US songwriter and Matchbox Twenty frontman Rob Thomas’ All Night Days Tour played theatres in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, finishing with a massive outdoor show at Brisbane’s Sandstone Point. The shows are a celebration of his forthcoming sixth studio album, All Night Days, and the 20th anniversary of his debut solo record, Something to Be.
Rob’s lighting director, Pat Hayes, began his touring life in 2016 with the legendary Kiwi act Flight of the Conchords, and he has been lighting, directing, programming, and designing ever since. He has worked with The Decembrists, Trey Anastasio Band and, of course, Rob Thomas, with whom he has been since 2019.
The tour started in the US in July, playing mostly big outdoor amphitheatres, and the Australian shows were the first time the production was scaled down significantly.
“Occasionally, we would cut one or two of those fingers and re-space stuff, or just not put the scenery in,” added Pat. “This is the first major scale down where we have cut it in half.”
Examining the lighting plot, the design appears deceptively simple yet delivers a significant amount of looks and impact. Essentially, there are only four fixture types: Martin MAC Viper XIP, MAC One, Acme Pixel Lines IP and Elation Sol 1 Blinder.
The downstage truss houses eight Martin MAC Viper XIPs, which Pat uses for his front light, and is lined with twelve Acme Pixel Lines, in a straight line. Mid-stage features two six-metre trusses hung in a V shape, each holding six MAC Viper XIPs and six Pixel Lines.
The show stealers are the upstage ‘fingers’ created by a flown and angled 3-metre truss joining a 3-metre vertical truss. Each 3-metre section has three Elation Sol 1 Blinders and three MAC Ones.
The floor package consisted of three MAC Viper XIPs behind each of the two risers, and six MAC Ones in front of each riser.
The provision of Elation Sol 1s was non-negotiable for production suppliers, Phaseshift Productions, who were happy to add them to their inventory. They are the major scenic elements of the show, and with their added Beauty Dishes, make quite the impact.
Pat says their US lighting vendor, 3G Productions, purchased the Beauty Dishes for US$25 from Amazon, and he has been delighted with the result.
“The Beauty Dishes actually have a mount on them that twists into the Sol 1 blinder,” he said. “The Sol 1 has something called a Bowens mount on it that you can buy all kinds of different accessories that just quarter turn on to the front of it.
“The Sol 1s are bright, and I like their colour mixing, which is lacking in a lot of the blinders, and they’re quite small. If you don’t have them spaced out like this, you can make different arrays out of them and things like that. They clip together really easily, and they’re very light.”
Regarding the Acme Pixel Lines, Pat enjoys their versatility, especially when run in full-pixel mode.
“There are so many little pixels that it breaks down to, and even running a fairly simple effect over four or five of them, it still has a big impact,” he commented. “We have a lot of effects where it starts in the centre and creeps out really slowly. We also have a lot of colour gradient effects, which are great for that pixel density. There’s also a diffusion in front of them that you can turn on or off via DMX. I spend a lot of time throughout the show adjusting that setting based on whether I’m using it as a blinder, a pixel unit, or whatever I’m looking for.”
As for the MAC Viper XIP, Pat remarks that he loves all of the gobos and they’re way brighter than what he expected them to be.
“They’re awesome, even with saturated colours and gobos together,” he said. “The MAC Ones are just so fast, and you can do so much with all the backlight pixels. We do numerous little chases around them and similar activities.”
Atmosphere was provided by two MDG ATMe hazers upstage, with Pat commenting that he loves all of the MDG gear.
“It’s just a nice quality of haze, and the MDGs are the closest thing that I can get to still having that look of oil-based haze without the health hazards of it.”
Pat found the Australian tour a little ‘eye-opening’ simply because he hadn’t done venues of this size with Rob in so long, adding that it was fun again.
“It feels like you’re playing in clubs, you’re close to the audience, and I’m never this close to the stage!” he laughed. “I feel a lot more energy than I normally do. It’s also great to play the same venue three nights in a row. I like to experiment more, too, because we get to dig up songs that we haven’t touched in 10 years.”
Control was an MA Lighting grandMA3 full-size, a platform Pat has only been using for the past 18 months and describes as a great experience.
“What drew me to it was just the whole cloning process. It’s so much simpler. The way it handles timecode is great. And they’re really easy to source globally, unlike my previous console. Getting into the MA stuff has streamlined my whole workflow in that sense.
“I keep getting lost in all the various things you can do with the new effects engine and all the selection order kind of things. Adding the ability to have X, Y, and Z selections has completely changed the way I build effects now.”
Pat concludes that Phaseshift Productions has been awesome. After one call with Johnny Bamford, Phaseshift’s Production Manager, he knew they were the one.
“They have their stuff together, and all the gear is brand new – including a straight out of the box MA console!” he added. “The touring lighting team is comprised of Head Tech Seb Brown, and systems techs Jamie Bebb and Jake Rees. The entire team was so warm and welcoming. Seb was there for me every step of the way, and always willing to do everything he could to fit the production into these unique spaces.”
Photos: Jim Trocchio
