production on today’s tour?
Jeff Ravitz: The idea is to play the album in order — some outtakes, followed with the classics. The mandate was to visually present an “old school” vibe. Though PAR cans were mentioned, there would be little gained, creatively, by succumbing to that concept. I stressed that we would create cues that were an homage to the ‘80s style of lighting, but in a way that they might have done even back then if they had the technical advantages that we do. There would be no visible moves of lighting, just to keep the high tech stuff somewhat in the background. Perhaps we would indulge in more saturation and some color on faces — which is less in-style today than it used to be. But, if we used color cleverly, we could have our vibe and eat it, too. So, we got the thumbs up and I was able to go to the drawing board. Maybe to be true to the era, I should have hand-drafted the plot!
How did that affect your rig design?
For our last few tours, our overhead rig has had a more designed appearance: curved trussing, lots of elements hanging lower, and a move toward being modern without being techno. For this show, I reverted to a straight truss and overhead grid look. Not that the ‘80s didn’t have mondo, complex looking lighting systems, but Bruce and the E Street Band never did. Anyone who knows this show and music knows that they are the show, and the rest just supports it. The right approach was to be simple and unobtrusive. A straight truss and grid setup allows for a lot of equipment in the air, so we were not at a disadvantage.
What new technology are you using?
I kept to full trusses of Ayrton LED washes — the NandoBeam-S9 and WildSun-500C, punctuated with hard-edge profiles — Philips Vari-Lite VL3000s, VL1100 TSs, and Martin MAC Viper Profiles — for dedicated backlight for all band members, side and front keylight, and simple and static stage gobo washes. We’ve also got the Ayrton MagicRing-R9s, a more streamlined fixture for a large format light. It packs a huge punch.
Uplighting is a hallmark of our design, and Bruce and the band love the drama achieved by using that angle. I’m using the ETC Lustr SELL20, a seven-color LED PAR that allows for excellent tungsten replication, as well as producing a nice mix of other colors. This was particularly important since these are focused on the performers’ faces.
Our big bow to the ‘80s, with a firm foot in the 21st century, was the creation of an audience blinder made of nine Chauvet LED PARs in three rows of three. It has more mass and scale than the 9-Light most of us are familiar with, and certainly more versatility and punch. The idea was to have a light that looked like a familiar ‘80s blinder, but with the advantages of an LED fixture. It’s almost twice the length and width of a normal 9-light, so it has a powerful appearance.
Our final addition is an element of light behind the band at a height of around six feet above stage level. This is to create a background for a band that traditionally has audience behind them, and therefore we have no backdrop, nor any element to create a background. For this, we added eight thin columns of light using 16 Ayrton MagicBlade-Rs in a configuration of one light above another to create a two-high strip. The light can pan and tilt continuously, but for our purposes, I wanted a low intensity glow behind the band, in a variety of colors. The visual arrangement could be horizontal strips, vertical, or any angle in between to create these dots of barely visible color. That is, until the encore, when we allow them to stretch out and usher us into 2016.
What control are you using?
Our control system has been updated with two grandMA2 full size consoles.
You’re using the new PRG Ground-Control system?
The tour carries most of its followspots, and we create a front spot bridge around 30 feet from the stage for five front spots. This tour, we changed out five tungsten fixtures for the new PRG GroundControl system. They use the PRG Bad Boy as the spot, and it’s controlled from the ground via a controller that looks and feels like a followspot, with a video monitor that sees — via a camera on the light — what the operators would see if they were running the light on the truss. Now we don’t have operators climbing up to the truss above the audience. We can change color more elegantly, add gobos, fade ins and outs, and any other parameter of a moving light. Our operators aim the light, douse in and out, and control the iris size. Pretty amazing.
Video: The Upside-Down “T”
While Ravitz’s relationship with The Boss racks up 32 years, Pete’s Big TVs’ goes back 18 years. PLSN spoke with Pete’s Big TVs President Peter Daniel about providing the video production needs.
PLSN: How was Pete’s Big TVs brought into the big picture with Bruce Springsteen?
Peter Daniel: George Travis called me up from Bruce Springsteen’s opening night at the Olympic Stadium in Barcelona, Spain in 1997. George said he was walking to the stage that night with Bruce, when Bruce looked up at the 80,000 Spaniards and said, “I think we should have video for these people.” We’ve been with George and Bruce ever since.
This was before your time, but what did Bruce Springsteen actually use in the 1980s for video?
Before we got involved in 1997, Bruce used live video only in his stadium shows. We were the first to travel with video in arenas, and then, of course, stadiums. Before us, he would allow each venue’s in-house video staff to put Bruce on their screens. And of course, back then, somebody in-house would bring their VHS machine from home, hook it up by the popcorn machine and make a bootleg.
What’s new on this tour?
We’re providing close to 400 tiles of the new digiLED DLPo5.9 LED product. There are 180 tiles creating the onstage back wall, and 192 tiles for two side screens at 96 tiles per wall. The side walls each create an upside-down ‘T’ shape so that I-Mag or other content can play horizontally or vertically. The LED tiles can curve, are easy to rig, and are half the weight of the previous tour screens. The screen is beautiful. It’s a well lit and a well shot show. No complaints. Most important of all, Bruce and the band look great on the screens.
The upside-down T video screens are unique to Bruce’s tours. How did that configuration come into play?
By 2010, George Travis and Bruce’s manager, Jon Landau, had been trying gently for decades for Bruce to add production value to the show. Bruce always said, “They come to hear me and my music,” and he doesn’t need any additional production. People would come to see Bruce in an empty theatre with a 100 watt lightbulb. But then he goes to a U2 show and he says, “Wow, I’d love to do that,” yet we end up at a 1979 look. So George brought Bruce Rodgers for ‘outside the camp’ ideas. One of Rodgers’ ideas was a tall, thin screen — Rodgers calls it a “hero screen.” It’s what Paul McCartney’s been doing since 1992. It’s a look. It allows you to do different things, composition-wise that you can’t do otherwise. So we decided to have one screen inside the PA wing and then one traditional 16:9 screen outside the PA. So George, trying to save a billionaire a dollar, was going to cut one or the other. Chris Hilson, who was enamored with both ideas, combined the tall thin screen with a wide screen, creating a T. I suggested making it an upside down T, because the closer the panels are to the ground, the easier they are to work on. We proposed it to management and they said, “Wow, we get both looks.”
Describe video director Chris Hilson’s role on the video switcher.
We’re using the Ross Vision 4MLE switcher with a new Intel Optane brain. It gives more processing power.
Chris essentially mixes the show into three different shows. He has a straight 16:9 HD show he cuts for the main screen and the back three screens that goes also to a Sony SRW HDCam tape for archival recording. Then he cuts a portrait show on the second MLE when he uses the “hero” look on the side screens. He has a second Sony SRW tape machine that he is picking out ISO for later use.
The rest of the system comprises five Sony HDC 1500HD cameras, four Sony HDC1 HD box cameras on robotic heads, and a Panasonic HD robotic on the downstage spot truss for Bruce’s crowd surfing shots.
So, the new technology actually helps you create some 1980s effects on the screens?
The original 1980 River tour didn’t have three LED screens. We’re acquiring the pictures in a high def, clean format and, because Bruce likes the old film look on the video, we have that capability to add the effect to the I-Mag. It’s originally as clean and as good as it can be. You can always turn the high resolution down, but you can’t turn low resolution up.
The River Tour 2016
Crew
Tour Director: George Travis
Production/Lighting Designer: Jeff Ravitz
Lighting Director: Todd Ricci
Lighting Co: Morpheus Lights
Lighting Crew Chief: Brad Brown
Lighting Programmers: Mike Appel, Jason Badger
Lighting Crew: Brandt Gentry, Mark
Donahue, Jimmy Duke, Tom Marty, Adam Beasley
Morpheus Lights Rep: Paul Weller
Video Co: Pete’s Big TVs
Video Director/I-Mag: Chris Hilson
Video Techs: Paul Whitfield, Rob Villalobos, Tyler Chappell, Will Farnham, Erik Hartman and Roger Rubey
Pete’s Big TVs Rep: Peter Daniel
Production Manager: Ron Cameron
Stage Manager: Sean Magovern
Staging Co: Tait Towers
Carpenters: Ron Czajkowski, Troy
Garcia, Martin Capiraso
Riggers: William “Stoney” Stonecyper, Elijah Hodge
Gear
Lighting:
2 grandMA2 full size consoles
58 Ayrton NandoBeam-S9 fixtures
40 Ayrton WildSun-500C fixtures
16 Ayrton MagicBlade-R fixtures
10 Ayrton MagicRing-R9 fixtures
32 Clay Paky Sharpys
26 Martin MAC Viper Profiles
17 Martin MAC Auras
20 Vari*Lite VL3000s
14 Vari*Lite VL1100 TS
16 Morpheus CP-9 IP w/ 9 Chauvet COLORado 1-Tri IP PARs
6 ETC Lustr SELL20 fixtures
16 SGM Q7 RGBW strobes
32 Philips Color Kinetics ColorBlasts
16 Philips Color Kinetics ColorBursts
2 Philips Color Kinetics iWBlasts
2 Chauvet COLORado Zoom
3 Robert Juliat Topaze followspots (Morpheus-modified)
3 Robert Juliat Manon short-throw spots (Morpheus-modified)
5 PRG GroundControl Followspot Systems
Video:
400 digiLED DLP05.9 LED tiles
1 Ross Vision 4MLE switcher with Intel Optane
5 Sony HDC 1500HD cameras
4 Sony HDC1 HD box cameras on robotic heads
1 Panasonic HD robotic for Bruce’s crowd surfing shots
“The River Tour 2016” started as a trickle, a drop of dates for one month, and now the itinerary has overflowed with shows slated at least until July, if not longer. For more details, go to www.brucespringsteen.net.
For more Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band 2016 ‘River’ Tour photos by Steve Jennings, go to:
http://www.prolightingspace.com/photo/albums/springsteen-the-river-2016-tour-gallery-by-steve-jennings
