Counting Crows World Tour

One of America’s most important rock bands of late, San Francisco based Counting Crows, are touring the world under a MAC rig of unique effects in support of their latest effort, Hard Candy.

True to their San Francisco roots, the Crows offer an eclectic mix of material supported by creative scenic elements. Their current live show is a visual treat thanks to Lighting Designer Andi Watson who uses color and projection from Martin MAC 2000 Performance and MAC 2000 Wash that fits in perfectly with the unique Crows style.

MAC 2000 Performance as slide projectors
According to Andi, the Performance is the only light on the market that performs the functions he wanted for this tour. Familiar with the MAC 2000 Performance from last summer’s Radiohead shows, he liked them so much he decided to use them on the Crows tour. He uses nine of the Performances as slide projectors, which, according to Andi, project photographic images as well as small projectors but with added benefits.

A number of photographic slides were produced for use in the Performances. The images, used to enhance the moods of songs, range from X-rays of flowers and shells, to pictures of landscapes and lightning to NASA photography. Andi re-scaled the images, toned and colored them, and moves them around on stage, a much easier process than if he used a Xenon projector located up in the truss he comments.

“I think the way we are using the MAC 2000 Performances is pretty cool,” he says, “since we are using them to project high resolution photographic images onto projection screen roll drops (using the shuttering in the units to make the images fit the drops), and also combining 3 images from 3 lights to create wide angle projection onto our silver velvet backdrop/starcloth. The images are static, rotate, zoom, color crossfade, etc. during the show.” Andi enjoys the directional movement he gets out of the Performances with the animation wheel moving the images up, down or sideways. 

Lighting rig
Up front Andi placed nine Martin MAC 2000 Performance units for key lighting, projection and cyc work. The rear box truss holds 14 Performances while on the floor there are 10 MAC 300 wash lights for side-up floor lighting on the band members. There are also seven upstage MAC 2000 Wash units for cyc wash and aerial work. All told, Andi incorporated 10 MAC 300, 7 MAC 2000 Wash and 23 MAC 2000 Performance in the rig. Upstaging supplied the lighting for the US dates with Neg Earth covering the UK leg.
 
The Crows toured the US last fall before moving over to Europe then Australia. The band returns to the States in late March for more US dates.

Crew
Alan Hornall – Production Manager
Andi Watson – Lighting Designer / Director
Mike Zielinski – Lighting Crew Chief
Richard Allison – Moving Light Technician
Travis Robinson – Lighting Technician