Sammy Hagar was on the road with his Best of All Worlds 2024 tour with lighting design created by Jamie Fadden featuring Robe moving lights prominently on the rig.
Fadden started working with the artist four years ago and took over the LD position in 2021 and is also LD for Satriani. For this tour, a completely new lighting design was produced utilising 22 Robe BMFL Spots and 10 BMFL WashBeams, 40 MegaPointes, 42 Spiiders and five Tarrantulas together with eight FORTE FollowSpots running on four RoboSpot BaseStations. All lighting equipment was supplied by Felix Lighting.
Fadden also produced most of the tour’s video content and the band risers were part of her scenographic domain.
She looked back to the 1980s and early 1990s heydays of Van Halen for reference and inspiration as she wanted to bring a hint of big-rock-show retro lighting to the stage. A large upstage LED screen helped ramp up the visual drama and Fadden’s lighting and video treatment resulted in rich, fully blended scenes, for which she needed powerful and flexible lighting fixtures, which led her to Robe. The overhead lighting scheme comprised five trussing pods, rigged with MegaPointes selected for their ability to emulate those massive archetypal PAR can looks that so encapsulated 80s and 90s period stage lighting.
Each pod featured eight MegaPointes surrounding a Tarrantula in the middle. In most venues these were raked for additional depth, and the MegaPointe’s adaptability was further appreciated in recreating some old-school ‘ACL bar’ looks.
The Spiiders were rigged on stage left and right side torms in a 4-2-4 configuration, and more Spiiders were deployed on the mid and upstage trusses to give the most effective wash coverage.
A row of 16 BMFL Spots upstage on the floor were chosen for aerial effects and potent blast-through, low-level back lighting, paired with another six rigged overhead on the mid-stage truss.
The FORTE Follow Spots were positioned on the front and back trusses, four on each. The rear ones were used as regular rig fixtures for potent rear highlighting, where they worked with the mid-stage BMFLs, while the front ones excelled at the all-important task of following. Two were dedicated to Hagar, one for Satriani and one for bass player Michael Anthony. The RoboSpot BaseStations and operators were typically located behind the video wall.
Being involved with creating video content as well as lighting gave Fadden a greater degree of style and colour control and continuity across the entire stage, and all the colour choices for each look were intentional and thought through, based on a diversity of ideas.
For the song “5150”, the title track of Van Halen’s seventh studio album released in 1986, she unearthed the original album cover artwork and created a modern virtual take on it in video including an onscreen kabuki reveal that dropped to reveal an Easter egg.
She has been specifying and using Robe products regularly in her work, “They are reliable, versatile and very easy to use,” she commented. “It has been a great experience working with Felix Lighting and their outstanding team,” including crew chief Greg Kunit, who also delivered all the CAD and other technical drawings, and lighting techs Justin Souza, Christopher Hassfurther and Jose Baraquio who joined them on the road.
