Robe is non-stop live with Vasco Rossi
- Details
Lighting the tour was the artist’s long-term LD Giovanni Pinna, who included over 300 Robe moving lights on the rig - a mix of MegaPointes, Spiiders and LEDBeam 150s - all supplied as part of the lighting package by Rome-based lighting rental company, BOTW, and used to create plenty of excitement and hi-impact.
The starting point for the tour design for Giovanni and the Vasco creative team - was the show-stopping event in Enzo Ferrari Park, Modena last summer, Vasco’s one and only live appearance to celebrate 40 years of mainly-thrills-with-a-few-spills in entertainment - in front of around 250,000 people, the largest rock concert in Italy to date.
The Modena Park design presented a simple, bold, raw industrial looking set and both the artist and his management wanted a continuity from this. As a seasoned performer, Vasco is so charismatic that the enormous but essentially streamlined and Spartan look works brilliantly as a performance backdrop.
As with the Modena show - where Giovanni used over 550 Robe fixtures - he wanted to use just one type of profile or spot and this time he chose Robe’s new MegaPointe, with 135 of the luminaires scattered all over the rig.
For the primary wash light, he picked Robe Spiiders and these were also deployed everywhere he could fit a fixture, and used to wash the vast stage space, PA wings and runway out into the audience at the front with light.
Eight LEDBeam 150s on vertical poles were dedicated just to producing a more edgy style of low level cross and key lighting on the band and risers.
A remote follow spotting system controlled around 30 luminaires dotted all over the rig, including front and side key lighting fixtures and both MegaPointes and Spiiders.
Giovanni used a trusty grandMA full size console to run the show, and there was another one for the playback video.
PRG provided the screens and the Kinesys automation system which was operated for the show by Jimmy Johnson, with movement also a vital element of the creative picture.
PRG’s crew chief was Bart de Cleene and BOTW’s was Fabrizio Moggio. “Both have been fantastic,” says Giovanni.
Lasers were from ER Productions, designed by Ross Marshall and the pyro and flame system was from Parente - the effects – fire and confetti - were also fired from the lighting console.
The audio vendor was Agora and the FOH sound was mixed by Andrea Corsellini.
Everything was kept in order and running smoothly on the road by production manager Riccardo Genovese.
(Jim Evans)
