LD at Large

I just spent a month doing benefit gigs all over the country. A musician decided to devote some time and talent to raising money for various charities in a dozen towns, and he asked me to light him. The majority of the gigs were in theaters and clubs that had some in-house lighting of their own. In order to raise more money for the needy, I decided to try and do these shows with almost no additional lighting, despite the fact that the artist was used to sold out arenas with big rigs.

I’m feeling pretty humbled this holiday season. Apparently I have a lot of friends in this wacky business of ours. And they thought enough of my work to cast a vote my way for a Parnelli Award this year. I cannot give enough thanks to all of you who helped me win this award for best lit concert tour of the year (Kid Rock’s Born Free tour). But I could never have gotten where I was, nor created a show that looked this good, without the help of a lot of people. Nor could I have gotten where I am without a lot of breaks from others. And I believe in paying it back.

Say you had a bazillion dollars and it was your birthday. And you decided to have a party for, say, 1,000 of your buddies. What exactly would you do? I’d be that guy who hires Van Halen to play at my barbecue. I don’t count on it.  However, I recently got to witness what happens when someone who could throw that type of a shindig actually does.

What’s your favorite color? This is a question I ask my 3-year-old occasionally. He answers with  “green” most times. Then he asks me back the same question. “That would be Lee 119,” comes the reply.  That’s because I’ve had the various numbers of gel colors brainwashed into my head. All good lighting guys memorize these numbers over time, and if you don’t know what Lee 119 means, you may be new to lighting.

A spotlight does just what its name says it will do. Light a spot in a crowd to draw attention to it. A light shone on one person in a crowd will make them stand out, but so will a “key” light on stage. The difference is that a spotlight uses an operator to follow the performer around as he struts about on stage, keeping him illuminated as the intended focal point of the audience. The history of the spotlight can be traced back to 1550, when an Italian named Sebastiano Serlio used a brightly-polished barber’s basin (reflector) placed behind a torch to reflect the light through a bottle (lens) on the other side of the flame.

I got a call from a production manager friend last month. His band was looking to go in a new direction, and he was searching for a new production designer. He asked if I would like to submit a design for their world tour that starts next year. “Sure,” I say. “Gimme a few days with a thinking cap on.”

I’m starting to feel like the Lincoln Lawyer. The guy that works out of the back of his town car. Except that, on show days, I set up shop in the back of a tour bus. Or a hotel room if I’m lucky. Summer is my busiest time of year. While I am out running one tour, I am busy working on others. There are several steps to the process before I actually run the first show of a tour. First, I must submit an idea I have along with artistic renderings to get the gig. Then I must finish drawing the CAD drawings to get them to the lighting/set/video vendors. Follow that with some pre-programming of lighting cues on a visualizer, and then make it to the actual rehearsals.

I’ve worked shows in clubs all around the world. Most of them have an in-house lighting system. With that comes at least one tech who knows how his system operates. Or we would like to think he does. Clubs usually do not possess a lot of state-of-the-art fixtures, nor fixtures with all of their parameters functioning correctly. Half of the time I will have a console I know little about. So I am dependent on my local lighting guy. And it’s uncanny how little some of these professionals know about their own gear.

I just got back from taking a cruise. I didn’t go for a relaxing vacation, mind you, I went to work. There’s a new trend now where bands are chartering these ships and creating a musical ride for a few days. This particular ride consisted of 2,500 diehard fans who boarded the vessel for four days of alcohol infused, music blaring, full-on debauchery. That is for the people who paid. For those of us who get paid to control the theatrical lighting on one of these floating tubs, it’s quite an exercise in futility. I believe the majority of these ships start out with some pretty sweet light rigs. Somewhere along the way they seem to go to hell in a bucket.

April 2 is National Autism Awareness Day. In case one doesn’t know, this disease is now an epidemic, and one in every 100 kids born is being diagnosed with this incurable condition. In honor of this day, the Autism society has requested that everyone turn on a blue light. Structures such as the Empire State Building and John Hancock Tower turned blue that weekend to raise awareness about this alarming statistic. The fact that we are using something so simple as a colored light to draw attention to a cause makes me happy. You can see these at www.lightitupblue.org.

As another year closes, I have lined up a birthday party at a stadium, followed by a tour with an old client of mine. Kid Rock is turning 40 and wants to throw a party with one set and light configuration, then go on tour with another one. I have designed every tour he has done since 1999 with the exception of a six-week run he went on last year. I agreed to actually go on tour with this show and make everything look stellar again. I believe this artist is among the most gifted performers in the world, working a crowd like few can. So after a long hiatus of actually touring with a band as an LD, I have agreed to go back on the road.

I got a call a few months ago from my old friend "Shakes." He has been the production manager for Kid Rock forever, it seems. And his boss is turning 40 this year. He wants to have a big party, followed by a week of rehearsals for a tour to promote his album. But he wants two distinctly different looking shows. The party was booked in Ford Field and was all about special guests and being a big party for 55,000 of his closest friends. The tour will last two years and come back to Detroit this summer to play the baseball park across the street. Hence he needed to come up with separate designs to mix it up.