Stage Asthetics

Phostenix

Phostenix

Power User
The typical stage setup at most concerts is usually an ugly black surface cluttered with gear & cables. It always makes me wonder if musicians, who tyically are people of an artistic bent, are bothered by the ugliness of it all. Part of it has just been a neccessity (you've got all of these different amps & pedals that have to be out & available to the players), and part of it has been the "look" of rock 'n' roll (who doesn't like a backdrop of speaker cabinets?).

But now, lots of things have changed. PAs are so much better that you no longer need a wall of guitar & bass amps to fill arenas & units like the Axe make it possible to have everything you need tonewise with just an MFC & a couple of expression pedals in front of you.

We went to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra last year & the thing that stuck me immediately was how clean the stage was - no visible gear at all - and everything was white (or light colors). Last night, we went to see Eric Johnson at the Musical Instrument Museum in Scottsdale. The "Music Theater" is a beautiful venue with lots of stone & wood work & architectural interest. The stage is a wood floor. The band was a trio & they didn't have a ton of gear, but it still looked cluttered to me on that nice stage. If only EJ & his bass player had Axes. :)

So, maybe we're now entering an age where the look of the stage can and will change. Musicians can be more free to think of the stage as part of the show instead of as a utility that has to be tolerated.

More ways that the Axe will change music forever. :D

Here's a pic of the stage from last night:

EJ.jpg
 
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We have just one Rack Case which houses everything - mixer, guitar processors, vocal processors, MacBook Pro & DMX lighting interface etc

There are of course 4 vocal mic stands, 2 guitars, 1 bass, 1 drum kit (all electronic triggers fed from via single snake) & 1 keyboard - no backline whatsoever, just four small, powered monitors (2 front, 2 side) - two compact PA stacks (QSC K Series) and four lighting tripods (2 front, 2 rear). It's a super clean look
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We absolutely take note of how the stage looks. I like everything to look super clean and uniform. We even made a couple light boxes with "CiQ" carved out of the front (which are hollow and double as merch boxes). The visual of a live rock performance, imo, is just as important as the audio. Of course, when you're Eric Johnson you can do whatever the hell you want.
 
I've gotten so I don't even like mike stands on stage. Besides, less crap on stage equals less crap to haul to the stage.
 
I don't care much about visual aesthetics relative to the music. Part of it is that I'm not in bands where that matters much or playing places where it matters (or where I have sufficient control).

What I found interesting about that setup was the fact that there's that big black whatever blocking the direct sound from Eric's amps. I've never seen that before. I've seen setups where you couldn't even see amps (big shows) and drum sound blockers, but never something like that live. It probably helped a lot. It's amazing how much things have changed in that regard. I remember seeing Storyville with David Grissom and another guitar player in a big club. Grissom was loud (and amazing sounding) in front of his amps. Off angle from his amps, he was hardly in the PA, but you could hear the other guy. There was no place I went where you could hear both well. Later, with Joe Ely I saw Grissom use a Matchless combo. You could hear everything, but he didn't sound quite as great as with his Marshall stack.

As much as I love roaring guitar tone, I've become a big believer in letting ALL the people hear the guitar by keeping stage volume reasonable enough that the guitar can be well blended in the PA. One more reason to love the Axe.
 
the problem is cables and lack of cable management. many times the band is in such a rush to setup and start, they don't even have time to think about that stuff. i've seen it so bad that a guitarist literally was wrapped up in his guitar cable, but just started the gig and played the entire first set with it wrapped around both his legs... really?!!

a friend of mine uses wireless for his bass exclusively mostly because a cable isn't visible and in his way. he doesn't really move from his playing position, but just likes that if he has to, he can. i'm kinda developing this habit too.

even with all this aesthetic talk though, a bare stage is rather weird. i've seen a band with only guitars and bass (drums are backing tracks), in ear monitors and head set mics. absolutely NOTHING on the stage and it just looked empty to me. it sounded good, but maybe i want to see all that gear? geddy lee from rush goes direct with his bass, so he put washing and vending machines on his side of the stage to balance out the huge guitar rig and drumset.
 
that big black thing is probably a 2nd set of his amps mic'd under that blanket and then mixed... most likely :)
 
chrisallen8888 said:
the problem is cables and lack of cable management. many times the band is in such a rush to setup and start, they don't even have time to think about that stuff. i've seen it so bad that a guitarist literally was wrapped up in his guitar cable, but just started the gig and played the entire first set with it wrapped around both his legs... really?!!

a friend of mine uses wireless for his bass exclusively mostly because a cable isn't visible and in his way. he doesn't really move from his playing position, but just likes that if he has to, he can. i'm kinda developing this habit too.

even with all this aesthetic talk though, a bare stage is rather weird. i've seen a band with only guitars and bass (drums are backing tracks), in ear monitors and head set mics. absolutely NOTHING on the stage and it just looked empty to me. it sounded good, but maybe i want to see all that gear? geddy lee from rush goes direct with his bass, so he put washing and vending machines on his side of the stage to balance out the huge guitar rig and drumset.
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Speaking of Rush, on the last leg of the TM tour, Alex did not even use the cabs mounted in the steampunk "amps" behind him. he went strictly FOH, they were just there for show.
 
Even "back in the day" when you'd see mountains of stacks, a lot of it was for show. In the rock and roll world that visual aesthetics thing has been the deal in one form or another for a long time. I'm in the vast minority (maybe a lesser minority among musicians) I think in that I really just want to hear the music. If it's a large place I'm happy to see the band closer, but mostly I want to see/hear musicians playing music where there's a palpable sense of connection and interplay among them.

It's probably telling that in the rockish world, the Allman Brothers have long been one of my favs and they're one of the least histrionic bands ever, though they do have some cool trippy visuals behind them. I also like jazz a lot and they're not much on show there generally, and, if they are, it's probably among the kinds of jazz I like (Jaco excepted who was pretty showy, but still kicked total ass).
 
MikeyB59 said:
Even "back in the day" when you'd see mountains of stacks, a lot of it was for show.
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The "mountain of stacks" thing started out as the real deal... Just ask Pete Townshend... but as PAs got more sophisticated, dummy stacks became more common...

One of the cleanest setups I've seen was Primus at Red Rocks touring Tales From The Punchbowl... The amps were all side-fill... so it was just the drum riser, a couple of monitors and a mic...
 
NothingButInitials said:
One of the cleanest setups I've seen was Primus at Red Rocks touring Tales From The Punchbowl... The amps were all side-fill... so it was just the drum riser, a couple of monitors and a mic...
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I saw some video of them at the MIM. I'm guessing that after setting up that HUGE drum set, they just ran out of time to get anything else on the stage. :lol
 
I'm thinking that having a clear stage opens up some opportunities for bands to be creative with their stage setup. The stage can become more of a blank canvas to create visual interest around the players.
 
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First time I saw Queensryche's live evolution dvd I was struck by how clean the stage looked.
As mentioned above they had à lot of visual fx during the show to fill up the space.
I think there are à few clips on YouTube showing it off.

A nearly empty stage by itself is boring imho. But when it is the canvas for à nice (lighting) show.... That's something completely different.
 
Great post and observations. My stage rig is simple now compared to when I was touring (double stacked Ampeg V-4's on tour). It was the wall of sonic bliss. Now I run FX to FOH (output 1) and use a Line 6 Flextone II XL for a stage monitor (output 2). Our stage does still look a bit cluttered as both our other guitarist and I use keyboards in our program. Further, our bass player uses MIDI pedals and keyboards, and that is in addition to the keyboards our actual keyboard player uses. These days you just can't do prog with less than 100 keyboards on stage.
 
Interesting debate, I thought the Eric Johnson, stage looked bare. I am going to the Marshall Fifty Years of Loud, so it will be interesting to see what will be at that.

Trends change and gear gets better and better, so there isn't a need for huge stacks any more, but they are still part of the rock mindset. Just a different type of aesthetic I suppose.
 
winger said:
First time I saw Queensryche's live evolution dvd I was struck by how clean the stage looked.
As mentioned above they had à lot of visual fx during the show to fill up the space.
I think there are à few clips on YouTube showing it off.

A nearly empty stage by itself is boring imho. But when it is the canvas for à nice (lighting) show.... That's something completely different.
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I show I saw was the same deal all the amps were side stage and no back line but a drum riser and video screens.
 
Perfect Example

Need To Breathe posted a pic on their Facebook page today with the caption, "I sometimes use spaghetti at my feet for good guitar tone. Asheville will be reckoned with this evening!"

NeedToBreathGuitarMess.jpg
 
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