Designer Watch

Production designer, LD and “ambience coordinator” Charlie “Cosmo” Wilson rocked the boat with Foreigner’s recent outdoor gig — on the deck of the USS Midway aircraft carrier. The ship was decommissioned in 1992 and is now a museum permanently docked in San Diego.

What was special about the New Year’s Eve show? A punter would say, “The pyro, the confetti cannons, the balloon drop!” A production person, meanwhile, might answer, “Oh, it was the usual: pyro, confetti cannons, the balloon drop…”

Although Paul Simon’s So Beautiful or So What tour continues on into the New Year, LD Rich Locklin and lighting director Steve Fallon are already designing Simon’s 2012 run, which will celebrate the 25th anniversary of his Graceland album. Musicians who backed him on the album, including Ladysmith Black Mambazo, will be involved.

Mr. Eckerman, in the Conservatory, with the Console

In the man-made city of Las Vegas — where the sun rises and sets with SMPTE timecode at Caesars, and landscapes look like stage sets — you can count on experiencing the real change of seasons in one place: The Bellagio Conservatory and Botanical Gardens.

September in the Park with Bocelli

Andrea Bocelli, whose tenor tones loom as large as the venues he performs in, will spread his voice across New York’s Central Park in a free concert Sept. 15. A month ahead of the show, production designer Bruce Rodgers of Tribe describes the set vaguely, saying, “It will be impressive and as big as it can be and still stay between the two key trees — a 98-foot width — on the Great Lawn site. We are working with everyone to ensure that every part of the design is friendly to the weather elements, and we’re taking special precautions, as we always do, for a safe and amazing night.”

Metallica in Movie Rehearsals

Longtime Metallica LD John Broderick is in San Francisco with the band, building the show for a film to be shot “sometime” next year, he said. The 3D show is apparently too big to take on the road. Rehearsals are going for a few months, said to be a composite of all the best show gags in Metallica’s history of touring. Apart from that, the band plays upcoming shows in San Francisco, New York’s Yankee Stadium, Brazil’s Rock in Rio and India. “Nothing new about the designs there, just a continuation of their international stadium dates they do every year lately,” Broderick said.

Reflections on Reunion Tour after Rendezvous with Brain Surgery

Hooked up to an IV flowing with pain medication, LD John Rossi is recovering from back surgery. He has just designed The Monkees’ 45th anniversary tour and still manages to email back and forth with me to do an interview about this design. It is his first show design since his other big surgery — for a brain tumor — in November 2007. One wonders, can’t the guy get a break? For Rossi, this IS his break: back in to the world of concert design.

Anyone who knows LD Seth Jackson knows he is the original “Mr. Nice Guy.” So it came as startling to many — including Jackson himself — when he was asked to design the production for Alice Cooper’s No More Mr. Nice Guy tour. “My reaction was, ‘Wait…Huh?” Jackson says. But his background in legitimate theatre attracted the original shock rocker’s team, as they were taking this new production in a new direction.