TOUR MANAGER DAVID ELLISON introduced me to John Rzeznik and Robby Takac of the Goo Goo Dolls by hiring me to LD a one-off show at the House Of Blues on the Sunset Strip. I listened to as much of their music as I could cram on to my second-generation iPod on the flight to LA and managed to punt my way through the show on the house Avolites console, jamming to tunes that were both new to me and familiar FM radio staples from the late 90’s.

I hit it off with the two front men of this iconic band and upon our second meeting I showed them renderings of an idea I had to turn the “pixel curtains” that were newly available at the time in to roll drops that could be revealed part way in to the show. These were the early days of LED display product merging with lighting design and media servers being controlled by the lighting console. The Barco LED tiles were down to 10mm pixel pitch, and we placed them on backline risers with space in between them to achieve a broken-up display.

We toured with Alex Nadon’s first generation of Vixen media servers running Arkaos VJ, and the content was gathered from all over by shooting with a miniDV camcorder while strolling around downtown Toronto. The clips were then run through various effects to create abstract backgrounds on the multiple display surfaces.

The pixel curtain roll drops would stay completely assembled inside a 10’ section of Christie Lites D-Type swing-wing truss. In addition to a full complement of Martin Mac 2k Profile and Wash fixtures, we added 5 Syncrolite B-52 large format moving heads as per John’s direct request. He loved the massive size of the fixture and I had used the Syncrolites to great effect on other tours, so it was an easy addition!