Jul
1
Michael Buble in Indy
Michael Buble visited Indianapolis on June 29th, 2010, and brought an amazing stage show with him. Vocal play group Naturally 7, a headlining act in their own right, did great job warming up the audience.
But let’s be honest, you probably just want to know the stage tech nerd stuff. So here it goes.
Buble’s performance opened with projection on the outer traveler curtain, all handled from a single pj sitting high up at FOH. Buble’s initials MB transformed from a ballyhoo spotlight effect into an orchestra taking the stage, leading to the opening of the traveler. The projector continued to throw onto a massive scrim behind the band (piano on left, bass and drums in the middle, and a brass section on the right) and created a slow moving texture throughout the first song. Hard drum hits were enhanced by what looked to be vertical strips of VersaTube or LED’s strips.
After the first song, the scrim was removed to reveal 6 VersaTube pillars (approx 20-25 feet tall) as well as 5 LED walls. As the show continued, the LED walls started to move up and down, somewhat in a standard issue (yet still impressive) manner. It was not until about 3 or 4 songs in that they video walls began to move in 3D space, creating 3/4/5 panel wide moving screens across the back of the stage. Not to be outdone, the VersaTube pillars rotated along the y-axis, revealing LED pars. Needless to say, the slow smooth motion of the set pieces and massive video/grafics surfaces (VersaTubes, 5 LED panels, and LED pars) created a perfect backdrop.
Almost lost in the show was the lighting design. Don’t get me wrong, it was truly a great lighting rig, and it complimented the video elements very well. At the same time, the lighting was almost so subtle that it merely complimented the background. In my opinion, a great design is obvious and bright when it needs to be and functional when it doesn’t. In a few quick glances at FOH, I noticed that there were 3 GrandMA’s. It looked like they were all synced to manage lighting and graphics on the multiple display surfaces.
Pictures coming as soon as my girlfriend @japrobst sends them to me 