In support of its two latest albums, Depression Cherry and Thank Your Lucky Stars, Baltimore-based dream pop band Beach House hit the road this spring with a new concept for its tour: installation shows interspersed among club tour dates. Performing in unconventional spaces such as galleries, art spaces, and community centers, band members Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally perform a continuous show without breaks for 200 audience members seated on the floor.
Live Design talked with Beach House installation show lighting designer Joe Watrach for details on the performance’s design and creative process.
LIVE DESIGN: How did you become a part of the creative team for the Beach House tour?
JOE WATRACH: I was touring as lighting director for Spoon, a band that Jack Davis, Beach House’s primary tour designer, has also worked with. I was filling in for him while he was out with other shows. Near the end of the Spoon run, Jack reached out and asked if I would like to help out with Beach House. I gladly accepted and began with them in September of 2015. When I initially joined the team, I came on as lighting director, filling in for Jack as he was away. However, once the band’s most recent albums were released, I began to work in much more of a design role. Once the installation show rolled around, I stepped into the designer role fully as that show came to life. Now, seven months later, I am handing the reins back over to Jack.
LD: Can you tell us about the installation show, how it differed from the club show, and how it evolved?
JW: The club tour is Beach House’s primary [touring] show, while the installation show was a completely different experience. The club tour, at its core, is much like any other club tour out there: We go city-to-city and play your usual run of venues with our full production. The installation show was a one hundred percent different show altogether. We performed every show in non-traditional performance spaces, mostly art galleries. The only things that the installation show had in common with the club shows were the lighting fixtures and some of the songs.
In the one month that we performed the installation show, it grew incredibly quickly. The scenic pieces found a new home in the performance space almost every show, and we were constantly evolving the lighting and video programming as we found new things that excited us. It was a massively rewarding piece of art to be a part of.
Aside from the physical location of the installation show, the way it was presented to the audience was very different. Only 200 tickets were sold for each show, a number decided on by Alex [Scally]. It was determined that everyone would sit on the floor for the performance, and once that was settled upon, we figured out how many people we could accommodate and not lose any aspects of the show to over-crowding.
This was a fantastic decision and led to a totally immersive experience not only for the audience, but for the band and the production team as well. The show was roughly 70 minutes long and presented nonstop. The music never stopped, as the band created special transitions to carry them from song to song. Additionally, there was always a visual element present throughout the performance, whether it was Alex and Victoria dimly lit, a piece of video content, or the scenic pieces lit up throughout the room. All of these elements combined really helped to create a truly unique experience, the likes of which I have never seen elsewhere in the concert world.
Lighting also took somewhat of a backseat in this show, while video really carried it. The video was a mixture of content that we filmed in rehearsal of the scenic pieces and then played back through the media server, as well as plenty of live video of the band and the room, from a handful of cameras that we use. Many times, we would fade back and forth between content that I controlled from the server, and live video of the band, creating some really lovely looks.
The scenic pieces themselves were a major part of the show and were something that Alex and Victoria came up with. Comprising roughly 148 flowers in plastic boxes stitched with fiber optics, they were really a sight to see. The pieces were designed so that they created one large wall, four separate walls, or any combination in between. We started off the tour with them as a solid wall behind the band, two boxes wide by two high. Since then, we have moved them out into the audience in a few different configurations. They provided a very fluid element to the show, constantly changing color and sparkling all around the audience during different parts of the performance.
Touring A Whole New Concept
LD: What was your creative process like for this design?
JW: [For the installation show], I was starting from scratch, designing something completely new alongside the band. Our PM, Ryan Primack, and I traveled to Baltimore, where Beach House is from, and spent three days in their rehearsal space. With a small package from See Factor, I created the entire show visually, while Alex and Victoria worked on the set list, rehearsed songs, etc. Together, we created a brand new experience in just those three short days.
My main inspiration for the design of this show were the flower wall set pieces. The lighting was fairly minimal throughout the performance. I placed four GLP impression X4 Bar 20s in a line on the floor, just downstage of the large Rose Brand organza sheet that the band sat behind. There were another four X4 Bar 20s upstage of the band, raised off the floor on cases. Then, on either side of the stage, I placed one pipe and base boom with an ETC Source Four LED Series 2 Lustr doing cross-stage shots to light the band. Lastly, I had one Harman Martin Professional MAC Aura behind Alex and Victoria for a little of the great diagonal backlight that I love so much.
Jack and I both love MAC Auras as our go-to LED wash light. Their compact size versus their high output and great color rendering make them an ideal choice for all of the shows we do. For Beach House, their size was especially important, as the band aren’t huge fans of seeing lights on the deck. With the compact size of the fixtures, we were able to tuck them off stage or behind pieces of back line, while still getting the shots that we needed to light the band. Additionally, they’re great at both pastel and saturated colors.
Much of the show was fairly dark and minimalistic, with the majority of the cues happening as we transitioned between songs. Almost all of the cues were between 30 seconds to over a minute in length. The lighting changes were meant to be subtle and almost imperceptible until they were complete, taking their time as the music slowly shifted and swirled around the audience.
While Beach House’s music is often very mellow and dreamy, their live performances often incorporate much more energy and intensity than the album version of the songs. That being said, it really opened up my color palette for this show. I loved mixing it up between pastels and saturates, and using each to really accentuate the music and help lead the audience along throughout the show.
As in the club show, the X4 Bars were a major player. They were the first thing the audience saw as they entered the space, as we had them tipped into the crowd running a very, very slow—1 BPM—color effect. During the show, they became a very visceral element, playing on the fabric in front of and behind the band. The organza acted almost like a silk gel in cyc lights, taking the light from the X4 Bars and diffusing it vertically. It had a really lovely quality to it, taking light and video in fantastic ways, but almost disappearing when the stage was dark. I used this to my advantage during the show, where I framed the band from behind, using only the cells of the fixtures that were directly behind the band. The result was an illuminated box on the organza, while the rest remained in darkness.
Our PM Ryan played an integral part during these shows as well. He operated the video switcher and camera with us at FOH. We figured out where we wanted to use content from the server, when we wanted to use live video, and when we wanted to use both. He was at liberty to choose when and how to fade between sources, adding a very fluid, lifelike quality to the video in the show.
Flowers On The Organza
LD: Tell us a little bit more about the video content in the show.
JW: Our video content for the show was all recorded segments of the flower walls. We had close-ups of single flowers, groups of flowers, and the whole wall. We recorded pieces where we would tilt up from the bottom of the wall towards the top while zooming in and then back down and out again, and also this same concept but in panning motions. We layered these two videos on top of each other for a really excellent, fluid look that became one of my favorite moments in the show. This created a really interesting dynamic, because we brought in the content of the set pieces before we actually turned them on in the show, so the audience was seeing these colorful flowers on the organza and then when we turn the walls on as it all falls into place.
LD: What control equipment did you use?
JW: The show is driven off an [MA Lighting] grandMA2 light console. I am a very visual person, and I use layout views almost exclusively to program my shows. Being able to see your fixtures laid out as they are on stage and grab them with the lasso tool, or one by one, has greatly sped up my efficiency and workflow.
Backstage lives our Apple Mac Mini and Roland V-40HD Video Switcher. We are running ArKaos Media Master Pro, a simple media server, but it suits our needs perfectly. Its small footprint and ease of programming have been fantastic on days when the band decided to add a new song to the night’s set that had never been played before. Being able to bang out both lighting and video for a new song in an hour or so was just great. The ArKaos is also driven off the MA2.
Equipment List
1 MA Lighting grandMA2 light
8 GLP impression X4 Bar 20
2 Harman Martin Professional MAC Aura
2 ETC Source Four LED Series 2 Lustr
1 ArKaos Media Master Pro
1 Roland V-40HD Multi-Format Live Video Switcher
1 Casio Long Throw Projector
1 NEC Short-Throw Wide-Angle Projector
2 Camera
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