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Robe Svopatts chosen for current Bleachers tour

US rock band Bleachers - lead singer and music producer Jack Antonoff’s current live music performance project - are on the road this year after their new studio album dropped in May. Wanting something “special, different, quirky and great-looking” to set the stage show apart, Antonoff turned to lighting and visual designer Tobias Rylander.

Rylander decided on a retro and authentically analogue look for the stage. He specified thirty Robe Svopatt fixtures to be a major part of the lighting rig, which also features several customised tungsten fixtures incorporating bulbs from different sodium luminaires, repurposed as bespoke theatrical profiles and fresnels.

The lights were supplied by Volt Lites from Burbank, California, where Matt Shimamoto was the account manager. “Volt is one of my favourite vendors”, states Rylander whose initial design drawings had included the classic Svoboda lighting fixture. However, with a lot of dimming channels already on the plot, Shimamoto showed him the Svopatt video as a potential power-saving alternative. “I wanted it straight away”, says Rylander. “It can be a strobe, a wash, a light curtain - exactly what I wanted.”

He also showed the fixture to Jack Antonoff and the band, who agreed to put it on the rig. The “Everyone for Ten Minutes” tour is the second Bleachers design for Rylander, and some of the look is an evolution from the 2022 tour mixed with fresh, imaginative energy. The Svopatts are rigged on three over-stage trusses, ten fixtures per truss.

The physical rigging of the units took a bit of figuring out as Rylander wanted them to resemble classic Svobodas and produce spectacular light curtains, among multiple other effects, including silhouettes. So, he had them hung with the Svopatt modules producing linear rows when illuminated - effectively with every second fixture hung upside down.

“Once this was accomplished, it was fantastic”, says Rylander. “We ran them in full pixel mode and pixel mapping became much more straightforward. Having this huge canvas looked beautiful, especially when running with video-style effects - very organic and eye-catching with intensity chases and colour mixing effects.”

Rylander also created the tour’s stage layout and scenography, which he describes as “scenic and analogue music studio-esque”. There’s no conventional video, but he filmed some analogue light bulbs and other tungsten illuminative effects in action, with the footage fed into the strobes to produce specific kinetic effects running in conjunction with the lighting effects on the Svopatts.

Antonoff is very much involved with the look of the show, and he and Rylander have a great understanding and communication of what’s wanted and needed in terms of visual identity. While it is a fun rock ‘n’ roll show with wide appeal, the aesthetics are carefully curated to evoke an aura of 1980s arena rock.

Lighting programmer and operator Dustin Snyder, who is out on the road with the tour, has also been instrumental in developing the look and feel of the lighting. He observed that Rylander likes using sparse individual pixel effects and single pixel or one-pixel-zone at a time looks, and that the Svopatts as a back light can bring a fuzzy analogue “illuminated atmospheric” feel, similar to an old school 120 V par rig but with contemporary brightness, features and colours.

The tour is ongoing, with another US leg upcoming, followed by Australia, then the UK and Europe in late fall.

(Photos: Rob DeMartin)

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