NASHVILLE — Travis Shirley, head of Houston-based Travis Shirley Live Design, is using 35 PixelLine 1044s from James Thomas Engineering to give a distinctive look for Buckcherry, now taking part in a four-band tour through North America in support of their album, Black Butterfly. Shirley, who serves as the band’s director, LD and production designer, is using the Pixellines to give the band’s songs a distinctive look as it takes the stage shared by the three other bands — Avenged Sevenfold, Papa Roach and Saving Abel. The rig is comprised of VARI*LITE VL2500s and Martin Mac 2K washes.
“I wanted to make the rig look like it was designed just for Buckcherry,” Shirley said, of the gear dominated by Vari*Lite VL2500s and Martin MAC 2K Wash fixtures. He hung some of the PixelLine LED battens on the front part of the truss at different heights.
“When they are turned off for the other bands they’re unnoticeable. But when they are turned on for Buckcherry they help define and give depth to their show,” Shirley said. “They offer a kind of asymmetrical symmetry, which looks both random — very angular and oblique — yet clean. That’s exactly what I wanted.”
Shirley also placed some of Pixelines on the floor to backlight the amps. He hung the rest on a series of different size custom T-pipes along with 10 additional VL2500s behind curtain backdrops. There they accent a 17-by-33-foot Element Labs’ Stealth video wall, another first for Buckcherry.
“The Pixelines are sort of an outside-the-box approach that I’m very satisfied with,” he said.
The Stealth wall displays content from Daddy Van Productions, which illustrates some sets. It also displays IMAG from a six-camera switcher package, which Shirley controls from FOH. “The POV cameras give a dramatic look to the band which I enhance with multiple layers and effects so the visuals flare and pixellate,” he said.
Shirley uses a pair of grandMA consoles to control the lights and Green Hippo Hippotizer Media Servers for image playback. Bandit furnished the consoles and lighting gear. John Wiseman of Chaos Visual supplied the POV cameras and Stealth wall.
Shirley performed the show’s preprogramming and preproduction in Salt Lake City before the second leg of the tour began in that city. The four-band tour is slated to play dates in the Southwest, Northwest and Midwest. 10th Street Entertainment manages Buckcherry.
