Absolute best concert lighting design/show you've ever seen?

[bishopthomas]

Yeah, Fenton is an amazing LD, has won some awards for his designs.

Also, welcome to Control Booth! I'm originally from Jonesboro, so nice to see a fellow Arkansan around these hear parts. Have you introduced yourself in the new member forum? I'm curious as to how much quality work is in your neck of the woods, since I moved away around 6 years ago.

 

[BanditRO]

For me it's Pulse, Pink Floyd with the most amazing light show I have ever seen. I don't know how much came directly out of Marc Brickman's head or how much existed before but the circle of movers and the entire iris effect of focusing on the panel jus't cant be beat IMO for the most effective use of moving heads ever. Disc 2 of Pulse, from the second it starts until the last note of the encore is the most riviting 90 minutes if video I've ever seen, I still get goosebumps when they unleash everything on "Run Like Hell"...

Jack

Garth Brooks 1996-1998 world tour. The Garthship Enterprise was the most versatile, best moving rig I have had the pleasure of seeing, and building!!!

 

[Voltage]

Brickman was definitely the pioneer for me. I find myself trying to make my shows look like Pink Floyd more than I realize. I'm also a sucker for anything that Chris Kuroda (aka CK5) or Jeff Waful do.

Here is one of my favorite CK5 memories.

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[mstaylor]

I have seen some very artistic uses of side,back lighting,floor lighting and fog/smoke. Audience abuse is fine occasionally and movers going out in the audience when used sparingly. To me overuse of blinding the audience for any reason or method is wrong. It's bad lighting but in my opinion it is wrong lighting. The other thing I see regularly is moving lights at weird rates with respect to the music, this also is wrong lighting.
You can do unconventional things without it being bad lighting. You can do numbers where there is never any front light and look great. There are so many things that look great, many that are OK, but there are a few that just suck.

 

[jfetter]

I would like to see a show with say 400 Par's, all pretty much focused straight down or on a curve, just huge banks of color changes or cycling through in chorus line-style, all with color scrollers! Something about the movement of the gels in scrollers that looks better than smooth transitions as with RGB mixing. Aso love to see a plexi or all-grate stage with a huge amount of light from below, lots of movers too and fog bellowing up from below ;-)

Jack

 

[Pie4Weebl]

To me overuse of blinding the audience for any reason or method is wrong. It's bad lighting but in my opinion it is wrong lighting.

I suggest you never come see any electronic music event I light.

 

[soundlight]

One of my favorite shows that I've seen was the Goo Goo Dolls tour in early 2007. The lighting was simple but incredibly effective and many-layered. Small fixture count, but all fixtures were used incredibly well. Each song was carefully cued and different parts of the rig were used in each song. Freshman year of college, definitely influenced my style of how I want to light concerts.

The rig consisted of MAC2K profiles - I think 7 of them, 10 or so MAC600s, some movers on the FOH truss that I didn't recognize at the time (didn't yet have my encyclopedic knowledge of what different moving lights look like), and 20-lite MR16 blinders with scrollers arranged in 3 levels plus a set of them on the floor lighting a theatrical curtain in the back. I'm fairly certain there were two levels of subhung truss (with spansets, I think). The rig also had white stretch panels in it that were lit with Source Four PARs with scrollers on them. Some of the S4 Pars also punched down between the panels. The result was a very organic, multi-layered rig that had a phenomenal variety of looks possible and a great range of layers and options for lighting.

Combine that with an LD who really cued the show quite well (I was watching him occasionally during the show, and every go and flash and swop button press was very deliberate and right on). There was also a system of Source Fours with gobos & CTB gel in them (gobo was a version of Pointed Breakup I think) that was one of the between-song washes. Also used during several songs. Looked great. Another thing of note is that the LD also tried to keep the light on the stage and didn't keep movers focused on the audience for extended periods of time - they were on stage of above the audience, not just punching people in the face other than for some move effects, flyouts, and flyins.

Here's a couple of videos of shows from that tour that let you see parts of the rig (warning for bad sound quality; they're live videos from 07 - not much you can expect there):
Goo Goo Dolls Live at Robinson Center in Little Rock, AR - YouTube
Goo Goo Dolls - Iris - YouTube
Goo Goo Dolls-Stay With You - YouTube
Broadway - Goo Goo Dolls - YouTube
Can't Let It Go - Goo Goo Dolls - Kirby Center 2/3/2007 - YouTube

There are three other shows that I really enjoyed lighting-wise, not all in person though. Out of these I only saw TSO 07/08 in person.

One was the 07-08 Trans Siberian tour. Before they added too much video and it got to be a trash n trash show. Back when he took more care in cueing the movers. (I think that the TSO tours have gone way downhill since video elements were added in heavier - I still think the snow cue looked way better with a real fiber optic curtain not an LED curtain that attempts to simulate it. Even the 3 LED screens in the 07/08 tour were not great IMO, but I did quite like the chevrons of Versa-Tubes). The rig had 10 pods over the stage, each with a Showgun, other movers (VL3K Spots, MAC2K Washes), ACLs, PARs, strobes, versa tubes & CB12s. Heavy upstage wall & deck rigs as well, as with any TSO show, and there was also plenty of pyro as usual. I will have to say that the truss moves with the 10 pods were definitely the best part about the show. Great looks with moving them to different positions. Oh, and the truss did the wave. Links:
SHOWGUNs and Wholehogs Play Instrumental Role on Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Trans-Siberian (Carol of the Bells- Sarajevo) LIVE 12/07 - YouTube

Next up, Paramore Final Riot Tour. Well cued, low fixture count, but a well designed rig with a good amount of lighting layers. Showguns, MAC2K Washes, 4-lite & 2-lite blinders, Atomics, and some other toys including Versa-Tubes in the shape of "RIOT" in the truss. Links:
Paramore- The Final Riot! Live In Chicago- Misery Business- Track 15 - YouTube
Paramore- The Final Riot! Live In Chicago- Fences- Track 4 - YouTube

Finally, anything recent from Umphrey's Mcgee. Just look at the live stuff on the umvideo channel on youtube. It's amazing. Jeff Waful is a master with MACIIIs and an MA. His strict separation of MAC301s out front and various spot fixtures on stage (generally profiles/spots only on stage Some of my favorite stuff from them is actually covers, but I also like the live versions of their original stuff. Here's a few links:
From early on, Cemetary Walk
More recently, Much Obliged
And quite recently, two covers, 25 or 6 to 4 and You Can't Always Get What You Want.

 

[shiben]

Brickman was definitely the pioneer for me. I find myself trying to make my shows look like Pink Floyd more than I realize. I'm also a sucker for anything that Chris Kuroda (aka CK5) or Jeff Waful do.

Here is one of my favorite CK5 memories.

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I wonder how much of that smoke is actually produced by a hazer?

 

[zmb]

One was the 07-08 Trans Siberian tour. Before they added too much video and it got to be a trash n trash show. Back when he took more care in cueing the movers. (I think that the TSO tours have gone way downhill since video elements were added in heavier - I still think the snow cue looked way better with a real fiber optic curtain not an LED curtain that attempts to simulate it. Even the 3 LED screens in the 07/08 tour were not great IMO, but I did quite like the chevrons of Versa-Tubes). The rig had 10 pods over the stage, each with a Showgun, other movers (VL3K Spots, MAC2K Washes), ACLs, PARs, strobes, versa tubes & CB12s. Heavy upstage wall & deck rigs as well, as with any TSO show, and there was also plenty of pyro as usual. I will have to say that the truss moves with the 10 pods were definitely the best part about the show. Great looks with moving them to different positions. Oh, and the truss did the wave. Links:
SHOWGUNs and Wholehogs Play Instrumental Role on Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Trans-Siberian (Carol of the Bells- Sarajevo) LIVE 12/07 - YouTube

Agreed, I've seen some of the you tube videos and it has a crap load of instruments in what eventually become predictable effects.

 

[kevis45]

I really am a fan of Coldplays lighting style. Its very original and creative. They also have a great balance of effects, colors, and feel through out the entire production.

 

[soundlight]

I really am a fan of Coldplays lighting style. Its very original and creative. They also have a great balance of effects, colors, and feel through out the entire production.

I almost forgot! I'm a fan of most things done by Coldplay's LD, Paul Normandale. He did some great stuff on the recent James Blunt tour with MAC101s and MACIIIs. He also owns his own production company - Lite Alternative - that provides gear for a lot of the European shows he designs. Here's Martin Professional's MAC101 promo video from the James Blunt tour. I think that Normandale is one of the most uniquely creative concert LDs out there right now.

 

[Esoteric]

I love Holder's theater designs. Between him and Kevin Adams they could light every show I watch.

 

[EBB]

I remember working the ACDC Black Ice tour when it came here and was very entertained from the spot position. It mixed really well with lighting and video and whatnot. Altogether it was just a good show. But then again that comes from being a long time fan of them in general and wish I could have seen Stiff Upper Lip. But was a bit young at the time.

A teacher of mine showed us video of the Bigger Bang tour for Rolling Stones and I remember watching that more in awe of how ridiculous it looked- of course not soon after I saw that, I saw the pictures of U2's 360 tour and was amazed at that. In any case, that show had a really cool look to it and the lighting seemed spot on to alot of the songs. I should really sit down and watch it again.

Overall with the 360 tour, I wasn't all that impressed to be honest. Neat stage design. Alot of lights. But it just seemed very... boring at times. The video made up for it. But still, I felt like that show was very over rated for what it was. I'm sure it took a long time to program and trying to edit and change things like that in 2 days is a mighty task when it's 250+ movers and 270+ atomics. Especially more difficult during legs of the tour where the set lists would change often on a weekly basis according to a buddy of mine.

As for that TSO comment about it being great. I saw it here last year and the year before. Meh. Alot of fixtures, video and pyro don't make a show good. Usage of said effects makes them what they are. The lasers were probably the more interesting effect in my opinion. But often looked like they were either mis-cued or just didn't feel like they matched up with the music at all. Like the Carol of the Bells would have this really hard hitting kick and floor tom sound that felt like it would be great for strobes or the ACL effects. But instead it was very plain and oddly colored(Mixture of on the movers and white on what looked like all the LED's). And then when it slowed down, it strobed. Alot.

From what it seemed like to me, it was a show that had alot of crap and who ever designed it wanted to use it all at once every chance they could get. I wasn't impressed. Automation on the other hand. Neat. making the truss triangles pull together at the right angle with the Versatubes and Stagebars to look like a jaw of teeth. Awesooome. haha.


Now here's a story I like that I heard from some of the union guys here in Jacksonville. So Garth Brooks apparently was touring with rig that supposedly weighed somewhere in the range of 120 tons back in 2000 or some time around then. When he came to the coliseum(now demolished and arena built in it's place) with the said gear, safety inspectors believed the amount of equipment on that side of the building was so much that they had to hang about 20 tons of concrete in the air to make it safe, otherwise the building would literally "roll over". Funny story. Not sure how true the numbers and whatnot are. But alot of the older guys like to talk about how they hung concrete in the old coliseum to prevent it from falling on itself like a turtle.

 

[avkid]

Finally, anything recent from Umphrey's Mcgee. Just look at the live stuff on the umvideo channel on youtube. It's amazing. Jeff Waful is a master with MACIIIs and an MA. His strict separation of MAC301s out front and various spot fixtures on stage (generally profiles/spots only on stage Some of my favorite stuff from them is actually covers, but I also like the live versions of their original stuff. Here's a few links:
From early on, Cemetary Walk
More recently, Much Obliged
And quite recently, two covers, 25 or 6 to 4 and You Can't Always Get What You Want.

Last June when they were on our big stage was the first time I had ever seen a JB Lighting A7.
Creative Stage Lighting always bring the coolest toys.

 

[Marcello]

Chemical Brothers, Underword, DaftPunk and Massive Attack make wonderful things.

 

[DELO72]

I thought Broken Bells had some terrific lighting in their tour for After the Disco. I don't specifically recall the lighting, persay, but Peter Gabriel always puts on one hell of a theatrical display with elevators, conveyor belts, and other fun imagery. His lighting and staging for the US tour was amazing and left the biggest impression on me of all shows I've seen. Also- in tribute to the recent passing of the late, great Chris Squire, YES always did a nice job with their lighting.

I can say that hands down the worst concert lighting I have ever seen was Patrick Woodruff's lighting of The Police's reunion tour at the Pepsi Center in Denver. I'm not convinced it was the design necessarily as it is rare for a designer of that reknown to do such a terrible job, or the Lighting director for that particular venue, but the focus points were completely off so nothing worked, and it was absolutely terrible. So bad in fact, that my friend who knows nothing at all about lighting, turned to me without prompting and said, "This is the worst lighting I've ever seen!". Which...when a non-lighting snob notices it and feels it's worth mentioning, you have a problem! *laugh*