For Foo Fighters Life is...Nirvana?

The Foo Fighters are just a couple of guys trying to have a good time. On stage, they crack a few jokes, play a sampling of their best tunes and generally seem to enjoy life on the rock ‘n roll tour circuit. For ex-Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl, life has been good since starting the band some eight years ago. So good in fact, Foo Fighters is emerging as one of the best rock bands of the past decade as evidenced by their ‘Best Hard Rock Performance’ honor at the recent Grammy Awards.

Currently on an extended tour (the band has basically been on the road since July of 2002 but take mini-breaks to gather their sanity), Foo Fighters have been playing dates across the U.S. since March.

Good old-fashioned rock ‘n roll design
Lighting Designer Nathan Wilson was called on to design a good old-fashioned rock look for the show, which he does using MAC 2000 Wash and Profile luminaires.

“It’s a real rock ‘n roll show with light coming from everywhere,” he states. “I like to make things look as wide as possible. I use the MAC 2000 Wash mixed with parcans for general wash purposes, using beam sizing to zoom in and out, and overlap that with textured pattern from MAC 2000 Profiles. The MAC 2000 Profiles are the only ones I found that are bright enough to use over the top like that.”

Still, Nathan admits he had to tone down the colors on the MAC 2000 Wash a bit. “On the first show I went ‘Oh my God!’ when I saw that the texture wasn’t showing up how I wanted, so we toned down the Wash a bit.”

MAC 2000 Wash and Profile
Nathan uses 22 Wash on the show, four located down stage on the floor and the rest layered in the rig. He uses 25 Profiles with custom gobos, six down stage on the floor, with some on vertical truss towers and the rest up in the rig, also layered. Ed and Ted’s Excellent Lighting of Oxnard, California supplied the Martin MACs.

Layered lighting
Nathan uses the full battery of MAC features in an attempt to make each song look unique.  The design has many reveals, starting small and progressing into a classic, big rock show. As the various depths are exposed, the stage takes on a layered, 3 dimensional look.

The show starts with a small club setting with black drape cloth. The drape opens up to reveal a secondary section as the scene moves into a more theatrical setting. A huge curtain then drops from the rafters revealing a life-size album cover of “One by One”, the Foo Fighters´ latest album, while several lights dimly illuminate the band members. Then, more secrets, more lighting and more effects as the curtain falls with MACs explosively lighting the stage to reveal a full-blown arena setting as the band bursts into one of their hits. Initially used to light the scenic elements, after the drape drops the MAC 2000 Wash serve as stage lighting.

Atomic pods
Nathan has also incorporated Atomic 3000 Strobes into the design on what he calls “Fag pods”, from the term ‘Art Fag’, and first developed by Nathan for last year’s Blink 182 tour. The pod is a combination of Atomic strobe, color scroller and a tungsten source light. There are eight Fag pods on stage, three in the rig and five behind the band.

Having played larger stadiums until now, the tour now moves into smaller venues and theatres, which required Nathan to redesign the lightshow. He has maintained the same big rock concept however. The band tours North America through July before heading to the UK.