LOS ANGELES – Following their successful UK arena tour in fall/winter 2012, Mumford & Sons headed to the US for a short East Coast tour. The ‘Tour Of Two Halves’ world tour features more than 2,500 of XL Video’s new FX-200 LED spheres together with Pixled F-11 LED screens, HD cameras/PPU and crew.
More details from XL Video (http://www.xlvideo.com):
NEW YORK – Following their successful UK arena tour in fall/winter 2012, Mumford & Sons headed to the US for a short East Coast tour to support their latest album, Babel.
The ‘Tour Of Two Halves’ world tour features more than 2,500 of XL Video’s new FX-200 LED spheres together with Pixled F-11 LED screens, HD cameras/PPU and crew.
The band’s Lighting and Visuals Designer, Ed Warren, from Next Level Lights, specified the FX-200 for their ability to product high-impact, low-res effects, having used a number of different tungsten light sources over and around the stage on their last few tours.
XL Video had supplied the FX-200s on the UK tour. XL’s US music operation, led by SVP of Concert Touring, Mark Haney, took on provision of the matched equipment for the seven shows for the East Coast US dates.
“Another great example of doing turn-key XL Video systems between Europe and America, and how it can be advantageous to clients and their bottom line,” says Haney. “It was a pleasure, as always, to collaborate with show designer Rob Sinclair and Steve Gordon, the band’s PM. Steve was a big help as we got this one started.”
The FX-200 spheres were mounted on different lengths of steel and hung from two independent trusses, creating a curved layered effect to the set. Content for the spheres was fed via XL’s Catalyst 5.1 media servers.
Flown above the stage three LED screens constructed from XL Video’s lightweight, modular F-11 product displayed a combination of playback images and IMAG shots fed from XL’s HD camera system.
Haney said, “We deployed one of our Ross Vision 2 HD flightpacks on Mumford, along with Sony 1500 camera chains, and HD POVs. Charlie Woods, Mumford’s director, was great to work with in that he comes from the mobile television world and has a very common sense approach. He cut a 4 M/E show, with media server effects downline of the desk. Very cool stuff. I also must mention the contributions of Dave Hyslop from our Los Angeles office, Bob Larkin, and tour engineer Jon Huntington. They were invaluable.”
Mumford & Sons live shows have continued to grow in reputation following the release of their ‘Road To Red Rocks’ Live DVD. The band continue their world tour in Europe before returning to the US in the summer for headlining slots at their own ‘Gentlemen Of The Road’ stopovers – a handful of outdoor festivals in specially selected small towns.
