BRAZIL – Paul McCartney’s ‘Out There’ world tour kicked off with three shows in Brazil with lighting looks from LD Roy Bennett. Bennett supervised the shows, while Lighting Director Wally Lees operated. Lighting equipment was supplied by leading Brazilian rental company LPL Professional Lighting and included Robe ColorSpot and ColorWash luminaires, together with other moving lights and generics.
More details from Robe (www.robe.cz):
LPL’s Erich Bertti project managed all three Brazilian dates which saw Paul perform for the first time in Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais), Goiânia (Goiás) and Fortaleza (Ceará).
The production used 12 Robe ColorWash 2500E ATs located on the stage floor, nine ColorSpot 2500E ATs on overhead trusses and 20 ColorWash 1200E ATs distributed on the side and followspot trusses.?
“As usual the Robe fixtures worked reliably,” said Bertti.
During the performance in Goiânia, Upstaging Lighting Crew Chief Mike Hosp commented, “Everything is going well despite the short load-in and load-out times, and LPL is a good technical partner.”
The McCartney show lighting front of house tech is Thomas Walls, who has worked in the industry for the last 26 years with bands such as Metallica, The Killers and Luis Miguel.
He explained, “In the U.S. and Europe we work with a bigger lighting system – around 20 or 30 more moving lights, but the design was adapted for the Brazilian tour according to the available transport. Basically, the show’s programming is already complete, so Wally arrives and checks everything so it is ready when Roy gets to the venue.”
“I never thought Paul McCartney was an artist I would work with until the rehearsals started! It has been a great experience to start the tour in Brazil with three shows in a row in three different cities,” he added.
LD Roy Bennett started creating the design in February.
Classic elements of the show which they have been presenting in recent years were included in this one, together with many new ones, including much more video than previously.
Because of their touring schedule, Bennett noted that they often can’t bring their own complete system, so this is primarily sourced locally while they bring a few specifics like the grandMA2 consoles.
“Here in Brazil, when we heard that LPL had the Robe moving lights we needed, it was a natural choice to work with them so we could have consistency over the three shows. Working with LPL has been great, they are very professional.”
Bennett added that when he visited Robe’s factory in the Czech Republic last fall, he was “amazed by their new products, so I feel very comfortable using this brand on shows.”
Guillermo Traverso, Robe’s regional sales manager for Latin America, commented, “It’s always brilliant to see what Roy does with the lighting – he is hugely creative. The fixtures were taken to an extreme level on these shows, where they had to compete with very bright LED screens at the rear of the stage … and even without haze, you could see the projections and the beautiful colors they produced.”
Three unforgettable shows
The first show in Belo Horizonte was completely sold out and highly emotional with an extraordinary audience reaction that clearly made Paul very happy. For one show-stopping moment almost everyone raised ‘Thank You’ signs, which completely blew away both artists and production.
The show in Goiania was invaded by several different types of insects – mainly grasshoppers – all wanting to catch the action! Paul befriended one of them which stayed on his microphone for several songs. Named ‘Harold,’ it even said “hello” to the audience!
The third performance in Fortaleza took place on an incredibly hot evening, where all will remember a magnificent show with an amazing combination of audio, video and lighting technologies.
