Toby Keith - American Ride Tour - Mobile Production Pro

center video wall. With the center wall nowin play, Postma also lit the drapes as a borderto the center wall. With all of this going onbehind the pods they were now visible withthe effect of being a dark arched band shell.Finally, the drapes opened up all the way toexpose the entire video array and the podsflew up into the flat configuration. As theshow worked toward its close, the pods cameback down to their opening position.Throughout the show the DL.3s were used tothe lay projected images onto the band andstage. This effect is said to have been muchmore vivid in arena settings than in the shedwhere we saw the show in. However, it wasquite intriguing how the dynamic beams ofthe projectors interacted with the more staticoutput of the lighting gear in the hazed-overstage, which hung extraordinarily well on theoutdoor environment (must have had somethingto do with the sulfurous odor that hungin the air all day around the production site).Despite the large amount of video surface inthe show there was no I-MAG. Postma wasvery specific about the role video was to playin the production. “One of my biggest petpeeves with the way video is often used is thatit overpowers the band to the point where youcan’t even see where they are and you’re justwatching TV in an arena,” he explained. “Ilove the V-Lite product, but this lighting systemwas designed to compete with it so that wecould set the band out from the video contentand make them more visible despite the intensityif the video.”The sound of this act was incredibly crispdespite the heavy tones of the music. FOHEngineer Tom Abraham had one factor workingin his favor. “One thing that makes thisjob easy is this band can really sing and play,”Abraham told us. “You’re actually mixingpretty much right out of the gate as opposedto doing damage control. There’s a qualitysound coming off of the stage.”In the ongoing discussion of analog audio consolesverses digital the Digidesign Profile winson this tour because of the sometimes dramaticenergetic shifts of the music. Abrahamlaid that out for us. “These guys are a heavyband but when they use an acoustic guitar itchanges the whole dynamic. I can’t have aheavy metal drum sound during those songs.Thankfully, they have given me time in manydifferent rehearsal situations to program all ofthis stuff and I’m not done. I have been mixingthem for three years and it is very much awork in progress.”Obviously the ominous feeling caused by thesmell of sulfur and the cold sensation of someonewandering around the tour who may beup to no good had no affect on Abraham andhis work.In a world that relies as much on efficiency asthe touring industry does, the importance ofevery position on a given tour is incumbent inits very existence. However, it can be said thatsome jobs have more critical parameters thanothers. One such position on this tour is thatof Dave Lapham who techs for guitar player/vocalist Jerry Cantrell. As is the case of U2’sDallas Schoo, Lapham manages Cantrell’ssound and effects during the show. However,where Lapham’s responsibilities differ fromthose of Schoo’s is that during U2’s show theEdge does indeed make his effects change atleast part of the time and Schoo is there forbackup.In Lapham’s case, with the exception of acouple of wawa pedals, Cantrell relies uponhim for every one of his effects transitionsduring the show. While it’s not necessarily aherculean feat for a guitar tech to learn andexecute that responsibility, it is a bit incrediblethat Lapham learned it all in two days. “It wasa lot of home work,” he told us. “I run thewhole thing through a midi system in a guitarrack that Dave Freidman put together for meat Rack Systems. It all runs through an effectsgizmo that uses all the pedals in a loop andgoes through a MIDI switcher so I can pull inpedals as I want or pre-program certain thingsfor certain songs. But there are a lot of thingsthat I do on the fly like cueing octaves andthings that only get used for certain solos.”Back during the 80s a guy showed up to rig ashow in at an outdoor venue called WeedsportSpeedway near Auburn, New York. The riggerhad a real problem with spiders that didn’tkeep him from doing his work but made foran uncomfortable day. Before he went up torig the show he commented to a guy standingnext to him that he hated spiders. The guy hevented to happened to be the tour manager(don’t ask why he was there that early) whoresponded with, “Well then maybe we should16 mobile production monthly