AS AN INDIE BAND with no record label and only 30,000 fans on Facebook in 2012, Walk Off The Earth uploaded a video of them covering “Someone That I Used To Know” to YouTube that quickly went viral. The fact that it featured the entire band playing various parts of the same guitar was just one example of the clever and fun scenarios conceived by the band in support of their mix of current cover songs and inspired original music. One could spend an afternoon enjoying their YouTube catalog.

During the winter of 2014 I was invited to meet the band as they looked to mount a sold-out club tour and were looking to bring the whimsical magic of their videos to the stage. What I realized was that a show that looked like complete spontaneous chaos was actually quite rehearsed, with three lead singers switching between three microphone positions while band and crew alike tossed ukuleles to each other.

I designed a small lighting package to tour with the band that included lots of incandescent Edison bulbs and custom made “uke-o-lanterns” consisting of ukuleles lit from within. Moreover, the lighting programming would be essential to knit the antics on stage together. As most artists do these days, the band was playing along to enhancement tracks from an Ableton computer controlled by their drummer Joel Cassady. We decided to trigger all of the lighting cues including cryo-jet shots via MIDI commands embedded in their Ableton session. This would allow the band themselves to participate in the cueing using an interface with which they were already familiar.