USA - Disturbed’s five-time platinum debut album The Sickness began attracting new fans to metal from the day it was released in 2000. To celebrate the album’s 25th anniversary, the band are undertaking a 51-date tour that kicked off at Ford Centre Idaho Arena on 12 February and concludes at the OVO Hydro in Glasgow on 28 October, with stops at The United Centre, Madison Square Garden, and the Kia Forum along the way.
Setting the stage for the celebration, while serving up some intensely gripping looks, was a production and lighting design by Trevor Ahlstrand and Sooner Routhier of The Playground that included Chauvet Professional Color Strike M motorised strobes and Maverick Storm 4 Profiles, which, like the rest of the rig, were supplied by Premier Global Production.
Joined by programmer Jason Giaffo and lighting director Joseph ‘Bambi’ Morris, Ahlstrand and Routhier drew on direction from Disturbed to build a sense of anticipation right from the start, as the show began with a video montage of the band’s career, including clips from the original recording of their breakthrough album.
Then there was silence, before frontman David Draiman, clad in a black prison-jumpsuit, was wheeled out on stage strapped in a standing position like Hannibal Lecter. Breaking free, Draiman lashed out and began a set that included all the songs from The Sickness (the show’s next set featured some of the band’s other hits).
“Trevor and I worked with the band’s videographer, Rafa to build an intro and some intermission clips,” Routhier said of the show’s dramatic start. “All of the footage and creative direction came from the band. It created a nice intro moment that set a nostalgic scene for the audience.”
Ahlstrand explained the opening further. “We used the projection both in the beginning of the show and at the intermission. The opening of the show is very slow, with the Austrian building anticipation prior to wheeling David out. We wanted a faster open for the second section of the show, so we lifted the Austrian as the video concludes and intro begins playing, revealing a kabuki lit directly behind it. The kabuki is then dropped and sniffed away as the full band kicks into the hits section of the show.”
On the stage for both sections of the show, a prominent grid set a stark, hardcore backdrop that matched the band’s music. “We wanted an industrial look with our cubic wall,” detailed Ahlstrand. “Within the cubic wall we placed video panels in both vertical and horizontal strips. We wanted a lot of the structure and stage to be lit by the light bouncing off of the video.
“Sporadically, but symmetrically, placed throughout the cube wall were profiles that did a good amount of the FX and accents,” he continued. “The grid upstage was meant to blow through the structure and create huge looks but also natural shadows and reflections from the structure.”
To underscore the intense mood, the design team leaned heavily into back and side light angles. “The design was purposely built without an overhead lighting rig to help create a massive monolith of scenic, video, and light,” said Routhier. “The empty space above the stage helped make the show look taller because it doesn’t have a false ceiling of truss and fixtures.”
A collection of 42 Color Strike M fixtures on the scaffolding connect the cubic backdrop to the stage by punching through the scenic structure while also bathing it in light. The high-output strobe-washes also enhanced the dramatic quality on stage by washing the haze that sometimes appeared behind the band.
Also contributing to the show were the rig’s 18 Maverick Storm 4 Profiles, arranged in six columns of three units.
There was more than a little collaboration involved in the production. Ahlstrand and Routhier give credit to tour manager Guy Sykes, production manager George Reeves, video crew chief David ‘Detroit’ Klann, FOH engineer Brad Divens, SFX crew chief Shane Davis, stage manager Nick Engle, Stephen ‘Creech’ Anderson of PGP and Christian Mulville of TAIT, Grant Sellers of Strictly FX, as well as Blair Bondy, Liam Tucker, Seth Newman, Zachary Singer, Aaron Ford and Todd LePere.