Darkroom Creative – a fusion of imagination, ideas and production design from lighting and visual experts Seth Jackson and Nathan Alves – combined history, nostalgia, and reinvention in a blind pitch for the lighting and production design of the much-acclaimed Doobie Brothers 50th Anniversary tour, which they won. The tour was originally scheduled for 2020, was halted amid the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns, and is now back on the road across North America.
The lighting design includes 92 Robe Spikie moving lights which play a key role in shaping the show’s unique aesthetic, which takes inspiration from a collage of classic stage lighting design gems emanating from the 1970s and ‘80s. “We wanted to pay homage to the amazing history of the band with a design reflecting the era of the band, and without it feeling dated,” Jackson explained.
Overseen on the road by Lighting Director, Steve Owens, are a pack of ground-breaking “hat tips and homages” to those ‘greats’ of our own industry from that pioneering era.
For Jackson, it was achieving an overall tungsten look and effect, rather than using any specific light sources, that was important, and especially when grouping fixtures together in fours and sixes as was standard ‘back in the day’ when Par Cans were packaged in 4 or six-lamp bars for touring.
“Spikie really did everything we needed with a few gags up its sleeve to make for some interesting and special moments” said Alves, who has been talking up Spikies for some years. “For a little light they pack a mighty amount of usefulness.”
Jackson believes the biggest issue was that the light had to be bright enough, have sufficient features and be able to travel side by side in the truss sections. “The versatility of the Spikie allowed us to do everything we needed,” he said. “They can be PAR washes, tight beam graphics, they can be air effects, even wide zoom audience washes. They are the predominant fixture on the rig, and we have utilised and worked through all of their applications.”
The fixtures – all supplied by lighting vendor, Solotech – are configured to resemble a 1970s style Par Can rig, clumped together in fours and sixes to give the retro pre-rigged truss section appearance. This was orchestrated by Lighting Crew Chief, Dave Carr, who devised an ‘ingenious’ pipe assembly, which allowed the fixtures to hang as per the designers’ request. “The guy is a genius,” Alves remarked.
When it came to useful Spikie features, Jackson found that the zoom invaluable. It is used constantly in the show and enables “multiple ‘appearances’ to be extracted instantly from the fixtures,” he said. They have also maximised the Spikie’s two versatile air effects, bringing another layer of available lighting treatments to the party.
In crafting a masterpiece visual showcase to help celebrate the Doobie Brothers’ musical achievements, they have enjoyed the consummate professionalism of the band and the fantastic support from both Solotech and the Doobie Brothers’ own production team, all of which has ensured that everything keeps running smoothly.
Projected video – also part of the Darkroom Creative design concept – is used as a scenic enhancement, with landmark album cover graphics and other archival artwork reimagined as new visual animations and projected onto rows of constructivist scenic panels across the stage.
The tour is scheduled to run through October 2021.