The 20-song set takes audiences on a lively, freewheeling road trip
USA - Country singer Miranda Lambert captures the heartfelt openness of the summer of love in her aptly named Livin’ Like Hippies tour. Opening with a cover of the John Prine classic, That’s The Way The World Goes Round, her 20-song set takes audiences on a lively, freewheeling road trip that offers an unruffled look at life, love and happiness.
Lambert’s lighting designer, Paul ‘Arlo’ Guthrie, strengthens the connection between the artist and her audience in this deeply personal show with help from the warm white glow of Chauvet Professional STRIKE 4 fixtures, supplied by Upstaging of Chicago.
Guthrie is using 40 of the multi-formatted fixtures on the 23-city arena tour, which kicked off on 23 January. Flying an equal number of STRIKE 4s on downstage and mid-stage truss, he relies on the warm white luminaires (each of which has four 100W COB LEDs) for audience lighting.
“I really like the way the STRIKE 4 works as an audience light with its intense warm white output,” said Guthrie, who first used the fixture two years ago when lighting the Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Intimate tour. “They have the output to light up an entire arena, but you can turn them down for gentler looks.”
For the Livin’ Like A Hippie tour, Guthrie and his lighting director Taylor Price are running the STRIKE 4 fixtures in their rig at 100% when the show calls for it, and then lowering the output at other times. “Taylor is a lighting director extraordinaire,” said Guthrie. “He’s doing a great job running the entire rig.”
The STRIKE 4 fixtures are especially effective at lighting the crowd during the singalongs in the show. “Miranda likes to see the audience, especially during the singalongs,” said Guthrie. “The STRIKE 4s give us good lighting at those times, while at the same time not blinding people in the crowd.”
(Jim Evans)

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