Gorillaz latest outing has proved one of the must-see events of 2017, with the band, production and technology conspiring to present something a spectacle for the band, in front of a giant TV screen.
“In the beginning, we didn’t know how the tour would be received. It’s been quite some time since the last one,” scoffed Lighting Designer Matt Pitman, working alongside Production Manager, Joel Stanley. “Joel’s remit to me was to give the show something better than they’d had before,” Pitman continued. “We did our first show at the Printworks in London back in March. It was a one-off in a small venue but Joel gave us a generous production budget. He hasn’t turned down any of my technical requests at any point since, with lighting or video, and it’s the same in all departments. We have grown the production to where we are now.”
The tour ran through a string of European arenas, culminating in 2-nights at London’s O2. “The tour started off with some warm ups,” confirmed Stanley. “Back then we carried a small production which eventually grew as we added flown scenic elements of video, more lights and so on; by the time we’d done 3 months in the US across the summer the production was fully developed.”
Coming to Europe has prompted some changes, not least a new PA system supplied by Entec in collusion with their trans-Atlantic partners Brown Note, much to the delight of long time FOH engineer Matt Butcher; complete with Video Design providing a change in video. “Coming to Europe with a different video supplier, somehow all felt very familiar,” said Stanley. “I think we have had one little niggle since day one and that got sorted very quickly; in that sense, the support has been excellent.”
Pitman had a background in concert video before coming to lighting design, as such he has an innate understanding of how the 2 mediums can best complement one another. “For Gorillaz we just have a large upstage wall of hi-def LED and an IMAG screen each side of stage fed by a nice little camera package and PPU from Video Design. There are 13 performers in the band plus guests; for that reason the rig looks very straightforward, 4 trusses across stage, a bit of side and back light, back video wall, some risers. That’s the only way so many performers and their stuff can be accommodated and give them the room to work. Dylan Etherington is our Camera Director. We had some conversations about IMAG and he is extremely competent, relieving me of that burden. The original Jamie Hewlett produced content material we use can present large areas of solid colour at intense levels, or even white so we needed to temper the lumen output from the back wall, something we now do live in show with Glen Jenkins our touring d3 operator, riding a fader.”
Stanley concluded: “Alex Leinster from Video Design came out to our production build and first show in Luxemburg to make sure everything was OK, which was great. The crew are great and it all feels very familiar which is just what you want.”