USA – US rock band Bleachers are on the road this year after their fifth studio album, Everyone for Ten Minutes,dropped in May, fronted by lead singer Jack Antonoff, also one of the most prolific and successful music producers on the planet. Bleachers is his current live music performance project.
Wanting something special, different, quirky and great-looking to set the stage show apart, he asked lighting and visual designer Tobias Rylander to create something interesting. Tobias, well known for invention and thinking ‘out-of-any-boxes’, loves challenges and finding smart solutions.
Tobias decided on a retro and authentically analogue look for the stage. He specified 30 x Robe SVOPATT fixtures to be a major part of the lighting rig, which also features several customised tungsten fixtures incorporating bulbs from different sodium luminaires … repurposed as bespoke theatrical profiles and fresnels.
The lights were supplied by Volt Lites from Burbank, California, where Matt Shimamoto was the account manager. “Volt is one of my favourite vendors,” stated Tobias, “they were brilliant as always on this tour, ensuring that everything we wanted happened.”
Tobias’ initial design drawings had included the classic Svoboda lighting fixture. However, with a lot of dimming channels already on the plot, Matt showed him the SVOPATT video as a potential power-saving alternative … which he loved!
“I wanted it straight away! It was such a fun fixture with all the colour mixing, and the potential for multiple different layouts and effects,” noted Tobias. “It can be a strobe, a wash, a light curtain … exactly what I wanted.”
He also showed the fixture to Jack Antonoff and the band, who agreed that it was a must-have. So, the SVOPATTS went on the rig!
The “Everyone for Ten Minutes” tour is the second Bleachers design for Tobias, and some of the look is an evolution from the 2022 tour mixed with plenty of fresh, imaginative energy.
The SVOPATTS are rigged on three over-stage trusses, 10 fixtures per truss.
The physical rigging of the units took a bit of figuring out as Tobias wanted them to resemble classic Svobodas and produce spectacular light curtains, among multiple other effects, including silhouettes. So, he had them hung with the odd and even SVOPATT modules producing linear rows when illuminated – effectively with every second fixture hung upside down.
“Once this was accomplished, it was fantastic. We ran them in full pixel mode and pixel mapping became much more straightforward,” he explained. “Having this huge canvas looked beautiful, especially when running with video-style effects … very organic and eye-catching with intensity chases and colour mixing effects.”
Tobias also created the tour’s stage layout and scenography, which he describes as “scenic and analogue music studio-esque.” There’s no conventional video, but he filmed some analogue light bulbs and other tungsten illuminative effects in action, with the footage fed into the strobes to produce specific unique kinetic effects running in conjunction with the lighting effects on the SVOPATTS.
Jack Antonoff is very much involved with the look of the show, and he and Tobias have a great understanding and communication of what’s wanted and needed in terms of visual identity. While it is a fun rock ‘n’ roll show with wide appeal, the aesthetics are carefully curated to evoke an aura of ‘1980s arena rock’ with impact and much attention to detail.
Lighting programmer and operator Dustin Snyder, who is out on the road with the tour, has also been instrumental in developing the look and feel of the lighting. He was also new to the SVOPATT. “They are awesome fixtures, very cool and something totally different,” he commented.
He observed that Tobias likes using sparse individual pixel effects and single pixel or one-pixel-zone at a time looks, and that the SVOPATTS as a back light can bring an excellent fuzzy analogue ‘illuminated atmospheric’ feel, similar to an old school 120V par rig but with contemporary brightness, features and colours. “The zoom enables some very interesting and varied looks and they are SUPER bright!”
Dustin also noted that the SVOPATT units have been robust when on the road.
The tour is ongoing, with another US leg upcoming, followed by Australia, then the UK and Europe in late fall.
Photo © Rob DeMartin
