Fresh off the release of their brand new album Supercharged, punk rock icons The Offspring toured Australia through May with Simple Plan in support.
Chameleon Touring Systems supplied the lighting, including 64 x Acme Pixel Line IP, 60 x GLP JDC 1, 36 x Martin MAC Aura PXL, 58 x MAC Viper XIP, 3 x Robe BMFL FS, 5 x Robe BMFL Blade and MA3 for control.
Lighting designer Jay Waddell readily admits he’s very particular about the details of his design – he tends to tweak and refine constantly – but reports that the Chameleon crew took it in their stride and were fantastic!
Jay started in the industry eighteen years ago and has been with The Offspring for seven of those years. The Australian shows featured a new design cycle in support of Supercharged, with Jay commenting that the design is more modern and larger than that of the previous tour.
“This show leans a little more heavily on video and has a lot more fixtures,” he said. “This is the first full design that I’ve been able to do for the band. In the previous few tour cycles that we’ve done, outside designers were brought in, so this is my first shot at looking at it and putting something out that I think complements and enhances both the music and the band’s energy on stage. It’s essential to me that the lighting and video content blend seamlessly, creating a cohesive and complementary feel. I try always to stay aware of the full picture on stage and keep the band out front.”
Jay says that they went through a couple of design revisions, but the band trusts him very well. The show seen in Australia solidifies the design for their primary touring markets, including the US, Europe, and the UK.
“We started the tour in South America, which can be challenging from a logistical standpoint,” added Jay. “We were getting new rigs every single day, so we took out some of the more bespoke details of the design and made it a little more friendly to replicate each day.
“I wanted the design to feel modern but not too polished like a pop show. We wanted it to still have a rock and roll feel and keep that punk energy. I wanted to be able to punch, to be in your face, but also pull back when needed. It’s not too shiny, but it is a lot of stuff to play with.”
The truss layout is relatively straightforward, with six fingers overhead that break up the structure. With the variety of venues on the tour, Jay wanted something that he could stretch out when he had room, but then flatten out if he didn’t, without cutting fixtures.
“The idea with the fingers is that you can scale up or down to larger and smaller venues; we can tweak the rake angle, and the look stays intact,” he said. “The finger trusses have MAC Viper XIPs, and the fingertips, one of my favourite parts, feature GLP JDC-1s. We try and keep the front of the stage pretty clear, so then, working backwards, we have an upstage truss with MAC Viper XIPs and a bunch of Acme Pixel Line IP. We’ve got pods on each side of the LED wall each with 18 x MAC Aura PXL and more Acme Pixel Line IPs on each.”
A riser across the back of the stage is a mirror image of the upstage flown truss. Six more MAC Viper XIP are flown on either side for side light. Two flown key light trusses house the Robe BMFL RoboSpots.
Although he specified MAC Ultras, Jay was excited to discover Chameleon stocked a large quantity of MAC Viper XIP, which he wanted to get his hands on!
“I hadn’t seen them in person before this tour, and wasn’t surprised to find that they’re great,” he remarked. “They’re very bright and render colour well – no problem cutting through the upstage video wall. I’m very pleased with them and would happily spec them on another tour.”
Jay explains that they don’t use a lot of wash, and consequently, the MAC Aura PXL is more for effect lighting. Not so much fancy eye candy but rather for bold, big movements, punches, and chases.
“Martin fixtures all strobe well – they always have – which is great for a punk band, because you’ve got to have a good strobe,” added Jay. “Fixtures need a solid random strobe, and they need to be able to strobe in unison at different speeds without drifting out of sync like so many others do. That’s something that always bugs me, but Martin has that figured out.”
The Acme Pixel Line IP features prominently in the design, placed across the top truss, across the bottom riser, on the two lines on each tower, and on the sides.
“They’re great – they’re punchy but not overwhelming,” commented Jay. “I don’t have to hold them back much. They’ve got a great dimming curve. I like to feather the ends of both sides and create gradients and other effects. Those come through really nicely, better than probably any other pixel bar fixture I’ve seen.”
As well as on the flown truss ends, GLP JDC-1s are also found on the floor in the back, where they create a god-like light effect. Jay says they are cool for strobing on the ground, but he tries hard not to assault people all night.
“I like the effect, but I don’t necessarily always want it right in your face,” he clarified. “Sometimes, you save a little bit of that for an accent or a big cue when you need it.”
Although on an MA3, Jay was running the show in Mode 2, mainly due to the constantly changing gear list and limited time each day to accommodate updates and new equipment at the beginning of the tour
“I did do a show earlier this year in Mode 3, so I have one under my belt, and I’m going to move this show to Mode 3 for the summer,” he said. “It’s time-consuming, especially since I’ve probably got 50 songs in the can. So it’s a substantial project to go ahead and do that. But this summer, I look forward to taking the time to switch this over and reimagining a lot of what’s possible in the show.
“Everything is live. There is no busking; everything is cued. I run a main cue stack, along with a handful of accent buttons for each song, punches, strobes, drum fills, things like that. We do use timecode to drive some of the video content, ensuring it’s in sync and on time. Some of the videos contain on-screen lyrics or other elements that require precise timing. But all the lighting is manually cued and fired by me.”
Jay comments that he enjoyed working with Chameleon, adding that all the gear is nice.
“The crew they sent out has been great,” he said. “They’ve been super accommodating with the adjustments I’ve made along the way. I’m particular about how things are set up — small shifts, precise placements — and they’ve done an awesome job helping dial everything in exactly how I want it.”
Photos: Tijs van Leur
