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FEATURE
P R O J E C T I O N L I G H T S & S TA G I N G N E W S
Lasers Turn Up
the Voltage
for
G hos t l and Observatory
lasershows.net
CJ Foeckler at Jfoeckler.com
lasershows.net
Travis bowles
By FrankHammel
More than just green beams: Full color and gold/blue looks for Ghostland Observatory
Words can’t describe it. Photos don’t
really do it justice. Even videos
posted on Youtube after every one
of their concerts can’t quite capture the immersive
laser experience at a Ghostland Observatory
concert.
The visuals for the band’s current tour,
in support of the just-released album, Codename:
Rondo, are almost wholly derived from
laser effects synched to the electronic beat
of the music, which work with simple house
washes, haze machines and occasional strobe
effects to electrify the atmosphere in venues
typically seating 5,000 or less.
“We now have 16 lasers on this tour, and
over 120 watts,” notes George Dodworth,
owner of Lightwave International, who also
works directly with Ghostland band members
Thomas Turner (electronics) and Aaron Behrens
(guitar and vocals) to create laser looks
synched to the beats of the songs, which are
performed live without timecode with laser
tech Derek Abbott manning the cues.
Synching Lasers to the Beat plsn
For the band’s current tour, Dodworth
programmed the laser looks in Ghostland
Observatory’s studio in Austin in late October,
meticulously matching the visuals, beat
for beat, to each of the six new songs Turner
and Behrens added to their performance list.
“The trick was slicing the main program
into beat-accurate loops that follow 8, 16 and
32 count measures,” Dodworth notes. “As long
as you nail the downbeat, the content follows
perfectly.”
“We do about 20 songs per show, and
that runs maybe an hour, hour and a half or
two hours, depending on the number of encores,”
says Ghostland’s Turner. “We have maybe
40 songs in our repertoire.” Lightwave has
synched laser looks for each of those songs.
While the lasers are precisely timed to the
beat of the electronic music in programmed
“building blocks” for a look that is consistent,
show to show, Dodworth emphasizes that
“the show is absolutely 100 percent live and
100 percent operator-controlled. There is no
timecode; it does not fit the personality of the
band or the music.”
In that regard, Dodworth adds, the laser
operator “performs like a third member of the
band. The setup at FOH is more like a musical
instrument than a control system.
“It’s very intense,” Dodworth adds. “A
90-minute set flies by in what feels like minutes,
and it’s an absolute rush.”
Although Abbott is the laser tech for the
tour in support of Codename: Rondo; Jesse
Parker, currently out with Tom Petty and the
Heartbreakers, has manned the laser cues for
Ghostland Observatory as well.
Minimal Lighting Effects
plsn
Turner and Behrens have long taken a
minimalist approach to their show visuals.
“When we got started, we just had a red wash
on stage, for a raw, punk rock feel, and we
try to keep that element,” Turner notes. The
shows also eschew additional musicians and
video walls, so there’s no real need or interest
in keylighting for I-Mag, followspots or a big
moving light rig.
“Sometimes we run into situations where
the house lighting designer wants to show off
all his lighting fixtures and what they can do,”
Turner says. “We’ll have to tell them, ‘No, we
don’t really need all that.’ We would need to
make sure the lighting is positioned to stay
out of the laser zones.
“In the past,” Turner continues, “we tried
[Martin] MAC 2Ks and MAC 700s for a tight,
white beam, for sort of a spaceship headlight
effect, on fixed positions. But it took a lot of
time to make sure everything was working
the way we wanted it to be. Night after night,
it got to be a big hassle. It was exhausting.”
Maximum Laser Power
Although the shows now travel with
little more than laser equipment, relying
on house wash lights and backline equipment,
there is plenty of linear firepower. Past
Ghostland Observatory tours have featured
two to five laser projectors. The current tour
uses 16.
And while Ghostland Observatory’s touring
shows are modest in size, they dwarf
much bigger touring productions in terms
of lasers rented from Lightwave International.
The runner up, according to Lightwave
production manager Alan Fuehrer, is Korn
with 13 laser machines.
Since throw distance isn’t really much
of a problem for lasers, the visual design
works well in larger and smaller venues. “If
you have a 60-foot ceiling and three balconies,
there’s a new ‘awe’ factor, but as long as
they’re synched to the music, they look cool
either way — whether you’re up close or farther
away,” Turner says.
“More is better,” Dodworth adds, contending
also that “small venues are the very
best places to see this show. The density of
laser equipment and laser beams is staggering
when packed into a small house.”
Compact but Powerful
plsn
New visual concepts — using laser effects
to create what looks like a layer of electrical
energy covering Behrens and Turner,
for example — have evolved, along with the
ability to find “new ways to hide lasers in set
designs” now that the laser gear imposes
very few limits on placement, Dodworth
notes.
“In the water-cooled days,” he adds, “a
tour often had to reduce to green microyags
when the proper water and power was
not available for the full-color ion systems.
Now we operate with no restrictions and no
handicap for the smaller venues.”
Turner recalls the concerns some venue
managers would have when hearing
that a laser show was heading their way.
“They would be freaking out, because they
thought we needed water hoses and generators.
Now it’s like, ‘Wow, that’s a powerful,
full-color laser, and it fits into a large suitcase,
and it doesn’t take much juice.”
The smaller, but still-powerful lasers
have also streamlined touring logistics. “We
have two 15-passenger vans, one fully loaded
with lasers, the other with music equipment
and merchandise,” says Turner, noting
that he, Behrens, laser tech Abbott and tour
manager Alex Brown can still find a seat.
“The band carries the entire show with
them,” Dodworth says. “In water-cooled
days, a show this scale would require one
to two full semi trailers, many hundreds of
amps of three-phase power, and water usage
measured in double-digit gallons per
minute.”
Direct Visual Control
plsn
Lightwave International is now in the
process of giving Turner, who has become
something of a laser expert himself, more
direct control over the visual show.
“We just added a JazzMutant Lemur as a
control device,” Dodworth notes, of a “multitouch
system that generates OSC commands
over a network.” He credited Eliav Kadosh, a
new Lightwave employee, for writing the interface
for it to work with the lasers. “Thomas
is already using one in his performance.”
Lasers have become an integral part of
the aesthetic of a Ghostland Observatory
concert experience — and one the band is
not likely to abandon anytime soon.
“It used to be that lasers were seen as
‘old’ technology,” Turner says, noting the rise
of LED video displays. “But we dug them.
What’s cool about them is that they’re retro
and futuristic at the same time.”
40 PLSN NOVEMBER 2010