Popular Canadian indie rockers Peach Pit completed the North American section of their “Long Hair, Long Life” tour with a brand-new lighting design from George Gorton from Vancouver-based creative design studio Loud Entertainment Design Group.

The visual concept relied heavily on lighting for impact – there were no video elements on this leg of the tour campaign – and included some key Robe products, including FORTE moving lights and HolyPATT scenic luminaires, supplied by rental company Promosa, also from Vancouver.

George has been working with the band for four years as their LD, and before then their paths serendipitously overlapped several times around as they were rising stars on Vancouver’s energetic local live music scene, so he’s witnessed most of their career trajectory first-hand and is now delighted to be a part of it.

For the “Long Hair, Long Life” tour, George imagined a completely new design. With a black backdrop upstage and no video, it was a perfect space for lighting to play important literal and scenic roles in the show.

The bent milk crate image from the album cover artwork inspired him to think of linear lines contrasting with the spherical HolyPATTs and riffing on the contrast between the two shapes. The design objective was straightforward, involving filling the space with elegance and quality lightsources, meaningful colors and stimulating, dramatic contrasts.

He wanted HolyPATTS for their interesting appearance and the distinctive look they bring to the stage, and this became a starting point from which the lighting design evolved into  an upstage row of 13 wide by 2 high HolyPATTs rigged on ladder trusses, with the fixtures alternated in height and positioned just in front of the black (back-cloth).

Based on Robe’s PATT2013™, the larger HolyPATT™ has a 4W LED Vintage Soft Coil filament lamp with a color temperature of 1,800K to illuminate the transparent gold-brown parabolic reflector which produces an atmospheric glow.

“I love the texturing and richness of incandescent lighting, and while these are LED fixtures, their dimming response, retro styling and brushed aluminum casing add the impression of a softer tungsten warmth to the picture,” he explained.

The fixtures perfectly filled out the space behind the band, bringing form and depth to the stage.

Six of the ten FORTES were positioned along the floor at the back, with the other four – two a side – deployed left and right for low level cross light. George chose FORTES for their brightness and quality optics.

“I needed power and lumens from these angles, especially when in saturated colors, and FORTES were perfect,” he stated, adding that he feels FORTES are “unmatched” when it comes to aerial effects and yet equally as good for key lighting people onstage. “They were a huge part of the lightshow,” he explained.

Previously, George has used FORTES on numerous projects: “They are my first choice for compact, super-quick and rock-solid profile / spot fixtures.”

He had used HolyPATTS only once before on a tour with Ocie Elliott, which was also a bit of a test run to see how they would work onstage and how they would fare with touring – being pleasantly surprised in both contexts.

Challenges for the tour included the variety of venues being played and the consequent levels of light pollution. “We also basically wanted something that would look great anywhere, whether switched on or off,” George commented, referring to the HolyPATTs.

A memorable lighting moment of the set on the last tour was during the song “Peach Pit”, when he used all the HolyPATTs glowing at around 20% and a single FORTE, a simple framing of the action that was highly visually effective.

Working with George on programming for the tour was assistant designer and associate Averil Bott who also directed some of the dates when George had to jump off to fulfill other commitments.

Looking after the ‘roll-on-roll-off’ rig on the road was lighting crew chief Andrew Balzer from Promosa.

George notes that Robe is a leading international manufacturer, and he is constantly impressed with the way the brand continues to bring new and unique products like the HolyPATT to the market.

He feels that the FORTE/iFORTE range has been another game-changing fixture from Robe that has set the bar high, and all of these and more will continue to be used and specified for all Loud Entertainment Design Group projects, including upcoming ones with all-girl rockers The Beaches and rapper Shubh.

Photos by Kyle Dean