The Black Keys — Dan Auerbach (vocals, guitar, bass & keyboards) and Patrick Carney (drums, percussion), childhood friends from Akron, OH started off with an underground following, self-producing their own records. The five time Grammy winners are on tour in support of their latest album, Let’s Rock, which was released in late June, 2019. Auerbach is also known for his other musical projects — The Arcs, solo work, and his contributions with fellow artists The Pretenders, Jake Bugg, A$AP Rocky as well as producing albums for others artists. For this current tour, we spoke with the returning creative team — lighting designer, programmer and director Eric Cathcart and video content creator, programmer and director Mike Grant. Both Grant and Cathcart are also co-set designers for the tour.
Eric Cathcart
Lighting Designer/Programmer/Director & Co-Set Designer
“One of the great things about working with The Black Keys is that they really just let us do our thing,” says Eric Cathcart, who notes that he and Mike Grant got started on the design last March. “Both of us were touring with other acts at the time, and we were lucky to find time that we could both get together. The design came together very quickly. Mike had the upstage wall and set piece concept drawn out. I had been working on an idea of a lighting rig that consisted entirely of torms in my head.
“The two ideas fit together perfectly. We began putting it all down on paper, we each went our separate ways back on the road and we presented our ideas to the band and management within a month,” Cathcart adds. “The initial design was well received by both. The only notes received were that Dan [Auerbach] thought we should have one more gag, and Patrick wanted to make sure that it all fit and didn’t kill many seats. So the only changes that we had to make were technical and logistical. The overall vibe never changed.”
Cathcart says that Grant was the driving force behind the majority of the set design. The lightning bolts were representative of the artwork of the first single released. Once they settled on the overall design, they both came to the conclusion that the treatment of the set pieces should have a worn sheet metal feel to them. The risers are skirted with speaker grill cloth to add to the Let’s Rock vibe. “One of the things that Mike and I strive for is to build layers into the show, almost as if there are three acts to the play. We like to start the show off with a limited amount of the production visible — in this case, we used ‘The Black Keys’ light up sign that was once the end of show gag for the first song on a previous tour. The next two utilize front projection, and after that the Kabuki’s that are hiding the rest of the lighting rig, and side walls of Strike 1’s and video strips fall to reveal it all.”
“From that point the automation is used to alter the look of the stage for most every song,” Cathcart adds. “After the encore break, we use the 28-foot-tall electric chair inflatable, a three-dimensional version of the chair on the album cover, for the first two songs. We end the whole show with the brute force of the wall of Strike 1’s and the JDC1’s in the torms over the stage.”
Cathcart notes that they were quite lucky that they had quite a bit of time to get everything together before the tour actually began. The design was approved in early April, and the first show was near the end September. “Although Mike and I were on separate tours for the majority of the time, we were working on this one. I was able to clear my schedule about six weeks out. Although I didn’t get as much done in previz as I had hoped, it was nice to spend a proper amount of time setting up a fresh show file specifically for this show, especially since my brain had to look for the new placement of so many keys on the grandMA3. When we arrived at production rehearsals, we had about half of the songs finished. That put us in a fairly comfortable spot to get everything done in time. Most every night is the same set list. I enjoy being able to work out the transitions between songs. One of the things I strive for is for them to flow seamlessly. Even though it’s the same set every night, I find that both Mike and I are adding to and tweaking the programming on a daily basis.”
Once Cathcart and Grant got into the logistics of actually fitting the show into arenas, they decided to cut 24 feet off each end of the wall. They also compressed the torms to fit over the stage. Originally, they were spread outside of the P.A. and quite a bit into the house. Upstaging played a big part in ironing out the kinks. They mocked up a torm from parts that they had in house for a demo, and they had a bunch of pieces fabricated for the final build.
“Having Upstaging taking care of everything except the LED wall and the projection was just an absolutely fantastic process. I spent surprising little time sweating the details. There were a few progress conference calls with the scenic and lighting departments, and a few individual calls, but they really just took the ball and ran with everything.
“Likewise with Screenworks,” Cathcart adds. “They took the original specifications and ran with them. They were extremely accommodating to me providing the media servers and the stage cameras and making sure that between what I have and what they brought, everything would integrate seamlessly.”
Cathcart says that whenever he gets the chance to work with Grant, he knows it will be a great project. “One of my main weaknesses as a designer is that I spent a long time as a crew guy and crew chief, and I get too far into the logistics of how everything will work. Mike, having toured as a designer more than a tech, will look at the design itself. I find that the two of us together make a great team and push each other in the opposite direction from our comfort zones.
“From 2008 until the last Black Keys tour, Mike had been doing lighting, and on the last tour, I did the video. When we got together to work on this design, Mike brought most of the video elements to the table, and I had a lighting idea that was rolling around in my head. We proceeded as normal for a week or so, and Mike came to the conclusion that he wanted to take care of all the video on this one, so I happily took on the lighting.
“Over the course of the design, I dealt with most of the drafting duties, and refining the initial design to a more workable version. Mike took up all of the video tasks. He spent most of the summer hitting spots all over Chicago shooting and editing content. Both of us were on the road for the majority of the design process. We had a Dropbox that we kept updated with the bits we were each working on. About three weeks out from production rehearsals, Mike came to my place for us to previz and test media servers and load content.”
Due to many long overnight drives, the day began about four hours behind schedule more times than anyone would care for, but the entire production team would get everything up ahead of schedule and with a smile on their face in the worst of conditions. “I just want to thank the crew for putting in the hard work to give us the best show possible and to the band and management for letting us bring our vision to the table.”
Mike Grant
Video Content Creator/Programmer/Director & Co-Set Designer
Mike Grant also notes that both he and Cathcart had pretty busy schedules in early 2019. Grant set a date to fly down to Kansas City (where Cathcart lives) to start hashing things out. “As the date crept closer, I realized I had no good ideas, until maybe two days before I left. A circular video screen flanked with some sort of set piece popped into my head. At that point, I remembered the bolt artwork from the ‘Lo-Hi’ single and thought that would perfectly fit the big rock look while supporting the new record.
“It all started flowing after that. The Saber/Strike One wall followed almost immediately to fill out the wings and really merge the video and lighting elements. When I brought this to Eric, he already had a lighting idea in mind and tossed in the moveable torms. We knew pretty quickly that this was the idea we were going to show the band, and that our time was best spent chipping away and perfecting this idea instead of looking in different directions, which I’m happy about.”
Grant brings a camera on every tour, and if something catches his eye, he’ll take a picture of it. All the content in the show is from footage Grant shot or animated. “I pretty much made a list of subjects and spent most of this summer shooting and editing. Quite the learning experience, which was equal parts exciting and frustrating. We use I-Mag, but I like to incorporate the content in with it to make it more than just watching the band on a TV the whole time. You have to piece things out on the screen sometimes. Experimenting with having certain layers work against each other can yield some interesting results.”
Grant remembers talking to Dan Auerbach after he heard the first single, and Grant said, casually, “We could have a huge electric chair on stage.” So when it came to “gag” time, Grant says, they took his advice, and that’s where the giant chair came from. “Other than that, they have been trusting of Eric and I to design freely. Dan, Patrick [Carney] and management have been very supportive of us and this design since we started.
“Eric and I have been joking that we are glad to be doing this show on the grandMA3, because even though we are still using the MA2 software, we will be more than prepared to know where the buttons are when the 3 software is totally ready. For our media servers, we are using ArKaos MediaMaster Pro. It’s very user-friendly and makes video-mapping the lightning bolts and circle fascia over the video wall a breeze.
“Having never focused so much on video before, I’m pretty excited to dive deeper into the media server world and see what else is capable. Being from Chicago, I’ve always wanted the opportunity to work with Upstaging. Eric and I have been absolutely pleased with everything they have provided, from the set piece fabrication to the top quality lighting fixtures and to our incredibly knowledgeable, hardworking and talented lighting crew.
“It’s nice to be back with this camp,” Grant concludes. “Even at the first rehearsals, if felt just like picking up where we left off five years ago.”
The Black Keys Let’s Rock Tour
Crew
- Lighting Designer/Programmer/Director & Co-Set Designer: Eric Cathcart
- Video Content Creator/Programmer/Director & Co-Set Designer: Mike Grant
- Lighting Co: Upstaging
- Lighting Crew Chief: Josh Harvey
- Lighting Techs: Ros MacMahon, Zachary Svoboda, Shawn Whitton, Abbey Wright, Troy Smith, Josh Wilson
- Upstaging Reps: Dan Curley, John Huddleston
- Tour Manager: Mike McGrath
- Production Manager: Chris Kansy
- Production Assistant: Kim Van Loon
- Stage Manager: Jesse Thayer
- Video Co: Screenworks
- Video Crew Chief: Ryan Van Raalten
- Video Techs: Maria Passalacqua, Pedro Pineda
- Automation Tech: Charlie Pike, Troy Smith
- Screenworks Rep: Randy Mayer
- Lighting Consoles/Media Servers/Stage Cameras: Bigtime Lighting Design
- Staging & Automation: Upstaging
- Riggers: Dash Rowe, Freddy Hurtado
- Carpenters: Jimmy Sagehorn, Chad Miller, Randy Robertson
- Trucking: Stage Call
Gear
- 2 grandMA3 Full lighting consoles
- 30 Acme Solar Impressions
- 85 GLP JDC1 fixtures
- 85 Martin MAC Auras
- 322 Chauvet Strike 1’s
- 6 DF50 hazers
- 2 Base hazers
- 1 ROE Visual 5mm LED wall (35’ x 40’)
- 502 Upstaging Saber video strips (1m)
- 4 Barco UDX Projectors
- 3 Bigtime Lighting Design media servers
- 11 Marshall CV342-CS fixed cameras
- 1 Sony long lens FOH camera
- 2 grandMA3 Full consoles (for video)
More Black Keys Let’s Rock tour photos by Steve Jennings: