NASHVILLE – Officially, Hudson Westbrook’s 26-city Texas Forever Fall Tour, which began September 4th in Cleveland is supposed to conclude November 21st in St. Petersburg. But Brock McNeely, the red hot country artist’s lighting designer, has a slightly different take on things.
“Really when you think about it, the touring never stops,” he said as he prepared for another fall show. McNeely knows whereof he speaks. Earlier this year, Westbrook added 29 dates to his already packed summer tour, which crisscrossed the USA… and there’s a promise of much more to come.
That sort of thing happens when you go from an unknown Texas Tech freshman to a Top 10 Billboard recording artist with 700-million plus global streams in a little over one year. The 21-year old from Stephenville, Texas has already toured with the likes of Parker McCollum, The Eli Young Band, Cole Swindell, and Ian Munsick this year, not to mention his own headline shows.
This heavy touring schedule can present a challenge for a lighting and production crew. So too can the wide variety of venues that Westbrook performs in. “This tour has been a really unique experience, considering the speed at which Hudson has exploded in popularity over the past year,” said McNeely. “One day we could be playing in a small bar that was booked at the very beginning of his career, and the next we could be playing a sold-out headline show for 12,000 fans. We are super grateful for Josh Peikert and his great team at Hoopty Lights. They designed a very flexible rig that is not only incredibly punchy, but also scalable from the smallest to the largest stages.”
To increase its flexibility the rig that Peikert and the Hoopty Lights team designed it around four custom-made “mini carts,” each outfitted with one Color STRIKE M motorized strobe-wash and two Maverick Force S Spots from CHAUVET Professional. These fixtures that are arranged in a vertical configuration, with the Maverick units on the top and bottom of each cart, and the STRIKE fixtures in the middle.
“We wanted the spots spread out enough to create big beam looks that could fill the stage, with the STRIKE Ms are low enough to back fill the band with color, but still just high enough to punch through with bright accents when needed,” explained McNeely. We had very little trailer space to work with so we had to pick our tools wisely. We went with The Force S Spot because it has a great feature set in such a small lightweight fixture. And of course, the STRIKE Ms never fail to get the crowd’s attention.”
Arranging the carts to fit each venue, including festivals, McNeely and the production team, Isaac Sanchez (PM), Quinton Alsobrook (TM), and Zebb Luster (Artist Manager) are able to create a wide variety of looks that reflect the mood of the music as well as Westbrook’s dynamic stage persona, while engaging the crowd. For some songs, the cart lighting is scaled down to crate soft intimate moments, while at others it joins the house rig to generate full throttle West Texas energy.
“Our goal is to make each song look different for every other,” said McNeely. “The faster songs usually get lots of movement, color, and tight beams from the Force S spots. They also often feature crazy pixel effects from the STRIKE M outer rim and massive hits from the STRIKE M center. On the slower songs, we do a lot with the plates on the STRIKE M which gives big washy looks behind the band. Often accompanied with lots of texture that the Gobos on the Force S spots provide.
“Another big tool that we get to utilize is the custom LED Signs that read ‘Hudson’ and ‘Westbrook,’ that were made by Tyler Leaf of Leaf Custom Cases,” continued McNeely. “These signs each feature 170 RGB cells and are completely pixel mappable. They give us a super cool and versatile eye candy look that’s unique to our show.”
Based on the overwhelming response from fans that sign, along with the rest of this artfully designed rig, is going to be flashing at even more venues than those already list on the official schedule for this good time tour that never ends.
Color STRIKE M
