ROME – Italian rock singer Vasco Rossi played seven sold out stadium shows recently, with highlights from his 35-year career. LD Giovanni Pinna’s lighting design included a back wall feature incorporating 76 Robe Robin 100 LEDBeams. Pinna, who has designed Rossi’s shows since 1993, also included Robe’s new Robin Pointe fixtures.
More details from Robe (www.robe.cz):
The triangular shaped upstage LEDBeam 100 matrix was revealed eight songs into the set and used for around 80 percent of the lighting specials thereafter. For maximum impact, Pinna applied the effects sparingly and precisely during the two and a half-hour performance.
Another 20 LEDBeam 100s were positioned along the front lip of the stage, used for low level band lighting, for skimming out the audience and also highlighting the imposing trussing architecture up above. The Pointes were also placed in this same area and used to add more lighting and effects on the band.
Pinna’s dual starting points for the design on these shows was the end of the last tour in 2011 – which was abrupt and unplanned – combined with Vasco’s classic logo, on which Gioforma of Milan also modelled their stage set.
“I had to ensure that the visuals had maximum impact, contain a thread from the previous tour and also fit the budget,” he explained.
He set the scene with a series of tall trusses configured into triangles towering above the performance bringing industrial elegance to the stage. These were joined to further off-stage diagonal trusses zigzagging across the PA wings. The trusses also closed down the stage space, making it intimate despite the stadium setting.
He hit on the triangular shaped LEDBeam matrix idea as something that would contrast and complement the Vasco logo, and that could be used for a number of tasks including adding accents and punctuations like bumping and strobing to the music.
The LEDBeam 100s were mounted on a custom frame made by Rome-based lighting rental contractor Limelight, and covered an area approximately 14.5 meters at the base and 12 meters high, offset from each other by 90 and 60 centimeters.
Usually receiving a massive roar from the crowd the first time it’s used, the trick that Pinna weaved so well into the whole presentation was simply not to over-do it.
He likes everything about the LEDBeam 100 fixtures, saying they are “fast, powerful, colorful – simply a great fixture.” The speed at which the LEDBeams move and bump on and off enabled him to produce some wild effects especially when used in conjunction with the 56 Jarags placed all over the zigzagging trusses.
“There is no way that a discharge lightsource could work for these type of speed effects,” he commented. “The LEDBeam is just hugely versatile, and in fact they really make this show.”
The Pointes arrived in the country just in time for the first concert, so Pinna had limited time to properly experiment with them, but he liked what he’s seen so far.
“They have an incredible zoom,” he said adding that they are also fast moving and with the frost filters applied, he used them extensively for dramatic and powerful front lighting of the band.
Both the LEDBeam 100s and the Pointes have been 100 percent reliable, he said, performing perfectly throughout Rosco Vassi’s intense three-week rehearsal and show schedule.
Pinna operated the lighting – around 500 fixtures including the Robes, other moving lights, Jarags, blinders and strobes – using a grandMA console, which was also controlling 300 meters of MiStrip LEDs profiling the onstage trusses. His crew chief from Limelight for the shows was Fabrizio Moggio.
Vasco Rossi and Pinna’s lightshow delighted capacity crowds in Turin and Bologna.
