Concert Lighting

The Art and Business of Entertainment Lighting

James Moody, Paul Dexter

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317374282
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film Direction & Production

Concert Lighting: Tools, Techniques, Art, and Business Fourth Edition provides readers with an updated look at how to succeed in the complex world of concert lighting design and technology. The authors have reorganized the book into three comprehensive and thoroughly revised sections, covering history, equipment and technology, and design, and containing new information on LED technology, pixel mapping, projection options, media servers, automated lighting, solutions for moving lights, DMX, and Ethernet problems, and designer communication and collaboration. This book also explores the cross-media use of concert lighting techniques in film, video, theatre, and the corporate world, highlighted with advice from master designers such as Bruce Rodgers, Cosmo Wilson, and Sarah Landau. From securing precious contracts to knowing the best equipment to use to design a show, Concert Lighting covers everything a designer needs to know about working in the touring industry.

I
BACKGROUND AND ORGANIZATION

1
THE RISE OF THE CONCERT LIGHTING FIELD

It is difficult to pinpoint the actual beginning of concert lighting as we think of it today. Certainly the Grand Tour could be seen as having been the byproduct of opera in the mid-nineteenth century. The term was often given to a star’s travels through Europe, presenting solo programs in the European cultural capitals. Later, the Grand Tour came to the Americas. Through the years it also came to include the popular figures of show business, encompassing not only opera but also the stars of dance halls, vaudeville, and the circus. In the late nineteenth century, despite their isolated locations, even small Nevada gold rush towns had opera houses to show the world how “cultured” they had become.

The swing bands of the 1920s and 1930s brought a big change to popular music and, some believe, sounded the first notes that would ultimately be recognized as rock & roll. Led by such greats as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Paul Whiteman, these bands emphasized instrumental solos—riffing, or playing a short phrase over and over, now considered a key ingredient of rock & roll.

Another milestone was the entrance of the pop idol. Although Benny Goodman is widely credited for igniting the first “teen hysteria” in 1938 at a Carnegie Hall concert, it would later be a teenager from Hoboken, New Jersey, Francis Albert Sinatra, who would endure a legion of young teenage girls screaming during his performances.

Enter the baby boom of the 1940s. Postwar American prosperity saw many cultural changes. An avalanche of consumer products became available to the average family, and the money to buy these products was also available in the boom of the post-war years. There was also a change in who had purchasing power. Before World War II, the head of the household made the purchase decisions for the family, but by the early 1950s manufacturers were witnessing the growing financial power of the teen market. Teenagers now had allowances, and it was estimated in a 1951 survey that they had $4.5 billion dollars to spend annually. It was estimated that $45 million of that was spent on 45 rpm single records. In the early 1960s, a large number of these war babies, who were 16 to 19 years of age, married, and their buying power increased even more. Producers and manufacturers were eager to figure out what this emerging class wanted to purchase.

Teens’ listening tastes were having a decided impact on the music business. Disc jockeys could play a tremendous part in record sales, but it still was unclear what teens wanted. Stations relegated blues and country music to times when few adults listened. These listeners became known as the “late people.” To be a disc jockey, you simply needed a sponsor, no experience required. One of these original late-night programs was called King Biscuit Time and aired on KFFA in Helena, Arkansas, and a disc jockey calling himself Howlin’ Wolf had a show on KWEM in West Memphis, Arkansas. Both played blues and some country artists. Because this kind of music was not mainstream, the shows aired between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m.¹

It may have been more than luck that these programs aired on what were called 50,000-watt “clear-channel” stations. With that kind of power and the phenomenon of AM signal skip due to the ozone, on a clear night, when the conditions in the ionosphere were right, you could hear stations that had “skipped” thousands of miles. Teens in Arizona might hear their first Mississippi Delta Blues from a station in Tennessee, or a group of teens in Wisconsin could tune in to hear young country singers like Carl Perkins or Buddy Holly.

Blacks owned no radio stations; white disc jockeys opened the doors to what was almost a secret society of black music and culture. Admittedly, it was a forced secret because of racism and segregation, but it was a distinct musical style that appealed to the white teens with money to spend.

In Los Angeles, one of the most popular programs was called Huntin’ with Hunter on KGFJ featuring Hunter Hancock. His style was to mix blues, jazz, and spirituals with rhythm and blues. He was good friends with Johnny Otis, who owned a club called the Barrel House in a black section of Los Angeles called Watts. Teens began to flock to the club, white as well as black. Hancock’s machine-gun delivery, growling, use of hip slang, and general carrying on like a madman caught on with white teens. Before long Hancock’s program was transcribed to stations across the country. Hancock emphasized that he was bringing listeners the latest and greatest Negro performers. Although everyone assumed he was black, Hancock kept out of public view because he was white. Wolfman Jack later adopted Hancock’s style and for many years broadcast from a 50,000-watt station in Mexico without being seen in public. He had a tremendous influence on teens’ taste in music in the 1960s. In his early days, many people also thought Wolfman Jack was black. He created a mystique that was widely held until he portrayed himself in the classic George Lucas film, American Graffiti.

The melding of country music and such regional sounds as rhythm and blues had been building until, in 1951, a disc jockey named Alan Freed started the Moondog Show on WJW radio in Cleveland, Ohio. The name came from a tune by Todd Rhodes called “Blues for Moondog” that contained a wailing saxophone solo that Freed adopted as his theme song. He’d leave the microphone open and howl like a coyote. It was demented and near anarchy, but it was what teens had been waiting to hear. In 1954, the name was changed to The Rock and Roll Show. Rolling Stone magazine wrote that the term was perfect because: “It was a way of distinguishing the new rhythm and blues from just plain blues and the old corny Mills Brothers style. After all, rock & roll didn’t fit into any of the old categories.”²

The benchmark of modern concert touring was set in the mid-1950s by the independent record companies in an effort to exploit the fledgling rock & roll recording artists. The tours were not a very radical departure from what swing bands and orchestras had been doing in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s—that is, playing dances in every town that had a community hall or theatre. After all, this was the way most musicians made their living—playing live dances. But now the pop singer was not just a member of the band; the singer, rather than the bandleader, came to front the band. Another change was that, rather than getting work through a booking agent separate from their manager, pop singers were promoted by an independent record producer, who also controlled the record, or sometimes an independent entrepreneur like Alan Freed. That way the record company made money not only from ticket sales but also, more importantly, by stimulating record sales. Many artists signed away their publishing rights for a small, one-time fee or were lied to by the record companies concerning a record’s earnings.

CONCERT LIGHTING BEGINS IN THE UNITED STATES

Lighting did not attain a prominent position until after sound reinforcement made its first inroads in about 1960. The inadequate sound system in most buildings could not handle the demands of the recording artists, who had come to expect studio-quality sound (not to mention the new electronic effects necessary to make their performances sound like the record). After the artists got used to absorbing the expense of carrying sound equipment from city to city, lighting soon followed.

One of the first artists to carry their own lighting equipment was Harry Belafonte in the mid-1960s. He had emerged on the record scene in 1957 from his native Jamaica and was truly ahead of his time. Chip Monck (see Chapters 2 and 17) got his start with Harry. Generally, the middle-of-the-road (MOR) and country/western artists were the last to see the value of building a production around their music; however, folk acts such as the Chad Mitchell Trio, the Kingston Trio, and Peter, Paul, and Mary took notice of the added value that special lighting gave to the show and started hiring companies like McManus Enterprises in Philadelphia to provide lighting for their college dates.

THE SAN FRANCISCO LIGHT SHOW

What became known as 1960s acid rock was spear-headed by such bands as Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane, Warlock, Grace Slick and the Great Society, and Quicksilver Messenger Service. All were based in San Francisco. Actually it was a nonmusical group, The Family Dog, at the close of 1965, who unwittingly created the first light show. Bill Graham, who was their manager, said that people would show up and ask if they could hang sheets on the walls, and he’d ask, “What are you talking about?” They would reply, “My screens; I’m a liquid projectionist.” Light shows were not planned, and they were not even paid for. They were just part of what came together spontaneously. “Happenings” could include films, dance, music, mime, painting, and just about anything else people wanted to do, all going on at once.

Bill Graham was brought in to produce the now famous Trips Festival at the Longshoremen’s Hall in January of 1966. Later that year, he rented the Fillmore Theatre at Fillmore and Geary from Charles Sullivan, who was black, to put on the second Mime Troupe benefit, but this production was billed as a “dance concert.” After that, Graham could see live rock & roll music as being the main attraction. He split from the Mime Troupe and started promoting musical groups on his own. Graham arranged concerts that featured individual bands as the main attraction without ancillary features. Films, however, were shown during the set changes to keep audiences occupied.

When he started formally promoting concerts, Bill Graham continued to welcome the light shows and eventually started paying for in-house light shows that he could control. They were a visual explosion of color and design. The shows were based on liquid light projections, strobe lights, blacklights, and effect lighting to create a visual mood into which the band as well as audience was immersed. The liquid light projector was nothing fancier than the opaque projector your grade school teacher used to show photos and charts from books. For these light shows, though, the book was replaced by a pan holding oil or water into which paints were pushed, splashed, and injected. The pan was vibrated or tilted to add even more movement to the ever-changing patterns that this mixture created. These images could be projected onto dancers, walls, screens, the audience, even the performers.

Graham was not interested specifically in advancing lighting or film or anything in particular, but he was a bulldog when it came to his beliefs about how the audience should be treated. His background and training in New York theatre gave Graham a belief that with music alone he could create an art form. He wanted the audience to have a great experience, and he felt as though he was the only person looking out for the audience. The bands often didn’t care if there even was an audience. If a good experience for the audience meant better lighting and sound, he encouraged and supported it. Graham provided the opportunity for many early lighting designers to push their limits and experiment. He was known for treating the people around him as family. That included yelling at them when he felt it was necessary. Graham would conduct regular meetings before each show for everyone involved, including the ushers.

Lighting was not important in those early concerts because people came more to “make the scene” than to listen to any one band. But, as individual band recognition grew and people came to see specific ban...