Australian hip hop trio Bliss n Eso are midway through a 29-date metro and regional Australian tour. The three-time ARIA-award winning group will take their electric energy and unmatchable flow to audiences in every Australian state and territory throughout January to July 2022.
This is the first time that lighting designer Duane Inocencio (co-designed with Simon Johnson) has worked with the band who gave him a brief of ‘strobes and blinders’!
“The new songs off their current album The Sun have a mix of light and dark moments so I wanted to incorporate this by ramping up to specific areas in the setlist,” added Duane. “Bliss was specific on where hits / stabs needed to be. Their stage presence involves a lot of crowd interaction, there are big moments in the show when the audience sing back to Bliss N Eso and the artists feed off that energy.”
Duane explained that his design needed to be easy to travel with, efficient and effective for the eye whilst creating great photo moments.
“I wanted to add from the typical rig with overhead lamps trimmed at different heights,” he commented. “Aesthetically, I wanted the fixtures to shine in the background of the artist and the Astera Titan Tubes are a perfect fixture for this, I was able to place tubes in dark spots and give life to what would normally be unused space. We opted for the 1m Titan Tubes which we raised to give the show more height, another element I wanted to incorporate.”
Naturally, Covid-19 was Duane’s biggest challenge and he says that having multiple rescheduled days can be a big mess but they are fortunate enough to have a massive team behind the scenes advancing production as states come online and density/dancefloors open up.
While we have the luxury of Theatres and Festival stage rigs, we also have shows in pubs and clubs where overhead fixtures can be a mixed bag. The Astera Titan Tubes certainly carry most of the weight for these shows.”
The floor package itself is 32x FP1 Astera Titan Tubes running in Full Pixel Mode and these were purchased by Frontier Touring. As the tubes are lightweight and easy to use, they can be used in multiple situations beyond this tour. They have also assisted when small video grabs have been shot on location while on tour.
To add to the floor package, Phaseshift Productions were engaged for the Melbourne show and they supplied Martin Atomic Strobes, Blinders and LED Cans for the uprights/side wash. Duane notes that Sean from Phaseshift was quick to put the additional bits in and assist overall.
“Programming started early in January, we utilized a visualizer to try out concepts and overall see how the show was sitting during the various songs,” said Duane. “Our first look at the show was during rehearsals in Brisbane before our first show at Fortitude Music Hall. Having the tubes before leaving for tour assisted. I’ve bitmapped content which is being triggered by the console. MA3D visualizer helped enormously, having most of the looks, stabs and hits in place prior, meant that it was only a polish on site for our first show.”
Duane says his favourite look is the opening sequence which he and Simon Johnson worked hard to achieve; a gradual build with video content to basically immerse the audience. The song Lighthouse is a favourite with the Titan Tubes staggered all over the stage at various heights, as they imitate multiple lighthouses.
Photos: Anthony Murdoch
