Page 56 - Lighting & Sound America (December 2019) Magazine

CONCERTS

The icon, fabricated by the tour’s scenic vendor, SGPS, studies, with renders and diagrams, for the band to look at
is automated using the Navigator control system, operated and choose,” Risueño says. “Because we needed to
by Jeff Lunsford. “The three pieces extend across the quickly name so many designs for the presentation, they
three coordinate axes and meet in the center,” Risueño ended up being absurd Spanish words—El Cangrejo [The
says. “Each arm is 60', covered in distressed acrylic, Crab], La Gamba [The Prawn], El Camino [The Path]—to
which is wrapped with a dichroic material from 3M and finally end up with the design called Bleacher Preacher,
edged by LED tape.” The dichroic material is called DF named because it looks like a bleacher, but it is dedicated
Chill. “It’s used on architecture,” he adds, “and we chose it to our three preachers.” He adds, “Bleacher Preacher
as a way of bringing some unexpected color nuances to a looks like a cascade of weathered staging decks divided
very crude structure. This material is the joy in our war.” into four steps. The piece lives downstage center during
The icon does more than simply move, Risueño says. the show and it gets into place during the changeover in a
“One of the legs has a staircase. For the song ‘Save matter of seconds.” Inside the Bleacher Preacher are ten
Yourself,’ Drew [Taggart], the singer, goes up there. We JDC1 strobes, and, under the upstage portion, six GLP
also have some pyro in there. It’s a very multifaceted impression X4s and Robe Spikies.
design.” Lighting is also embedded in the piece. “We have The stage extends through a 20' thrust that flows into a
strobes [20 GLP JDC1s] and a few [Robe] Spikies [22], 24' B stage. The latter includes hidden flames and a lift for
and, at the end, [PRG] Icon EDGEs [4]. All these lights shift a fiery drum solo. “It is reinforced so the Globe of Death of
color, depending on their angle of incidence with the the motorcyclists can land on it,” Risueño says.
dichroic material; it’s like magic.” A Globe of Death for motorcycles? The tour’s executive
Also onstage is a large riser with the improbable name producer, Corey Johnson, provides the explanation: “We
of Bleacher Preacher, which developed for the band’s wanted to create this evolving sequence of moments and
European dates. “We did 32 different stage deck layout spectacle that embraced and enhanced the World War Joy

56 • December 2019 • Lighting&Sound America