The Avalanches played a string of sold-out shows in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney delivering plenty of high impact visuals and pumping audio.
Lighting designer Matt Hansen says that the artist had a very strong idea of what they wanted for this tour with the show geared up to be very video content-heavy. The guys engaged a UK based team call TEM (The Experience Machine) to come up with concepts and content for the rollout of the new show.
“This brief had a very strong play on light with the opening seven minutes of the set essentially a panning beam of light moving across the LED screens and silhouetting the guys at the riser,” added Matt. “In fact, pretty much the entire show is them in silhouette…!”
Ultimately, Matt wanted to fulfil the artist’s brief and dreams saying that it wasn’t that difficult as a large portion of the show leaned heavily on the upstage solid LED screen and the transparent layer of LED downstage of that screen.
“The lighting show had small moments of the set with no visual content so it was great to not have to complement or compete with the video in any way at those times,” he noted. “The remainder of the show was a balancing act to complement and work with the custom video content.”
Matt’s biggest challenge was receiving the full set three days before the show and the video content only two days before the show – a fully timecoded show it was not!
The stage had clear top stage decks and six 1.2m x 4.8m 5mm LED screen columns with 12 x 2.4m 18mm transparent mesh 1.5mm downstage. Between each LED column there were five groups of four Robe Spiiders. A bunch of Robe MegaPointes, Robe Spiiders and GLP JDC-1 were in the air and a smaller bunch of the same with some GLP X4 Bar 20s on the floor.
The programming for this show was set up to be relatively live in its playback. There was timecode generated from the bands Ableton rig but at this stage of the show’s development, it’s cueing the video playback via disguise.
“It’s my first real play with disguise and with the help of super-tech Dale, it is rad,” commented Matt. “The 20 x Robe Spiiders were all in large channel mode and the RGB pixels were all mapped to the video content. I had control of all the normal attributes for the light (pan, tilt, zoom, etc) but the output of each LED pixel on the fixture was via Artnet in on the Hog from the disguise media server. It was quite cool.”
Matt admits that he does like the odd confetti flutter now and then if not overused and there’s a key moment in the set with a Karen Carpenter/Freddy Mercury bit which could only have one possible outcome.
“Considering the state of things in Australia at the moment, the shows went okay,” said Matt. “It will be nice when we can actually deliver a tour. Remember those? They started in, say Brisbane and went in a clockwise direction around the country. Possibly finishing in Perth? Well, that didn’t happen on these shows but if by some miracle the states get their shit together with the federal government we may see a tour come back sometime in 2023. Until then I’ll embrace yet another lockdown in Victoria.”
AUDIO
FOH Engineer Craig Gordon started with the Avalanches in 2016 on their comeback headline show at Splendour in the Grass and says that they like their sound to be big and loud!
“We have used the JPJ PA’s over this tour but my favourite and what I’d spec is the d&b GSL rig with the SL subs,” said Craig. “In my opinion, it’s the best sounding PA going around. Our show at the music bowl had 10 x GSL flown, three flown SL subs and eight SL subs on the floor with KSL delays.”
Craig mixed on an Avid S6L with a Waves Server, a Midas XL42 and Smart C2 inserted over LR and a Waves PuigChild over the mix group.
“The XL42 is used as a parametric EQ over the system, the C2 for a little system compression … just a tickle,” he added. “I’ve been using the S6L for a while now, I’ve always used Avid consoles and the S6L sounds good plus I like the layout and the integration with Waves.”
“I’m smoothing out the often bright sharp samples with the XL42 and C6 comp and blending the synths in with the mix.”
Craig was also doing monitors from FOH on this run as there are no live microphones so it’s easier to run without a split. L-Acoustics 108Ps are located at head height more like a set of studio monitors and there is an L-Acoustics SB118 behind the guys.
“Everything’s been going great, the whole show has come together so well!” remarked Craig. “I can’t wait until this Covid mess has gone away and we can string a few gigs together! Get in the groove of touring again.”
Photos: Charlie Hardy
