Shadowboxing with Good Charlotte posted: 19/03/2019
London, UK based lighting and video rental specialist Colour Sound Experiment supplied lighting equipment, rigging and crew to the latest UK and European leg of Good Charlotte's acclaimed Generation Rx tour, working with lighting designer Paul McAdams who is based in Belfast, Northern Ireland and started designing for the band last year.
The tour - which culminated in an incendiary show at London's Ali Pally - was project managed for Colour Sound by Alex Ryan, who Paul says was excellent and dealt with all the advance and prep. Colour Sound's Hadyn Williams was the touring tech, whom Paul has requested several times to be his main person on the road, due to his experience and willingness to go above and beyond each day to ensure that everything runs smoothly and efficiently.
Encapsulating the gritty lyrics and hardcore punk-rock moments and reflections of generation Rx, a work inspired by the current opioid crisis in North America and dealing with inner and outer pain, Paul's design for the tour was based around lighting and specific effects including CO2 jets.
He had the creative freedom to design the stage and place fixtures as he liked, however there was a lot of input from the band about how they wanted the album artwork presented. Following these discussions, it was decided to use their five separate faces on five upstage banners, each flanked by six vertical lighting towers.
The six towers comprised 10ft sections of pre-rigged truss, each rigged with three Robe MegaPointes and two GLP Impression X4 Bar 20 moving LED battens (upped to three per tower for Ali Pally).
These were joined by four smaller scaff towers on floor bases, populated with eight Robe LEDWash 600s in total, with another couple of LEDWash 600s on the back of the drum riser.
Nine JDC1 LED strobes were scattered around the stage floor.
This was the specials' package that was on the whole tour, with them hooking into top rigs at each venue.
They also added flames and extra pyro for London to ensure the action was truly explosive!
The MegaPointes were the workhorses of the rig. Paul maximised their multifunctionality with big beam looks, piercing aerial gobo effects and stark spot light instants. He used the excellent optics, multiple prisms and gobos to create trippy and ethereal effects .
Utilising the X4 Bar 20s, Paul made the most of some spectacular depth effect chases - both upstage / downstage and right / left. Using the vertically aligned X4 Bar 20s is a great way to play with perspective he commented.
The LEDWash 600s were used solely for key lighting and washing.
Five of the JDC1s sat below each banner upstage, washing up the cloths at certain times, also doubling highly effectively as white and coloured strobes. The four downstage JDC1s created colour washes across the stage and augmented the retina-burning strobe-out moments when needed.
One of the main objectives was to bring the banners to life with lighting during the set, and the up-lighting helped accentuate a feeling of depth and dimension onstage for some specific tracks.
Much of the album content is raw, heartfelt and personal and it tackles some difficult issues.
For the newer music, he used colder whites and blues and neon green palettes as a recurring theme. The band was also keen on heavy backlighting and silhouettes on these tracks explained Paul, all of which helped in hitting the ambience sweet spots.
For the older songs, Paul went warmer on the colouration and effects, and the contrast between the two treatments enabled him to create distinctive looks for different parts of the set.
Challenges included adapting the rig to fit some of the more interesting or smaller stages encountered on the itinerary. Mathes Kuhn operated for the first week while Paul was finishing off some other commitments before joining the tour.
Paul ran the show on grandMA3. MA has become his primary choice of console over the last couple of years. This tour was the first time he'd used the grandMA3 hardware, still, like many, running GM2 software, and he's looking forward to going to running the full GM3 setup soon.
He's worked with Colour Sound on a few different shows and tours and likes many aspects of the company.
H (Haydn Cruickshank) has always been mindful of budgets and tour restraints, offering a tailor-made service and support for each design he states, and this has always impressed me. If a tour will benefit from a particular product, he's open to investing and I think that's a great attitude .
He adds that if anything needs changed or swapped out mid-tour on the road, the support is right there, and any issues are rectified extremely quickly - with a smile - and he's always enjoyed top level crew from Colour Sound.
Colour Sound offer a personal touch for each project. They're constantly growing and evolving and I'm seeing the name - and the flight cases - turn up on a lot of tours and designs that I think look great .
Keeping everything in order and running efficiently on the road was Good Charlotte's production manager, Ron Gardner.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Shadowboxing with Good Charlotte posted: 19/03/2019 
