Paul
McCartney’s ‘Out There’ world tour kicked off in Brazil with three shows and a
mind-blowing lighting design created by Roy Bennett.
The shows were
supervised by Roy
and operated by Lighting Director Wally Lees. Lighting equipment for all three
was supplied by leading Brazilian rental company LPL Professional Lighting and
included Robe ColorSpot and ColorWash luminaires, together with other moving
lights and generics.
LPL’s Erich
Bertti Project Managed all three Brazilian dates which saw Paul perform for the
first time ever in Belo Horizonte (Minas
Gerais), Goiânia (Goiás) and Fortaleza
(Ceará).
The production
used 12 x Robe ColorWash 2500E ATs located on the stage floor, nine ColorSpot
2500E ATs on overhead trusses and 20 x ColorWash 1200E ATs distributed on the
side and followspot trusses.
“As usual the
Robe fixtures worked really reliably,” said Erich.
During the
presentation in Goiânia, Lighting Crew Chief Mike Hosp from Upstaging,
commented, “Everything is going well despite the short load in and out times,
and LPL is a good technical partner”.
Original
lighting by Roy Bennett
The McCartney
show lighting front of house tech is Thomas Walls who has worked in the
industry for the last 26 years with bands like Metallica, The Killers and Luis
Miguel.
He explained,
“In the USA and Europe we work with a bigger
lighting system – around 20 or 30 more moving lights, but the design was
adapted for the Brazilian tour according to the available transport. Basically,
the show’s programming is already complete, so Wally arrives and checks
everything so it is ready when Roy
gets to the venue”.
“I never
thought Paul McCartney was an artist I would work with until the rehearsals
started! It has been a great experience to start the tour in Brazil with
three shows in a row in three different cities,” he concluded.
Lighting
Designer, Roy Bennett started creating the design in February this year.
Classic
elements of the show which they have been presenting in recent years were
included in this one, together with many new ones, including much more video
than previously.
Roy highlighted
the fact that due to their touring schedule, they often can’t bring their own
complete system, so this is primarily sourced locally while they bring a few
specifics like the grandMA2 consoles.
“Here in Brazil, when we
heard that LPL had the Robe moving lights we needed, it was a natural choice to
work with them so we could have consistency over the three shows. Working with
LPL has been great, they are very professional.”
He adds that
when he visited Robe’s factory in the Czech Republic last fall, he was
“Amazed by their new products, so I feel very comfortable using this brand on
shows”.
Guillermo Traverso,
Robe’s Regional Sales Manager for Latin America, commented, \”It\’s always
brilliant to see what Roy
does with the lighting – he is hugely creative. The fixtures were taken to an
extreme level on these shows, where they had to compete with very bright LED
screens at the rear of the stage … and even without haze, you could see the
projections and the beautiful colours they produced\”.
Three
unforgettable shows
The first
show in Belo Horizonte
was completely sold out and highly emotional with an extraordinary audience reaction that clearly
made Paul very happy. For one show-stopping moment almost everyone raised
‘THANK YOU’ signs which completely blew away both artists and production!
The show in Goiania was invaded by
several different types of insects – mainly grasshoppers – all wanting to catch
the action! Paul befriended one of them which stayed on his microphone for
several songs. Named ‘Harold’, it even said “hello” to the audience!
Last but not
least, the third performance in Fortaleza
took place on an incredibly hot evening, where all will remember a magnificent
show with an amazing combination of audio, video and lighting technologies.
Beatles for Ever!
Photo caption
(From left to
right): Thomas Walls (Front of House Tech), Wally Lees (Lighting
Director/Programmer), Guillermo
Traverso (Robe’s Regional Sales Manager for Latin
America) and Roy Bennett (Lighting Designer).
