LMG Touring provided video, audio, lighting, and LED to long-time touring companion, Train, for their Picasso At The Wheel Tour. The international tour, featuring The Fray and Matt Nathanson, is traveling to over 30 cities including Kansas City, Nashville, Atlanta, San Francisco and New York.
LMG Touring set the stage with 10 lighting and video pods, each with Tyler Truss custom frames, creating three-dimensional automated shadow boxes. The automated boxes were covered by scrim that allowed for the creative flexibility to switch back and forth between a series of Gobo projections and LED lighting passing through the boxes as they elevated and descended on stage to create visual depth.
“The set was actually inspired by Picasso,” Lighting and Production Designer, Brock Hogan, explains. “We wanted this scenic and theatrical early 80’s Rock-n-Roll style with moving pictures and surfaces but it was quite a challenge to figure out how we could do this. The custom Tyler Truss frames turned out to be a win-win because they allowed us to create the movable pods and they stayed assembled for easy transportation.”
Bought specifically for this tour, the ROBE CYCFX4 lights were placed around the pods to create a display of effects ranging from visible light curtains to artificial beams using Touring Hazer Base units for an architectural element. The lighting units moved effortlessly in time and illuminated the stage with musically inclined projections that transitioned from scenic sky simulations to colorful geometric visuals cascaded in light. The ROBE CYCFX4 lights were crucial to creating the 3D element needed to allow the scenic textures and lighting on stage to be seen from anywhere in the audience, ensuring all attendees fully experienced the Train performance.
LMG Touring also supplied the tour with full audio equipment support including the K1 and K2 Full Range Speakers at the back of house, d&b Audiotechnik speakers as side fillers, and the SSL 500 consoles to supply superb live event sound quality and connectivity.
“Train wants every seat in the house to sound as good as possible so LMG and their L-Acoustic K1 and K2 combination was the only real option. The impact the K1 and K2 combination is immeasurable. Using the K2 as our down fills and side hangs give us the width we need to cover the widest of venues,” says Jason Moore, Train’s Front of House Sound Engineer.
The SSL 500s spent their first time on tour with Train and Moore explains how the reliability and sound quality provides the experience of being an extension of himself.
“There are only three things I look for in a live console; reliability, workflow and sound quality. This console runs flawlessly, sounds amazing and is very customizable. LMG has done a great job of getting engineers properly trained and SSL provides unmatched 24 hour customer support,” Moore describes further.
“I am very proud of our touring crew on this one, great shows and the fastest load out has been one hour and fifteen minutes,” Craig Mitchell, LMG’s Director of Touring, recaps. “I’ve had a lot of other touring LDs tell me that they really like this design and it’s a great compliment to Brock Hogan who pulled it all together.”