Lighting designer Bazz Barrett says he is very lucky working for the Hoodoo Gurus as they give him complete free range to do whatever he likes – within the budget of course!
“I gravitate towards 1960s psychedelic mixed with solid rock looks for Guru’s powerhouse live set in my designs,” he explained. “I have extensive chats with the band when a new album and tour is announced to get an idea of current visual themes for record artwork and the best way to scale it up for the stage. The Dave Faulkner designed artwork for the record just screamed out for a big printed backdrop and thanks to Rohan at Scrimworks we got a beauty.”
Bazz wanted to bring home the Sci-Fi UFO flying about vibe and so originally, he planned to make a fleet of inflatable UFOs that would appear on four moving finger trusses via Kinesys.
“I wanted each finger to be independent to be able to create really interesting and weird truss arrangements with a different truss look for each song,” he added. “Of course, budgetary restraints and three Covid reschedules combined to kill first the inflatables and then the Kinesys. So the inflatables were replaced with Martin LC Panels, for which I made my own UFO imagery, and the KInesys went old school manual motor button pressing. We ended up with a fingers top flat and fingers raked at 25°-40° position.”
As well as Covid rescheduling, Bazz’s other major hurdle was unfortunately fitting the touring around his cancer treatment. Also, truss angles work great in high roof spaces but it’s a little trickier in a place like the Hordern. Having said that, it all worked out nicely with some compromise – the loss of the mid-truss flying directly off the roof nodes which opened the gap in the screens a bit but they needed the height.
The rig which was taken everywhere but Hobart was supplied by Chameleon Touring Systems and Bazz says that he can’t thank Tony Davies enough to get them what they needed on their always tight budget.
“My team of Lewi, Chris and Harrison are a gun team,” said Bazz. Thanks, gents. Thanks also to Graham Walker.”
Bazz also thanks Alive Technologies in Hobart where he swapped to Robe gear and a much cut-down version of the rig for the Hobart City hall. He also thanks MMB and CCP for extra rigging in Melbourne and Perth.
The rig front to back to floor consisted of an 18m front truss on five motors with 12 x Martin MAC Aura (eight as front wash plus cyc effect and four reserved as profiles), six Chauvet Colorado LED Zoom Par for in-between song wash and 12 x Sunstrips (eight facing the crowd as a fat blinder and a nice range of chasing effects plus four facing the backdrop adding shadows through the rig.
The 18m mid truss was used as invert motor points for truss fingers with four motors as was the 18m back truss. Backlight consisted of five Claypaky B-Eyes used for everything from the best tight to fat beam to all the effects in the shapes mode and the occasional rotating lens brilliance which Bazz loves. Added to that were three Atomic Strobes for doing what’s in the name.
The four Finger Trusses were made of four 7m TriPoint up finger trusses splayed out from 2m on either side of the centre with 1.5m rigging poles to hang.
“They held 24 x MAC Auras for great backlight,” said Bazz. “I love the Auras, they’re like a cross between a ray light and a par can with rich colours. Then there were eight more Sunstrips fat blinder/ white backlight and a nice range of chasing effects and four Atomic Strobes.”
The twelve Martin LC Panels (three rows of four off the 2m poles) ran imagery off Bazz’s Arkaos Media Master. The Martin P3 processor ran the Resolution mapping the screens in the final shape formed by the raked trussing.
“I had the Panels orientated landscape and free hanging so whatever the angle of the raked trusses the screens were vertical,” added Bazz. “I love a broken-up screen that allows the mind’s eye to fill the gaps. That also allows plenty of space for the lighting behind to go around the screens or shine straight through them. Those Martin LC Panels might be old but they work like a dream for me.”
The floor package consisted of seven more B-Eyes (five upstage, two downstage) doing everything from silhouettes to cyc lighting, beams and band shadows. Eight Sunstrips were placed with four upstage as silhouettes and four downstage facing the backdrop as shadows creating chase effects. Two Atomic Strobes were used as both strobe effects and silhouette blinders.
“Control is my trusty old Chamsys Maxi-wing and extra wing combo,” remarked Bazz. “I’m running the latest software version and I operated from stage right wing. It talks to the lighting and media server so I can control all aspects right off the Chamsys. The focuses are updated via the Phone app remote from anywhere in the venue. We ran a second Chamsys at FOH, an MQ100 Pro with a wing for the opening acts.”
Having had the great fortune to be lighting the Hoodoos for many years now, Bazz has a huge catalogue of songs programmed in a myriad of old show files with different rigs from over the past decade and beyond. Fortunately, the Chamsys allows him to easily import the song structures (cues and cue-stacks) and morph new lamp types into the songs.
“I can then see all of it on the free Chamsys visualiser and rearrange it all in the patch (which controls the virtual model in 3D space) to match the new design,” he explained. “From there I can update the focuses and run all the cues back to finesse the new design.
“The Covid delays allowed me to run all the new songs off the album and create looks for them at home. Also, this time, as I had trusses moving into different positions, I heavily went into the 3D tracking capabilities of the Chamsys. In the virtual model, I attached virtual 3D trackers to each position on the stage and room. Then at each venue, you move the trusses in the model to match the real 3D space and angle of the trusses so the lights focused on the correct position as the truss moves to its right angle. It worked very well as long as you take the time to match the model to the real positions in each venue. Eventually, I can see myself only working in the 3D space for all focuses.”
