Rock and blues legend Eric Clapton is back on stage with a world tour that began this spring across Europe. At the heart of the production is a new visual concept designed by Monochrome Project, powered in preview by Version 7 of the Modulo Kinetic media server.
Widely regarded as one of the most influential guitarists of all time, Eric Clapton launched his 2026 tour on April 20 with two sold-out shows in Guildford, England, before the official opening in Amsterdam on April 24.
The European tour then continued across around ten major cities, including a first-ever performance in Krakow, and the British singer’s return to Barcelona, Madrid, and Budapest after more than 20 years.
To accompany the blues classics and standards performed on stage, Canadian company Monochrome Project handled the tour’s video scenography and content, with support from Normal Studio for motion design.
The technical setup deployed by Monochrome Project includes five Sony HDC4800 cameras, four Panasonic AW-UE150 cameras, a Grass Valley Korona V-Series video switcher, and three ROE CB5 LED walls, each measuring 4.2 meters wide by 10.2 meters high.
Positioned upstage, the LED screens create evolving environments throughout the show, combining visual backdrops with live camera feeds.
Modulo Pi’s Modulo Kinetic media server powers the LED walls via a Kinetic Designer workstation connected to two redundant V-Node servers.
Mathieu Coutu, founder of Monochrome Project and video director for the tour, explains:
“Eric Clapton’s initial intention, as a bluesman, was to be able to showcase all the musicians simultaneously. Modulo Kinetic is therefore used to open multiple boxes of varying sizes, displaying different camera angles on the LED screens.”
Thanks to this setup, the audience enjoys a dynamic video environment enhanced by live camera feeds integrated seamlessly throughout the performance, allowing viewers to follow Eric Clapton along with the seven musicians and backing vocalists on stage.
Louis Buxin, Innovation Director at Monochrome Project, adds: “We chose Modulo Kinetic for its extremely low latency when processing live inputs.” The Modulo Pi media server displays camera feeds with a latency of under two frames per second.
In addition, Monochrome Project uses Modulo Kinetic to apply effects to live feeds without adding latency. For this tour, the team worked with a preview version of Modulo Kinetic Version 7, benefiting from new features such as displacement effects, comet trails, and old movie-style processing, with certain parameters controllable live. Custom effects were even developed through direct collaboration with Modulo Pi’s development team.
Modulo Kinetic also receives tally signals from the camera switcher, enabling automation through the media server’s task and compute graph features.
Finally, the video director operated a custom graphical interface created directly within Modulo Kinetic, based on a 3D scene simulating the LED screens, with camera views remapped in real time.
Following the success of the European leg, which concluded on May 17 in Munich, Eric Clapton will perform in the United States starting in September, with a six-show run beginning in Detroit and continuing through Cincinnati, Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, and Kansas City.
Please visit Modulo Pi at modulo-pi.com.
Credits:
Video Director: Mathieu Coutu - Monochrome Project
Media Server Programmer: Louis Buxin - Monochrome Project
Content design: Monochome Project
Motion design partner: Normal Studio