A Year of Promoting The People Who Make the Things I Love: Feb 28 — The People Behind the Tool Light Show
In 2022, I am going to spend some time each day promoting someone who makes the things I love. I started this series because I believe that we, myself included, spend so much time on social media dunking on people (however deserved) and not enough time lifting up people deserving of positive attention.
After seeing Tool in concert on Saturday, I had to make today’s focus the people who create their amazing light show.
I saw them the last time they came through NJ a few years ago, and I was absolutely blown away by their visuals. I knew the music would be phenomenal, but I was not prepared for the combination of video and lights that awaited us.
Each song gets its own treatment, and since they played a few different songs on Saturday than last time, I got to see a few new spectacles.
For the first few songs, a circle of strings enveloped the stage, allowing the tech people to add depth to the images on the massive screens behind the band.
I’m sure you can find videos of this section online, but I am not embedding them here because the band asks fans not to take photos or videos until the last song. The photos I’m using here come from an article on PLSN.com
You can also read much more information in this article from theprp.com.
To close, here are the names of the people who made all this possible (list comes from the PLSN article:
Lighting Designer: Mark “Junior” Jacobson
Video Director: Breckinridge Haggerty
Lighting Cos: Delicate Productions (U.S.), Neg Earth (Overseas)
Delicate Reps: Jason Alt, Angelo Viacava, Joe DiCarlo, Smoother Smyth
Neg Earth Reps: Dave Ridgeway, Stephanie Smyth, Andy Beller, Alex Peters
Lighting Crew: Graham “DB” Jelly (Crew Chief), Mary Wistrom, Paul Mundrick, Eddie Viveros, Greg Nunz (2019), Armando Figueroa (2020)
Video Cos: Big Picture, Breckinridge Design
Lasers: Production Design Intl. (PDI)
Laser Techs Brian Wilkinson (PDI)
Laser Operator: Scott Wilson
Automation: Show Distribution/Frédéric Jacques, Jérôme Labonté
Traveler Track: All Access Staging/Fumi Okazaki (U.S.), Jesse Thayer (Australia/NZ)
Soft Goods: Rose Brand
Set: Tait
Production Managers: Matt Doherty (2019), Chris Kansay
Stage Manager: Mark Candelario
Load Master: Brian Kountz
Accountant: Jeff Mauss
Production Coordinator: Libby Dostart
Carps: Eric Fox (Lead), Ryan Kittlitz, Lee Freeman
Riggers: Hector Mimoso (Lead), Scott Orton
Catering Coordinator: Alex Grant
Video Crew Chief: Nathan Barnier
LED/Projectors: Phil Keller
LED: Fraser Kerr
Projectionist: Kevin Morris
LED tech: Jerry Rogers
Big Picture Account Rep Principal: Joe Bonanno
Big Picture Account Mgr: Jeremy Moore
