Khruangbin is a Houston-based trio comprised of Laura Lee (bass, vocals), Mark “Marko” Speer (guitar, vocals) and Donald “DJ” Johnson, Jr. (drums, vocals). Their style is described as having an instrumental base, with fusions of soul, surf, rock and psychedelic influences. PLSN caught up with the Khruangbin Space Walk Tour at Berkeley’s Greek Theatre for a mesmerizing show and the memorable production and lighting design by Dominic Smith, who added a mystical feel to the band’s vibes.
‘Organic’ and ‘Psychedelic’
Lighting Designer Dominic Smith of design company NeonBlack was approached by Khruangbin’s band manager Dawn White in January after the band decided it was time to change their current production. “Dawn and I had some mutual friends and she and the band had seen some of our previous work. They were very keen to talk to us about designing their production. We had a chat over a Zoom call—Khruangbin likes to interview all potential new staff personally. It was a great chat. We hit it off pretty much immediately. The band came to us with some strong ideas about how they wanted their show to look, and we spent a lot of time talking about how to bring those ideas to life.”
As a designer, Smith says he’s always keen to get the artist involved in the early stages of the process. “I think that it’s essential. As designers, we have to get to the heart of the story that the artist is telling so that the show we create is a reflection of their personality. It’s important to try not to impose our own egos on the show. It’s a big part of the ethos of NeonBlack—to get to the heart of our client’s narrative visually. The design for this tour evolved over a couple of different tour legs as we made changes to each element of the show. The tour was about to start when we first met so there wasn’t time to make all the changes at once. We went with priorities of the lighting, then to risers and platforms and finally the monolithic scenic fascias and custom LED strips.”
“Organic” and “psychedelic” are two words that spring to mind about this tour’s unique design, Smith says. “Khruangbin songs tend to have a musical journey to them, and it’s important that the lighting follows this. Marko’s guitar style is often described as having a vocal quality to it. The melody lines seem to talk, and we felt it was important to highlight this. Khruangbin tend to use minimal vocals, so when they do happen there’s often a lighting cue to highlight them in some way, although it’s often pretty subtle. There’s freedom within the songs for the band to improvise so it was programmed with a flexible approach for a very organic flow and look to the show. The show has swells in color or intensity over large flashy looks. Subtlety is the key here a lot of the time—until the disco section, of course, where we take the parking brake off, turn the room into a huge party and bring those two giant mirror balls to life! That feature has been with the band from pretty early on, before I came aboard; we just made sure they were scaled up!”
Smith says they couldn’t have done this without the “superb work” of Alan Kingsley-Dobson and crew at KD Productions in London, who “did all of our scenic fabrication on pretty tight timeframes. He never balked at the short turnaround given.” Smith programmed about 20 potential songs in a four-day previz session prior to meeting the band for rehearsals at the first venue. “We only had about 36 hours to convert that programming into the final show with the rig in front of us. The set list changes most days from within those 20 songs, plus the medley section of the show where the band play a segued section of cover songs they like by other artists.”
A Close Eye on Costs
“Budget was everything” on this tour, notes Smith, so fixture choices were dictated by that. “Though I’m always happy to revisit old friends like the [Vari-Lite] VL3500Q Spot, I wish I could talk Vari-Lite into making a version of this with an LED engine. For the flown rig, we went with Vari-Lite VL2600 Spots and Martin MAC Auras, both fixtures I’ve used before and really like. Because we were looking at older fixtures, availability has been okay. I worked pretty closely with ‘Looch’ (Anthony Ciampa) and Ben Holdsworth at PRG initially to make sure that the stock we wanted was available. Their help was invaluable in making sure we could get what we wanted for the budget. With the routing we have, some shows don’t have a touring flown rig, so there’s been a certain amount of swapping and cloning, something the [MA Lighting] grandMA2 handles very well.”
Smith is always looking for opportunities to augment the architecture of a show whenever possible. “When I approached the band about lighting the walls at Berkeley’s Greek Theatre, they were instantly into the idea. I’ve done it a couple of times in the past and it always makes for a better show. Those walls are iconic, and I’ve always felt it was a shame that they aren’t lit permanently. For Khruangbin in particular, it was a no-brainer to suggest it, and we loved the results we got!” For lighting the walls, Smith used Chroma-Q Color Force IIs that were supplied by Felix Lighting.
The designer continues, “For our scenic monoliths, we were looking for a linear fixture to add a futuristic detail to them so that they were less imposing as structures once built. I was worried that without detail they would be a little intimidating. We couldn’t find a linear fixture that could make the outside corner, so we decided to go custom. Those fixtures are a custom LED strip we designed here at NeonBlack using mappable LED tape. We sent the design for the strips over to KD Productions who did the fabrication for us. We wanted a simple mounting solution for the strips and KD suggested we use some strong magnets which worked perfectly.
“For control, we approached Show Binary, who put together some really clever little driver boxes for us that just join our show sACN network once they are configured to work with our tape. Each box drives one side of the stage, with a third box driving some 24V mappable LED strips that we’re using on the drum riser and downstage edge. Can’t fault the boxes at all. They’ve been rock solid and just work without us having to do any complicated configuration.”
Production Team
- Production & Lighting Designer: Dominic Smith
- Production Design Company: NeonBlack
- Lighting Crew Chief & Stage Manager: David Wolstenholme
- Lighting Techs: Ryan Dunn, Cole Wheeler
- Tour Manager: Chris Paules
- Production Manager: Nathaniel Murphy
Vendors
- Lighting: PRG/Rep. Ben Holdsworth
- Staging: Gallagher Staging/Rep. Chris “Rock” Glatfelter
- Scenic Fabrication: KD Productions/Rep: Alan Kingsley-Dobson
- LED Control: Show Binary
- Soft Goods: Sew What?/Rep: Marilyn Moss
Gear
- 2 MA Lighting grandMA2 full-size Console
- 30 Vari-Lite VL2600 Spot
- 10 Vari-Lite VL3500Q Spot
- 40 Martin MAC Aura Wash
- 18 Elation CUEPIX Blinder WW2
- 8 Elation CUEPIX Blinder WW4
- 8 Chroma-Q Color Force 72
- 12 GLP impression X4 S
- 18 Custom Fabricated Mappable LED Strip
- 2 Flexible Mappable LED Strip
- 2 Mirror Ball, 1.2m
- 30 Chroma-Q Color Force II (Felix Lighting)
- 2 Jem Z44 Hi Mass Fogger
- 4 Reel EFX DF-50 Diffusion Hazer
More Khruangbin Space Walk photos by Steve Jennings:
