Bon Jovi rocked the house with the band’s “This House Is Not For
Sale Tour”. The tour’s complex staging featured a grandMA2 full-size console
provided by PRG and was in support of Bon Jovi’s eponymous thirteenth studio
album released last fall.
It was the first to feature Hugh McDonald and Phil X as
full-time band members. The tour picked up the album’s theme with a set
featuring a stylized house under construction. “The tour represented the next
chapter of Bon Jovi,” says Spike Brant, the show’s creative producer and
designer and CEO of Nimblist. “It was a dynamic show – a nod to old fashioned
Rock ’n Roll with a fine art, metaphorical abstractness. Nothing about the
design was fake, and with no fascia, the machines became the tools to tell the
story.”
“Not many shows use this much motion to create a sense of
structure,” notes Joe Bay, lighting director and programmer. “The show kicks
off by building a house from truss and towers – very powerful and expressive –
and throughout the show, we construct various abstract versions of the house.
With this amount of automation driven from a console, we needed to use
grandMA2. And with the incredible power of Stage Markers, it expanded our
creative possibilities.”
“Bon Jovi has been using MA for almost ten years now,” says
Brant. “The last tour really tested grandMA2’s ability to talk to the TAIT
Navigator system for motion control. On this tour grandMA2 acted as the show
controller, working with Navigator and video playback, not just as the lighting
desk. We really pushed the limits of Stage Markers!”
One grandMA2 with three active MA NPU (Network Processing Unit)
drove the show’s automation, lighting and video. The lighting rig’s moving
pieces included 12 hex towers surrounding the stage that telescoped up to 30
feet in the air “to give a raw steel look to the set pieces while also carrying
lighting,” says Bay. Fifteen yoyo winches bordered the stage for lighting
fixtures; six automated trusses were overhead. Five roll-drop, front-projection
screens displayed video content while several LED walls supplied IMAG for the
rear seating.
“The rig was very complex, and each song would have a unique
shape,” Bay explains. “Previously, we would need to create a specific focus per
configuration. But using Stage Markers and XYZ positions on the desk meant that
I could reuse tracking focuses and they would work throughout the show –
regardless of the configuration of the rig. It saved hours of programming and
enabled us to create never-before-seen looks. And all this happened in the
background for a seamless audience experience.”
The show used amongst others Claypaky Scenius Spots on the
moving trusses. “They were definitely the superstars,” says Brant. “They were
in three rows in two pieces to form the peaked roof of the house.
A.C.T
Lighting is the exclusive distributor of MA Lighting in the US and Canada.
Photos:
© Steve Jennings
