The tour culminated in an incendiary show at London’s Ali Pally (photo: Lindsay Cave)
UK - Lighting and video rental specialist Colour Sound Experiment supplied lighting equipment, rigging and crew to the latest UK and European leg of Good Charlotte’s Generation Rx tour, working with lighting designer Paul McAdams who is based in Belfast, Northern Ireland and started designing for the band last year.
The tour, which culminated in a show at London’s Alexandra Palace - was project-managed for Colour Sound by Alex Ryan. Colour Sound’s Hadyn Williams was the touring tech, whom Paul has requested several times to be his main person on the road, due to his experience and willingness to 'go above and beyond' each day to ensure that everything runs smoothly and efficiently.
Encapsulating the gritty lyrics and reflections of Generation Rx, an album inspired by the current opioid crisis in North America and dealing with inner and outer pain, Paul’s design for the tour was based around lighting and special effects, including CO2 jets.
He had the creative freedom to design the stage and place fixtures as he liked, however there was a lot of input from the band about how they wanted the album artwork presented. Following these discussions, it was decided to use their five separate faces on five upstage banners, each flanked by six vertical lighting towers.
The six towers comprised 10ft sections of pre-rigged truss, each rigged with three Robe MegaPointes and two GLP Impression X4 Bar 20 moving LED battens (upped to three per tower for Alexandra Palace).
These were joined by four smaller scaff towers on floor bases, populated with eight Robe LEDWash 600s in total, with another couple of LEDWash 600s on the back of the drum riser. Nine JDC1 LED strobes were scattered around the stage floor.
Challenges included adapting the rig to fit some of the more interesting or smaller stages encountered on the itinerary. Mathes Kuhn operated for the first week while Paul was finishing off some other commitments before joining the tour.
Paul ran the show on grandMA3. MA has become his primary choice of console over the last couple of years.
(Jim Evans)

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