The Rubens are touring the country with their SODA tour with lighting designed by Matt Jones of Atlas Studios.
Matt has been busy as the lighting director for Ed Sheeran since 2015, but it was time for him to find a new project to focus his energy on.
“October 2023 was my last show with Ed Sheeran,” he commented. “The Divide Tour was three years (2017 to 2019), Mathematics, for me, was two years, 2022, 2023. I have been with the Ed Sheeran team since 2015, when he first did stadium-size shows, at Wembley Stadium for Multiply in 2015. This show format also came to Australia at the end of 2015.”
The Rubens required the look of the show to remain true to their roots as an alternative rock band. With minimal use of front key light and heavy use of backlight, Matt came up with a design that met this criteria.
“Knowing that many of the venues would require us to use the in-house lighting rig, and also knowing that many venues would be varying in stage size, I decided to design a floor package that would be able to scale up, or down depending on the venue stage space available,” he explained. “Each variation in size maintained the same general look, just on a different scale.”
Matt wanted to create a look that was able to accommodate both rock and pop themes, whilst also being able to be easily scaled up or down, depending on the venue restrictions. He also wanted to ensure that he created a design that would be able to ensure the band felt comfortable on stage. Recognising that their roots as performers go back to their early days in small pub venues, where front key light was little to none, it was important to ensure that a similar theme was recreated.
“I decided to lean heavily into a backlight-oriented design, with the bulk of the fixtures dedicated to creating a rear wall of light that carried a traditional “Rock n Roll” feel with ample use of traditional Mole Fay Duets, but also accompanied by Martin MAC Aura style units as well,” said Matt. “The Aura style washes provided great flexibility, providing a flexible colour pallet, as well as position presets that gave a wide variety in looks when combined with wide and narrow zoom options.”
Matt says that he particularly loved the creative possibilities offered by the ACME Pixel Line IPs, as they provided a cost-effective colour “Plate” effect, like a JDC, as well as a Strobe Bar element, but in a 1m format. With 10 units across the back of the stage, behind the band (on the larger format show), this gave a great deal of flexibility in look and dynamic.
“The colour plates offered a wonderful colour punch behind that band that was able to be broken up by the use of dimmer and colour effects, while the strobe bar element was able to offer an intense and often impactful moment when a snare or synth hit needed accentuating,” he remarked.
Matt adds that his biggest challenge was reminding himself that this show was not for camera or TV. Having spent so much of the last few years maintaining a focus on ensuring a subject is well-lit for the camera, changing his mindset to light a band with as little front light as possible was counter to everything he had learnt and focused on.
“What was most important, was ensuring that all band members on stage felt like they were lit and creatively produced on stage, in the way in which they wanted to be portrayed to their audience,” said Matt. “Another challenge was trying to convince the band that gobo looks were not all bad! In the beginning, they didn’t like the look of aerial gobo breakups, but after some demonstration and conversation, I was able to demonstrate that gobos can be deployed cleverly to offer some negative space, texture and contrast to a look.”
The full, un-scaled Floor Package consists of 24 x Martin MAC Aura XBs (18 on the back wall, 6 as side light); 24 x Mole Fay Duets (Elation CuePix WW Blinders were accepted as a substitute); 4 x Ayrton Perseo Profiles; 10 x ACME Pixel Line IP Strobe 3. Venue house lighting packages vary depending on the venue. Local suppliers providing the Floor Package included Phaseshift in Melbourne, Chameleon in Sydney, Elite in Canberra, Creative in QLD, Lux in WA, AJS in SA, Hobart was VJAM and Forth Pub was Dynamic Productions.
The rear back wall consists of 18 x Martin MAC Auras, 24 x Duets, 4 x Perseo Profiles and 10 ACME Pixel Line IPs to do most of the visual effects behind the band. There were 6 x Martin MAC Aura XBs for side light, three per side, that provided subtle and moody side lighting for the band throughout the show. The Perseo, situated behind the band were great at providing beam look, wide intense HITs, as well as gobo breakup looks from behind the band members.
This is the first time Matt has provided The Rubens with a fully timecoded show. In his initial discussions with the band and management, it was decided that to ensure consistency across the entire tour, the best approach would be to deliver the show with timecode.
“We worked with the band to ensure that all their songs had the correct timecode tracks playing, synchronised with the band’s click track, to ensure that both the band and lighting were perfectly lined up!” added Matt. “The show was programmed on grandMA3, using the excellent Mode 3 software! grandMA3 is a huge and significant improvement on the previous operating systems from MA Lighting. This is the only platform I choose to use to programme my shows now.”
Matt will be kept busy for the rest of the year with The Jungle Giants, Confidence Man, Thelma Plum and The Cat Empire. In 2025, he also has a few more potential MA Lighting Seminars in the Asia Pacific region.
Clint Stagoll – Production Manager and FOH Audio
Eamon Smith – Monitors and backline
Stu Padbury – Lighting Director on tour
Greg Carey – Band Manager
Photos: Marcus Coblyn, Music Vibes Photography
@atlasstudiosau
