Zac Brown Band welcomed home with Spiiders
- Details
James and Louis have included 32 x Robe Spiiders on the lighting rig, which are integral to creating the look, feel and lighting ambience of the show.
James has been working with Zac Brown Band since 2014 and since 2015 this has been in conjunction with Louis and Okulus - adding the dynamic and strategic advantage of now being able to offer two design ‘heads’ for each project.
While the previous two tours featured prominent structures and multi-layered set pieces, the aesthetic brief for Welcome Home was to strip things back, bring the band physically closer together and make the whole live concert experience more intimate and very connected to the audiences.
A U-shaped riser set up was proposed from the outset, with a central screen to run some ambient playback video content, but primarily to carry a portrait camera shot of Zac Brown himself. After that, they had a free rein to produce ideas, from which James and Louis drew on their experience and knowledge of the music, the vibe and what they were confident would work well for the band in this context.
The eye-catching chevron shaped set, designed by Louis and James comprises a main tiered U-shaped section which accommodates the sizable keyboard and percussion rigs and leads to a central top tier platform, utilized for solos and guest appearances. The drum position mirrors the percussion and the bassist is over at far stage left.
The set fascia and stair fronts are crafted from leaf-shaped, rust-treated metal cut-outs, lined with LED tape and back-lit with strobes.
The video design is based on a curved upstage wall, broken up with the central portrait orientated IMAG surface described above. Theatrical styled stage wings are created with four columns of video framing the stage, two per side, which work with two U-shaped roof video ‘ribbons’.
The 32 x Spiiders are rigged in groups of eight. Sixteen are mounded in a special trapezoidal shaped ‘surround’ structure that is flown in front of the central IMAG portion of the screen.
The other 16 are positioned on the two outer downstage edges of the stage, rigged in Tyler pre-rigged trussing with a surround mimicking the trapezoidal shape of the central screen ‘frame’. All of these are finished in the same rust metal texture as the set fascias.
Both Louis and James are very pleased with this design and feel it’s their best yet. They both pre-programmed the show at Okulus’ Viz Studio and onsite during production rehearsals at the LJVM Coliseum, Winston Salem, North Carolina, a process that encompassed lighting, video playback and live camera integration.
It is all run through a grandMA2 console and Green Hippo Boreal media servers being operated on the road by Chris Cockrill – now enjoying his second year working with the band.
The lighting equipment – including all the Spiiders – is being supplied to the tour by Special Event Services (SES) also based in Winston Salem and their lighting crew chiefs are Kyle Klapper and Nick ‘Snake’ Bird.
(Jim Evans)
