So we had a lot of ammunition. The shows were actually a lot more varied than we’d originally planned, more [varied] than the band had asked for. So that had worked out really well. Also, when they started [adding] more shows into the summer and July and August and so on, they were very clear that they wanted more content. They wanted to offer more to the audience, new experiences and new moments and keep the show evolving. So we’ve been working on content since the beginning of the run in May, and we’ve delivered some new content for the July and August shows, to keep the show alive and to keep it moving and breathing.
Bob Weir has suggested that the next step for a show like this is a scenario where the visual elements respond in real time to what the musicians are doing onstage from moment to moment. Is that the next frontier, in your mind? Some kind of live thing where the musicians are actually manipulating what weâre looking at?
I think heâs right. At Treatment, we learned a long time ago that it’s not enough to make the pictures. We’ve always embraced technology. So we started using Disguise, which is a [real-time synchronization] video serverâwe got that very early on, on the Vertigo tour for U2, which was a game changer. That’s evolved into this amazing piece of equipment. Or things like Notch, where we can affect live camera feeds and create animation. We’ve worked with them and [Notch founder] Matt Swoboda, since its inception. I think we did a real time rendered show for Kasabian in 2016, so we’ve always pushed that. One of the asks from Dead and Co was from Mickey’s section. So the technology’s there, and it’s been there for a while, and there are certain people making it and they’re just honing it and it’s getting better and better and more controllable.
In the old days you’d have an effects box. You could affect [the image on the video screen] and make it crunchy, or you could make it solarized. You could do these very sort of routine effects, whereas now we can take a bit of the content that’s being played on screen and apply that to the camera feed somehow. So there’s a harmonious thing, this cohesion between the two. So that’s getting better and better all the time. I mean the trick is not to overuse it once you’ve got a new toy to play with. Don’t rinse it out, try and use it subtly. With Dead & Co., for Mickeyâs section, âDrums,â Mickey had very clear ideas of what he wanted. Different backdrops and this footage that we were going to work with.
I’ve been interested in kaleidoscopes, and we saw a Las Vegas based artist called Brett Bolton who works with this software Notch. He worked on U2 and has done lots of projects with us over the years, and he created this whole [kaleidoscope] experience with âDrums.â We’ve got this live feed of Mickey’s performance, and weâve scanned Mickey’s drum collectionâor part of it. He’s got a thousand drums and we scanned about 80 drums, [using] photogrammetry. So we had these incredible models that Brett then applied to his animation. He hooked up the actual drums with a MIDI signal, so the drum on the screen would light up [when you hit it.] And the whole thing was live. Itâs real-time rendered, all through Notch.
Itâs a very full, rich piece. Weâre taking MIDI signals, we’re taking triggers from the instruments, from Mickey, so he’s controlling what’s going on in the video, as well as Brett manipulating things live and following the musical performance. So that was really successful and it was something that Bob and John had been interested in and we hadn’t got around to it to sort of do something with their instruments or their singing or the rest of the band. I can’t say too much, but that’s something weâre really looking at now and I think it’s something that the audience will see in the show. We’re getting into real-time rendering, this immediate thing that that’s going to be much more versatile, flexible, spontaneous, and I think, ultimately, musical.
