Toby Keith - American Ride Tour - Mobile Production Pro

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Given that the constricted economy has notpassed over the concert industry the newest,craziest, most high tech super expensiveproduction elements available aren’t necessarilyan option in large quantity to most ofthe shows on the road and Toby Keith is noexception. In and effort to get the most bangfor his production budget Jackson’s answerwas to go the other way. Figuring that noone has seen an 80s par can rig in the last 20years and certainly never on a country stage,that was the direction he would take.In the end the result may nothave looked all that different thanthe 80s look they were goingfor from the perspective of theaudience, but it made a hugedifference in terms of versatilityfor the guys running the show.Versatility aside, the system ranon 400 amps and saved enormousamounts of weight incable.Jacksonrecalled, “I sent Toby a video of aTriumph show back in 1986 with a massivewall of pars and some pictures of Queenand I said, ‘What if I said we can do thisnow but that it will be so high tech that it’llbe outrageous and it will fit much tighter anddraw much less power?’ And he went for it.”Jackson knew what he wanted to do. Now hejust had to figure out how to do it. Havingcome up with the idea and gotten it acceptedby the boss, he now had a bit of a dilemma.“Now I had to figure it all out,” said Jackson.“My thinking was, ‘I don’t really know howwe’re going to do this but it makes sense thatwe could do it so let’s just say that we can.’”Enter Bandit Lite’s GRNLITE (pronounced:Green Lite) system. Just newly released at thetime, GRNLITE is a system comprised ofLED fixtures that play together to create awidely versatile lighting system that eats likea bird and supplies the big look Jackson waslooking for.One of the big elements of the massive parlooks of the 80s was the ubiquitous chase.That had to play a part in this trip downmemory lane, but this show had a bit of atwist on the idea. The chases on this showwere not programmed as traditional chasesbut rather as video content through theGrand MA’s video server that was able toreact to whatever video content Moo TV wasputting on the upstage video wall.Now that we’vediscussed the innards of thesystem, let’s discuss what itlooked like. The upstage lineof the rig was made up ofthree truss pods on either sideof an upstage video wall thatwas comprised of 54 tilesof Barco S-lite (which is avirtual 10 mil product) withthe far offstage pods beingmade up of two pods stackedvertically. A large part of thelighting canopy was made ofpods as well with truss linesrunning up and down stageon slight angles that gave abit of an infinity look.In addition to the LED fixtures,the system also includedVari-Lite 3K’s and 12 VL 2K washes all ofwhich added a contrasting edge to the rig.The big punch in the system was providedby 12 Syncrolite MX-3’s that had no troubleat all in plowing through the massive look ofthe over all system.The system was programmed in the ESPsuite at Webster University where Jackson isdoing work on developing a concert designsoftware package. Lighting director and codesignerEddie “Bones” Connell loved thecomfort of programming in the virtual environment,but admitted that working in thetactile world has its advantages. “It was thefirst time I’d ever done it like that so it wasall new to me,” Bones told us. “Of course itdoesn’tcome out exactly as you see it on the monitorin the studio. It did however save us a lotof time and we didn’t have to worry aboutbeing in a hot shop sweating our butts off. Asit turned out, we could have used a coupledays at the Bandit shop, which is what we’lldo next year.”Once the system was put together, programmedand rehearsed it looked sensationalin the hands of long time Toby Keith lightingdesigner/director Eddie “Bones” Connellwho breathed incredible life into it. He alsohad a great perspective on the overall design.“It was like remaking an old movie,” he said.With a big look comes a big sound that22 mobile production monthly
was put forth by long time FOH engineerDirk Durham. “We have one of the biggestsound rigs of any country show out there,”Durham explained. “I’m pretty spoiled withthe amount of gear we get to work with. I tryto make it as big and wide as I can with asmany pans and stuff as I’ve got going on. Iget as wide as possible and run Toby straightup the middle and it seems to work for me.”With 60 inputs covering a ten piece bandplus Toby, Durham makes efficient use ofeverything he’s got with his most effectivetool being the philosophy of not complicatingthings. “I’ve got Toby and the band soldon the idea of keeping things simple.”However, where it does get a little morecomplicated is in monitorworld where two engineers Russell Fischer,Bill Collyer mix the show on two consoles.Fischer detailed the arrangement. “I wasa system engineer and we’d lost a monitorguy because he wasn’t watching the bandenough. Then we were on a USO trip andthe new guy was having issues and I was sentback to help him out. After the trip they lethim go and asked me if I wanted the gig. Iwasn’t going to be the next guy to be let gofor not watching the band enough, so I askedfor a second console for the band. Now wehave two eyes on the show and when a problemarises we have two eyes on that as well.”Because Toby has a preference for thewarmth ofan analog console, Russell mixes his soundalong with a couple of security mixes ona Midas H 3000. However, because of thesize of the band and the amount of activityon stage including several pyro shots, theband requires the snapshot versatility of adigital console. The board of choice was theDigidesign Venue. Audio on the tour wassupplied by long time tour audio vender,Sound Image.Although the tour wasn’t gag heavy, it didhave its moments. At the opening of theshow, a Ford Truck (Ford is the tour sponsor)rose up out of the upstage riser on a toastermobile production monthly 23
Page 1 and 2: volume 3 issue 10 2010
Page 3 and 4: Lift, Track, and Move Any Lighting,
Page 5 and 6: contentsvolume 3 issue 10 2010Toby
Page 7 and 8: Los Angeles Convention Center, LA,
Page 9 and 10: harman.comIn fact with 27 output bu
Page 11 and 12: completely blank canvas to show jus
Page 13 and 14: FROM Karl KuenningIt was a rainy da
Page 15: Alicein ChainsFun on the Road.As Bl
Page 18 and 19: center video wall. With the center
Page 20: Commercial grade quality and compet
Page 23: At first blush Toby Keith’s 2010
Page 27 and 28: to a country beat. In the current e
Page 29 and 30: Lance Stoner - Tour Rigger/Drum Tec
Page 32 and 33: mpmBandi Lites mpm featureBandit Li
Page 34: Syncrolite mpm featureSyncroliteWhe
Page 38 and 39: Bandit Lites continued from 30Bandi
Page 40 and 41: Moo TV continued from 28Even within
Page 42 and 43: ADVERTISER’S IndexAccess Pass & D

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