Lighting Designer, Lenny Sasso curated visuals which mirrored the passion and complexity of PVRIS on their recent 19-city tour. Moving from ambers to bold reds, and soft washes to intense strobing and sweeps, the lighting design reflected the innate musicality of the band.
A critical element of Sasso’s rig were the 28 CHAUVET Professional F6 IP linear video strips that dominated the centre stage. Supplied by Sonus Productions of Moorestown, NJ, the strips were arranged vertically along two upstage rows of 10-units each, with the remaining eight fixtures flanking the drum and bass risers.
Feeding the strips content from Resolume, Sasso used them to set a variety of moods on stage. “I used a combination of prebuilt Resolume packs, plus a few solid colour blocks that I had made for the strips,” he said. “Overall, I stuck with clips that were not too elaborate. So it’s mostly blowing smoke, panning lines, tunnels, static, orbs, etc.. I found that clips like that tended to work the best with how I had the strips configured.”
Given their output and versatility the 6.9mm pitch strips allowed Sasso to create the range of looks necessary to reflect PVRIS’s music. “The F6 IP strips were critical to the vision we had for this show,” he said. “Cole at Sonus did absolutely great work making sure we had enough of the strips and cables for the show. I can’t say enough about how helped.”
There were many moments in the show, when it was apparent why Sasso was so intent on including the F6 IP units in his rig. An example was plain to see during the chorus of Death of Me, when the strips displayed solid colours chasing each other at different heights to create a multidimensional look on stage.
“The chorus is very driving and a bit chaotic so I wanted the wall of strips to reflect that,” concluded Sasso. “There was no filter diffusing the light from the strips so the intensity was unchecked. When we put images like this up on Instagram, we got tons of compliments on the looks.”