Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Welcome back. This is Gig Ready? This is it. Welcome back to Gig. Ready. We're here today. Got a great episode for you. Couple of friends of mine talking trends in the industry, and we're looking at how things are changing. Post Covid v i d Last couple of years we've had new technologies. We've had all kinds of incredible things that have come out of the woodwork, fast development, quick stuff. Joe Mack, my friend on the other side of the country. How you doing, sir? Good to see ya.
Speaker 2 00:00:52 Very well. It's been a busy week.
Speaker 0 00:00:54 Excellent. Couple weeks. Glad to hear it. And then also today, a friend of mine that I've known for a while, Joe's probably known him twice as long, Mr. Rob Conig, man, too many, too many artists to mention with all the people you've worked with. But thanks for being here. We appreciate, uh, having you back. I think it was, I don't know, two and a half years ago or something. We did. We did. It's been that long.
Speaker 3 00:01:15 <laugh>,
Speaker 0 00:01:16 It was a long time ago. But, uh, great to have you back and, uh, talking trends in the industry, things that are happening. How are you doing, sir?
Speaker 3 00:01:23 I am, uh, more than fantastic. Truly.
Speaker 0 00:01:27 That is great to hear. Well, you know, we've seen quite the, we've seen quite the change over the last two and a half years. I mean, even from when I started doing this, this podcast back in 2020. Uh, here we are at the beginning of 2023. In some ways I can't, it feels like that gap where I don't even know, like, what, where is this gap in my life that happened? Um, but I mean, we saw, especially from video and, and lighting and XR and, uh, virtual production and virtual events and all of these things that have come into, really into the forefront now where people are saying, if you don't have this, if you don't deliver on this, then your event isn't worth what people would've said the best rock concert would've been worth years ago. Because you have to have these components. Um, you know, let's start with you, Rob. What are some, what are, what are one or two things you are seeing that has come out of the last year, let's say 2020, which was really the resurgence of events with manufacturers, selling product. Again, new development, things that they're pushing out to us as the users and the consumers of that equipment. What are, what are some new things that you're seeing that are there?
Speaker 3 00:02:44 Um, I, I think about the, the whole TA of the industry has, has changed quite a bit. And, and saying that it's kind of hard to wrap up all of this in just a token statement, but what I am seeing is on one side of the table, a lot of companies that utilized their downtime through the pandemic Yep. And had enough foresight to go, this is going to end and we're going to have to come back. So as much as we're not pulling in money right now, we still have to spend money to come out on top on the other end. Yeah. Then you've got the flip side of that table of companies that were scared just like the rest of us, and did not know where the next paycheck was coming from. Uh, did not want to outlay the capital, and now they're behind.
Speaker 3 00:03:27 Yeah. And we've seen just in lighting manufacturers, elation was already on a big push before the pandemic there everywhere now. Yep. Chave was just starting their push right before the pandemic a couple years after Elation. They're everywhere now. These are companies that five 60 years ago when we said that's an elation product, we all would've chuckled in the same American dj. You don't use that on a, on a real show. You use that in a little club. That's a disco. Right? Yeah. Yeah. These companies have come to the forefront now where other companies that used to be our mainstays have fallen into the wayside because I don't know whether it was, you know, listen, we don't know if it was fear, uh, lack of funding or lack of capital, whatever the case may have been. But they've f now fall into the wayside. So we've seen a seismic shift in manufacturing, certainly.
Speaker 3 00:04:18 Um, I think there's been a lot of, uh, give back to basics, um, lately with the manufacturers. And we don't need to make the craziest, weirdest, stupidest light that's going to be your ultimate Swiss army knife. We just need to make a light. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. And I've been seeing a lot more of that, which has really been encouraging to me. Like when we get a light that, that, that does something cool. Like when we, you know, when the Sharpie came on the market, it was, it was unique. It was a new thing. It was, it was a one trick pony, but damn it, it did that one trick really, really well with very low power consumption, small housing and super, super fast man, change everything. Yeah. Yeah. But right now, I don't see us needing the bells and whistles that we did then because it had become kind of stagnant.
Speaker 3 00:05:07 Right. Now we have so much versatility in so of these fixtures now companies are concentrating on just making them good. Yeah. I just got to spec the very light 3,600 on something and a lot of 'em, because damnit it did not do anything that blew my mind other than everything It did, it did. Well, yeah, it did it smoothly. It was just that, that refinement that they put into the light. Yeah. That was just that little bit better than anything I had seen in that same class of fixture. So that's just one of the examples that I haven't seen. Yeah. Um, I can't really speak, it's hard for me to kind of speak to the AR and the XR a lot because my world and a lot of the things that I do don't really use it. But the one thing that I'll say kind of as a overall for that is I think it went too far in the pandemic.
Speaker 3 00:05:54 Yeah. Um, with good reason, you know, people were looking for that next thing, where can we take this? What looks good? What, what, what's not working? And there were some shows I watched and I'm like, ha ha put the reins on there, guys. This now looks hokey <laugh>. We've now taken it from a cool concept to now it looks kind of goofy. Yeah. It doesn't look right. Doesn't feel real. Kind of like when they digitize Star Wars for us kids. And we looked at it and we're like, this doesn't look right anymore. It was that same kind of thing. Yeah. But I think those, those are starting to be overcome now. People are starting to understand what the technology can do for them. Um, when you talk about guys like Zenman out here in Los Angeles who have, who took the bull by the horns, did not give a rats ask that there was a pandemic, and went for it and started developing all these things.
Speaker 3 00:06:38 It was fascinating to walk into Vault and see his setup. And he's got animated characters on a screen that I can't see on the stage. They're right here. And then he goes over and he to a robo spot controller, and he goes, move the robos spot controller and shake it. And I shake it, and all of those characters shake the exact same way. I'm shaking the camera tripped me up. That's cool. Absolutely tripping to see all that. So all of those elements they're able to use now in shows, like, uh, when you start talking about the Mandalorian and all these artificial environments that they can use, let alone recording the backgrounds, not on a green screen now, but on a video screen, I never would've thought that that would've been a thing.
Speaker 2 00:07:15 Mm.
Speaker 3 00:07:16 And you know, yes, I'm using the Star Wars reference a lot. I'm sorry, because I'm like, not the biggest Star Wars fan anymore. But the technology, when you start looking at the last trilogy of mo, not the, not the this one, but the nineties trilogy of movies that came out, we all complained about the acting was bad and this and that <laugh>. And we come to find out later in our lives that like, well, the reason that was is because they were, it was so secretive, and it was so, uh, kept under wraps and top secret that the actors would show up that day. They would get one page, they'd get handed their script, they'd be given a little bit of context and go, go stand in front of that screen, that green screen and go run your lines. Well, no wonder why the movies will kind of fell flat because there was no, they're getting their, their, uh, script out of order. They're doing things in a green screen. They have zero context for what's actually happening in the movie. But now the characters can come in with a partially handmade and a partially virtual environment. They can see where they're going to be at. They can, they understand the lines, they understand their environment. Suddenly these things come to life a bit more. And we're seeing that a lot now. And I think those kind of advances have been utterly fascinating.
Speaker 2 00:08:26 Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:08:26 And that was the real,
Speaker 2 00:08:27 The reality,
Speaker 3 00:08:28 Really long-winded answer. No,
Speaker 2 00:08:31 The
Speaker 3 00:08:31 Purposes of answers that questions that you get,
Speaker 2 00:08:34 The reality is being put back in to virtual reality. And so I think that's, see,
Speaker 3 00:08:40 That's just, that's, it's that fine line of having a, having a cartoon character or something. You're in your video game, look horribly frightening because they're trying to make 'em look so real or a little cartoonish to where we feel more comfortable with it. Absolutely. Yeah. And,
Speaker 2 00:08:54 And you know, I mean, now you're seeing, um, meta concerts and things like that where they're doing all these online things that are kind of a hybrid of XR and reality. And really, I got to do one
Speaker 3 00:09:05 With Dan and the Foo Fighters. It was amazing.
Speaker 2 00:09:08 Amazing. Awesome. Yeah. Uh, um, so, so just that, that alone is really compelling to me. Yeah. Um, what, what do you, what do you envision or you see, uh, from that world? Like how, how is it gonna elevate us as artists? What, what, you know, at what point do we need to add a, a CG artist into our design team? That's, that's just the CG guy, you know? Oh,
Speaker 3 00:09:34 I don't think any of that's really a bad thing to have right now, in all fairness, because, and I gotta tell you, the glut of, of younger, um, professionals out there that are learning, and not only learning, but executing things in Unreal Yeah. Is beyond fascinating. Like, what are the content companies that I work with advertises on their sleeve that we do? We do Unreal. We do Unreal. We do Unreal. Did you know that we did Unreal. And everybody is flocking to everything that these guys are putting out with Unreal Engine. I am seeing textures that I've never seen before in rock shows, pop shows, whatever you wanna call them mm-hmm. <affirmative> and live concerts. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I've, I've, you've never seen things like this. So between what these guys are doing with Unreal, what they're doing with Notch, I mean, you gotta think that's what these people are, they're 3D artists. Yeah. Yeah. And what they're capable of doing in Notch is f I've seen some super hokey stuff, but I've seen some stuff that is just mind numbingly brilliant. Yeah. And
Speaker 0 00:10:32 Not
Speaker 3 00:10:32 Utilization
Speaker 0 00:10:33 Of incredible, oh, not just, I don't fully understand notch, but to know when, when one of the, when one of my friends, um,
Speaker 3 00:10:42 No, you have to talk to Grant Draper and Kristen Holand and that team to really understand Notch Yeah. What they do at Notch is
Speaker 0 00:10:48 Unbelievable. So a buddy of mine, Nick Rivero over at over at Metic, kind of really walked me through notch a while ago and talking about the fact mm-hmm. <affirmative> that his file size for his show on, on their disguise servers went from like 90 gig down to like 25 megabytes or something like that for, for the whole show file because of notch and realtime content creation. Like, wow, that blew my mind. I I'm, that's insane. I'm not using the Right. The, the, it's not the exact numbers, but it was something like that. It was, it was
Speaker 3 00:11:22 Drastically reduced. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 0 00:11:23 And, you know, being able to reduce that, that load, and then suddenly now does that, you know, that shifts the balance of, of content creation from, you know, the, the guys sitting there rendering stuff for hours and hours and hours now it shifts it to the machine in real time and, um, and, and creation of content. And then, you know, how does that, so how does, let me ask you that then, how mm-hmm. <affirmative> for some of the shows you're working on now. How does that translate to what you're doing now versus what was possible two, three years ago?
Speaker 3 00:11:59 I, I think it's, it's kind of like when Pro Tools became a tool, or garage Band became a tool that every kid can have in their bedroom. You would think that there'd be a lot more great music out there, but there isn't, is there <laugh>?
Speaker 3 00:12:16 So it's kind of the same thing with not or Unreal at anything else. You gotta have the vision to be able to put into it in order for it to succeed and in order for it to be valid in our worlds. I've gone to shows and I've seen nothing but unreal and notch, and I've walked up being underwhelmed to put it mildly. And then I've gone to, under other shows where they use it three or four times in the show, you'll see a beautiful piece of unreal content three or four times you'll see a really cool notch effect two or three times, and you walk outta there going, that was fucking amazing. And that's all how, what you would put into it. Yeah. It's just a tool. It's a tool like AI as a tool. Now it's a tool. Like any of these things are, it's all how you use it. If you're not capable of conveying what the artist is trying to convey through the visuals, then you're losing already. Yeah. You're losing. So if you don't have anything to say, uh, notch isn't gonna help you. Nope.
Speaker 2 00:13:12 Right.
Speaker 3 00:13:12 You have to have something to say first. Well, I, you have to have a vision for the artist and to paint over the top what the artist is, is giving to the, is getting to the Audi audience. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:13:20 Well, it's, you can buy the, you can buy the magic tricks, but you still have to put in the time Absolutely. Learn how to do
Speaker 3 00:13:26 The trick. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and there's just, there's, you know, just, there's so much music. Like, I'm still waiting for the next thing to make my mind go kaboom over. And yeah, that's an age thing, certainly. And we've heard more than most of it at this time. But if you don't have something to say and you don't have anything to put up, because you could play a million notes, a, uh, a mile, a million miles, an hour, a million notes, or because you can replicate everything BB King ever did, um, now, now show me what comes from you. That's the same thing with a live show, I think. And I, I don't think that all the toys are gonna necessarily make the show better, unless you have something to say. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:14:01 That's a great, that's a great segue to a, a portion I wanted to go into a little bit in this conversation is how AI is going to affect us as designers and artists and, and creators. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and, and how that gets taken over by, by some machine. Um, what, what are your thoughts on that as far as, as the,
Speaker 3 00:14:24 I think not in my lifetime are we ever gonna see, uh, our jobs taken by ai, uh, grant Draper, um, we were just all at, um, uh, sorry, uh, the Chris Musgrave conference that they do in Palm Springs, I can't remember the name of it. Live Production Summit. Yeah. And we did a, it was kind of funny. We did an emerging tech, uh, uh, panel, um, where the only emerging tech that we all talked about was ai. Um, but Grant, I walked in the room and the first question that was asked is, are you afraid of our jobs being taken away? Of course. And he said, if he said, the best thing ever, and I want to get this right, AI is you're not in danger of losing your job to ai, but if you don't embrace ai, you will lose your job.
Speaker 3 00:15:28 Whole room laughed. But this is what Ask Jevs was, and Web One, and I was like, here's what you may not know. We've gone from Web one, which was basic website clicked to buy something, no interaction whatsoever. We couldn't even hover over a picture and have it ballooned. And Web one then came Web two much more interactive. I could do Ask Gs, I could do Google searches, I could do these things. I could type in a question into a magic box, and the magic box gives me back answers. That's all AI is right now. Yeah. A lot of these guys are having a hard time understanding that it's only as smart as what it's fed. So the dataset that it's been fed, say Chat, G P t, is these specific sources up to 2021. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So if you were to ask it a question about Rockel Welch passing away today, which rest in peace.
Speaker 3 00:16:22 Oh my gosh. Oh, you didn't know that. Yeah. Just came across wire about an hour ago. 82 years old. Oh, wow. And you know what? Still to this day, big time crush since I was a kid, 82 year old woman, still looked amazing. She's unreal Horse of nature. But, um, it wouldn't know that because it only has a data set up to 2021. Now, Kristen Holand said some amazing stuff that she's using a local AI server where she puts in all of her work into this ai. So that's, its data set. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So she's working and she gets a little bit of roadblock or whatever she can have it generate things in her style. Interesting. So that, that way, if you have a, we all have writer's block, you get 15, 20 songs into the thing, and you're like, what am I going to do that I haven't done yet?
Speaker 3 00:17:07 <laugh>, what's gonna look unique? Blah, blah, blah. I'm out of colors, dammit, I'm outta colors. Right. <laugh>, she can go into her AI and go make me something for this song and this look and this kind of vibe and da da da da da. And she, it spits out some stuff at her. And, uh, you know, that's, that's incredibly powerful tool. Um, yeah. I just was messing around with Dolly the other day and I typed in, um, uh, show me what a, uh, a rock show with professional lighting would look like, a live concert with professional lighting. And I got back three or four images, not the prettiest things ever of lights at a Rock show. I was like, one of 'em was yours, <laugh>. I did say not the greatest thing I've ever seen, so quite possibly <laugh>. Um, but yeah, and it actually generated images with gobos and lights and, and things streaking through the air.
Speaker 3 00:17:56 And I'm like, that's interesting. So to me it could, it could definitely be used as a, as a writer's block tool. As of right now, I think as a, as we develop it more, as they give it more power, it's gonna be a dangerous tool. Um, like deep fakes are getting really good. Oh yeah. I saw a pretty dirty one yesterday that had Ben Shapiro saying some, uh, very horrifying things about a o C. Mm-hmm. And you would expect him to, but these were not Ben Shapiro's character. These were very sexual in nature, pretty horrible things. And I studied this video and I could not see with, with a naked eye that it was a deep thick, and it
Speaker 2 00:18:34 No glitch, no bad lighting, no.
Speaker 3 00:18:36 And nothing. Yeah. It was perfection. I'll send it to you once we're done here. I mean, it was like, it was done really, really well. And that's the kind of shit that World War II is gonna start over is because someone's gonna say that Trump or Biden, or blah, blah blah, said this thing, and they're gonna create a deep fake sound, Lin Linsky to shove it up his ass. And the next thing you know, nukes are gonna be launched. And that never happened. And that's the things, those are the dangerous things. I don't think the dangerous things are using a calculator for your math homework, if the teacher allows you to, using AI for your homework is only gonna get you so far. And a lot of people are worried about, oh, well, the kids are gonna use ai. Kids have been using Google for their homework for 20 years, <laugh>, it did not change anything.
Speaker 3 00:19:14 They still have to have the knowledge, they still have to do the tests, they still have to do the SATs. They still have to get to college admissions, and they still have to fake a teacher, which has now AI busters in their rooms to basically put in a piece of, uh, of work and go, did AI write this? And they can give them a percentage of whether it did or not. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So I'm not worried about that. I think it's gonna evolve us. I think it's gonna make us better. I think it's gonna make us more thoughtful. I think it's going to allow us to explore things that we never explored before. And I think it's gonna help us with writer's block. Yeah. You, I think there's some great things that, uh, that are coming down the pike.
Speaker 0 00:19:47 Yeah. I, I was thinking about this the other day. If, you know, talking about chat G P T and all the other, you know, everybody's in a rush to get, you know, now that chat, G p t's there, everyone's like, oh my gosh, we have this thing and we have that thing and whatever else. But how much more important does this make the live component of what we do? Especially like you just said, deep fakes, people that can fake things. Um, and looking at what the live component of whether it is corporate av, whether it's concerts, whether it's, you know, whatever that may be. Because sure, I can look at something on a screen, but now I'm gonna start to question whether it's right. Unless I'm there, unless I was in the room seeing it. Um,
Speaker 3 00:20:35 I don't, I think this is just the same equivalency of you telling me that YouTube is new. Um, YouTube is the greatest tool, and it's the shittiest tool in the face of the planet. Yeah. I hate it <laugh>. And I love it and I hate it, and I love it. <laugh>. I love it because Myah, Tarek can come up to me and go, do you remember where we set up this on the last show? And I can go and I can, here you go. It's all over YouTube <laugh>. Yep. Right. Um, Metallica is notorious for destruction scenes. Way before my time in the John Broderick days. Um, 19 88, 89 was the first one where they did, they broke every OSHA rule on the planet. It was the Wild West. They were doing things that, if I told you the story of how that destruction scene went, you would probably get a little sick to your stomach and estimated with the fact that nobody fucking died on a daily basis on that tour.
Speaker 3 00:21:28 Then they just went on the load reel tour. It's 96, 97. This is prior to cell phones, prior to YouTube, prior to all of that. Right. They had an average of 1,015 hundred 9 1 1 calls out of the venue on a daily basis. They had to call, they, the security staff had to call authorities, the local authorities that they did have at the show, which the typical fire marshal paramedics cops, they would double that because of what they were doing during the show. And they would even preface them and tell them and show them video of everything that was about to happen. And they would still think it was real. Wow. That's how good this shit was. Right. <laugh>. Now let's fast forward to 2011 and 12, and we're doing the new destruction scene. We're doing a major motion picture for the band. Tate and Mark Fisher have designed this massive set with every bell and whistle that they could ever want because they can afford it.
Speaker 3 00:22:16 We film the whole fucking thing. Well, we g we get, sorry, we haven't even filmed it yet. We do 15 or so weeks of pre-production. We get down to Mexico, we load the show in a picture's taken, and it's all over the internet that week. We do our first show, we do the full destruction scene. It's all over the internet. There's no more surprise. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But how much does this really suck? Because I'm gonna tell you something right now, the frenzy that we've seen over just the past month between Metallica, Beyonce, and Taylor, tickets alone going on sale, people don't seem to be too bothered by it. Yeah. People also don't seem to be too bothered by the fact that the tickets are going to resellers immediately, and they're paying a thousand, 2000, $3,000 for a fucking ticket in the lower bowl. So people are always, always gonna wanna be entertained.
Speaker 3 00:23:12 That's right. In a live room with the boo, with the music, seeing the poster on their wall come to life for the first time. Yep. That person walking on, on stage, I'll never forget it. <laugh> Motley Cru for me, first concert. Yeah. I'm in there. I, you know, I had one wall in my, in my room, dedicated. Three quarters of the room was Metallica, but that's another, that's a D story for another dead <laugh>. But here and all these posters come to life, there they are. Fire going off pa making my ears bleed. I'm feeling the kick drum moving the clothing on me. <laugh>. Unbelievable experience. People still love that. To this day, how many people do you know Ha a kabuki drop? Everyone loves a kabuki drop. Yep.
Speaker 0 00:23:55 Absolutely. Who doesn't
Speaker 3 00:23:56 Love, who
Speaker 2 00:23:57 Tell it fails <laugh>
Speaker 3 00:23:59 Even. So you look for, because in its moment, <laugh>,
Speaker 3 00:24:03 Um, who, who doesn't love a disco ball? You know what I mean? Yep. Who doesn't, who doesn't love all of these gags? All, every time we hit the flames on a Metallica show, they know it's going to happen. They've been using flames on their show since the dawn of time. Every time crowd goes. But so every single time, ne they're never going to get tired of live entertainment. And everyone keeps going, well, how much more are we supposed to pay? Well, Congress has gotta get off their ass and stop this legalized, uh, scalping, because that's all it is, is just legalized scalping. But until there's some kind of pushback points, which there still hasn't been. Yeah. This is going to continue. People are still gonna come to shows and droves. They're selling out multiple nights in stadiums. All three of the artists I mentioned multiple nights in stadiums.
Speaker 3 00:24:51 And that's just three artists I've mentioned. That's not every fucking buddy else. Yep. Yeah. Let's go to the small end of the spectrum. There's a band that's been out for 40 years. Their name is Skinny Puppy. I'm a huge fan of Skinny Puppy. I've always loved Skinny Puppy. They're going out on their 40th farewell tour right now. They're doing the typical House of blue size venues. Yeah. Well, it's their last show. What am I seeing? They're increasing the size for every venue. Some venues, they can't increase the size, so they're going to multiple nights. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> people still wanna be in the room with it. Yep. Yeah. Still wanna be in the room with it. So I don't think it's gonna take 20, take anything away from that
Speaker 2 00:25:27 20 definitely made it very evident that that live events is where it's at. You know, and even just content period, you know, the, all the film industry, TV industry, like they boomed during that time. They were, they were working nonstop. Oh, without a doubt. Throughout, throughout that whole time. So, so li the, the, the fact that live entertainment is going away is not a thing. Like that's No, not,
Speaker 0 00:25:53 Not at all. Absolutely not. I'm, I'm
Speaker 2 00:25:55 Trying, but what,
Speaker 0 00:25:57 Go ahead.
Speaker 2 00:25:58 Oh, I was gonna say, but what I think AI and this, this technology, uh, boom, it's, it's still the Wild West, you know, we're still what it can do. Absolutely. And how we can integrate it to, I think, I think there's a, there's a compelling argument to build in, you know, 360 cams into a package that you're just the cam pa tech, and you just build 360 cams all over the stadium or the arena. And you, you have the ability as the attendee to watch it from home with your Oculus. And you can pick which camera you want for 20 bucks, 50 bucks, whatever. Well, now your audience is massive. It's global, and as long as you're streaming your bandwidth and all that stuff is working, like that's, that's, that's the problem. The next generation <laugh>.
Speaker 3 00:26:45 Well, that's, that's your problem right there,
Speaker 2 00:26:47 Right? I mean, you gotta get to 10 G. Right? That's what X 10 G <laugh> outing.
Speaker 3 00:26:52 The first time I looked, the first time I looked at a 360 video of our stage, and we have the snake pit on the stadiums that comes out into the audience. I love how when I do that to the camera, um, the snake pit that comes out into the audience and we have a, a drum set that's down there and they put a 360 camera out there, and then suddenly you're seeing all of the band walk towards you while you're wearing this, you know, the, the phone with the Oculus on it, and the band is walking towards you and hey, there's Kirk, and hey, there's Rob. You know, and you're looking around like they're all right there. That kind of stuff goes a long way. Absolutely. I love it. Yeah. I love that kinda stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:27:23 Well, it's, it's interesting that, I mean, I think that people, even with that kind of technology, Joe, and, and doing the, the cameras and such, I worked with Over the Pandemic, I worked with a startup that was trying to create something similar to that. Um, and that actually didn't really get much legs. People wanted. The real didn't, they didn't seem to want, cuz we actually developed from the ground up with Pulse streaming platform that had multiple angles where you could go in and select what you wanted to see and, you know, pick different parts of it and everything else. And I, they, they couldn't get it off the ground because nobody,
Speaker 2 00:28:01 It's cause they're embrace, they're embracing the fan that can go. They need to embrace the fan that can't.
Speaker 0 00:28:09 Interesting the
Speaker 2 00:28:09 Person who, who lives in their bed because they have some autoimmune disorder or they're, you know, they're paraplegic or whatever. You need to embrace those fans because there's a lot of them. There's a lot, lot of people.
Speaker 3 00:28:21 I was just gonna go
Speaker 2 00:28:22 Homebound and can't do anything.
Speaker 3 00:28:24 Absolutely. I was just gonna go to the fact of the, of just the diehard fan. I don't think what Joe was saying. Um, cuz we all saw all the XR stages get built and we saw the turnouts. They, they weren't that great. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. You know? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, Dropkick Murphy's was the first band to do it. And their turnout was really good. They did, they did a really good job. They were the first ones out of the gate. They were all over it. A band that's just made up a bunch of punk dudes from Boston <laugh> and older punk dudes from Boston. Like, I don't know how you got that idea so fast, but high five, you guys crushed it. But after that it just became a thing. And some of them were cool, some of 'em were lame. But you, you didn't have the live experience.
Speaker 3 00:29:03 But for the die hards of those artists, it was wonderful. And I think that's Joe's Target audiences. Yeah. Um, is the, the, the 5,000 people. Is that that really crazy group of people that will sit at home? I shit you not. And go over every set list, listen to every song, every bit of it, and notice the notes that they didn't play on the show in Cleveland as opposed to the notes that they did play in Toronto. The, these Phish fans, widespread panic. All these fans have these psychopathic, diehard fans, bless their hearts. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they love that shit. Our guys will do a horrible show. They'll play terribly. The four of 'em aren't lining up. And our diehards that come to every show will come back to front of house and tell me that that's the best show they've ever seen. Why? Because none of it's on tape.
Speaker 3 00:29:56 Yeah. Every bit of it's live, every bit of the show is live and they eat that shit up. They love it when the band makes mistakes. They love it when they make fun of themselves. It goes back to the, the, uh, Elvis Comeback special where he is wearing the, the, the the uh, the black leather suit and the red Elvis lights behind them through that whole thing. There must have been five songs that he kept messing up the lyrics to and people found it so endearing that he was real. Yeah. Because Elvis was this thing. He was this Goliath. He was this man among men and he went to serve our country in the middle of being the biggest rockstar ever. This is amazing. And he comes, he can fuck up the lyrics to his song just as much as you can. Eric Church started embracing that when I told him, cuz he'll, he would go backstage and beat himself up.
Speaker 3 00:30:40 I missed the lyrics on this. And I'm like, dude, they just ate that shit up. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> because you're already the blue collar guy that they all, that they all love. You just made it that you're the next door neighbor sitting around a campfire singing a song to 'em when you fucked up the lyrics. They eat it up, they love it. So they'll, it's that live component. It's that anything could happen moment. It's the, the Limp Bizkit being blamed for the, the Woodstock Rio. When, what would you have done with the crowd was that hype? You would've fucking lit the place on fire too, you know, <laugh>. So, you know, it's that live component. It's that anything ha can happen thing. And um, I think we figured out during the pandemic that there's only so much you can fake it and people are gonna just turn off.
Speaker 0 00:31:21 Yep. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Absolutely. And faking it doesn't, doesn't last very long. And I'm glad it doesn't.
Speaker 3 00:31:27 The Super Bowl thing, I'm sorry to interrupt. The Super Bowl thing that we all just watched and you saw the comments online and this is boring and blah, blah, blah, and she lip sync and everything else. And it's like, <laugh>, this doesn't seem to be a problem any other fucking day of the week that you would go see Rihanna, but for some reason on this incredibly difficult show to put on, you have a problem here, <laugh>.
Speaker 4 00:31:45 And she doesn't even get paid for
Speaker 3 00:31:47 It. She doesn't even get paid for it. She doesn't even get paid for it. And she did it pregnant. She did it from 50, you know, 50 feet in the air platform, a hundred. And she did it and she did it. And you know, it's like, oh, come on. You know what I mean? Yeah. But, and there's no bullshit with what she did. And she, and, um, I
Speaker 0 00:32:03 See it,
Speaker 3 00:32:04 I've seen, I've, I haven't seen the whole thing. I've seen bits and bobs of it because it's all I need to see. And it's, it's a beautiful performance. It's beau wonderfully well executed between, uh, Eric and, and Mark, the programmers and Bruce Rogers of production design and Al Gerden on the Lightning design. And it's just, it was, it was beautifully done. They're all fucking incredibly talented people putting together something that shouldn't be able to happen. And it's fascinating. But you go out there and you do a Beyonce show. You do a Taylor show and Okay. Yeah. They may be lip syncing. Look at the fucking show they're putting on them. They're work in the stage. They've got dance choreography, they're doing all these things. So you can kind of forgive that, can't you? Now Jackass gets up there with an acoustic guitar and he's lip syncing peace. I'm out <laugh>, because you know what? That's your one shtick. You should be able to do that
Speaker 0 00:32:47 <laugh>.
Speaker 3 00:32:49 That's why you don't see that. So,
Speaker 0 00:32:52 Oh man. Someday. Well, yeah. I have a, the acoustic the acoustic guitar someday when we're not talking about the future stuff. I have a funny story about the somebody, the person who used to be ca or but pre Katie Perry, who she was, and I copy the first show I ever did. I, she was on it. And this is 20, 23 years ago now. And it was, it was really funny. So I'll preempt that one and, and we'll tell that another day. Um, uh,
Speaker 3 00:33:19 You know what, and I'll, I'll load up mine about the first time I did a pink show. And I have a strange feeling that they would be polar opposites
Speaker 0 00:33:25 Probably.
Speaker 3 00:33:26 It was a, it was Pink's very first show and I, and I did it and it, it was cool. We'll, we'll chat about that one. That was, that's
Speaker 0 00:33:32 Awesome. One, we, um, you know, talking about the Rihanna stuff, the Super Bowl, you know, everybody had their opinions about it. It's, it was really funny to watch cuz I see the polar opposites, you know, it's like I see the, the armchair quarterbacks and then also the professionals and they both, they both read it differently. And that's what's really funny is like the professionals were all like, this was really great. It was straightforward. It wasn't super complicated. It didn't go like, you know, oh my gosh, 10,000 scene changes and wardrobes and blah, blah, blah. I mean it was just, you know, one song after song after song. Yeah. And, and, and knocked it outta the park. And to your, to your point earlier, Rob was a light a fixture. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> a a sound console, a piece of video gear that does what it's supposed to do and does it really, really well. Yeah. Instead of trying to put all these bells and whistles on something. And I mean, on, on top of the fact that it's just gives more things to break. Um, you know, so I mean I'm gonna, I'm gonna date myself here, but did you ever use every single setting and peace and gobo wheel and everything in a Mac two K when they existed? Did you, did you ever use every single thing in it?
Speaker 3 00:34:46 Absolutely not. There were some of the ugliest gobos I've ever seen in my life in that picture.
Speaker 0 00:34:52 I, I
Speaker 3 00:34:52 I was You picked the wrong fixture for me. Cuz that was No, no, no. I hated
Speaker 0 00:34:55 That way to the, to the point of you didn't use everything in it. And so why create something or do something that has all of this extra crap that is likely never, never to be used as opposed to like a Sharpie, it was a one trick pony. Right. But it did that one trick really, really well and not well.
Speaker 3 00:35:14 Because to me, to me, like the gobo selection thing is such a sticking point because we all have our preferences, but I think as a community we can all decide that 90% of the gobo selections in these lights are terrible <laugh>. And so when you get a good one, it's pretty rad. But the biggest problem is, is that we can't take that feature and like the old very lights and just quickly swap out gobos in these lights. It's a whole thing. It's a process. Yeah. And it costs a lot of money. So now what's the answer to that? This light has a stamped wheel with 7,000 gobos on it and it's, ugh, no. <laugh>. I mean, that's cool. I like the mechanism. I think it's super clever. Bravo. Next.
Speaker 0 00:35:50 I don't, I don't even know that much about light. So I mean it's, it Gimme
Speaker 2 00:35:54 Seven good ones and we're good. We're solid.
Speaker 3 00:35:56 Give me two good ones and I'm solid. I'm just, I'd be happy with that, but kinda comes. I was gonna, Hey Joe, it just comes down to night sky pebbles and alpha Rays and we're done Right there. There you go.
Speaker 2 00:36:06 <laugh>. But, um, what I was gonna say is that, you know, just because you didn't necessarily use all the, the functions of a Mac two K, just that, that, that maybe in a, in a nightclub or in a theater or in somewhere else, they might have needed that thing. Right? Sure. So they're, they're designing for all markets. Yeah. Television, um, you know, everybody agreed. Um, and, and so, so when we get into this one trick pony, well, you know, I use fuse washes for automobiles Right. To light cars. Oh,
Speaker 3 00:36:38 Really? Interesting. I love the look of the fuse wash. That's interesting.
Speaker 2 00:36:41 They're, they're beautiful. They're, they're even, they zoom well, um, and the output's great, but I don't use 'em for anything but that, you know, I've seen people use 'em for, for front washes on a stage or mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, lighting a graphic or whatever. And I'm like, yeah, that's not really what I wanna use it for. Right. Because it only has, it only has one collar temp. It's only one thing. It's on or off. Right. Um, uh, but, you know, and so you can take, you could take a, a picture like a Mac two K and, and you only use two gobos and uh, and the Iris and the Zoom. Um, whereas the DJ guy might use like everything because he is got, you know, 50 songs to do that night. Right. Uh, in a, in a club set. So, um, well, so the one trick pony isn't always the best way, but for what we're doing now and how we're doing it, I think it's really important to have those one trick ponies.
Speaker 3 00:37:35 I, I do too. And, uh, I suspect the Excalibur and the Excalibur is another, it's a, it's updated Sharpie essentially. It's got a nice big fat piece of glass on it. So I really like that. I love the beam shape. Uh, it's got a prism and, and, and a couple things in it where you can get some versatility out of it, but not too much. But damn what it does, it does really well. The color is gorgeous out of it. The beam of light is beautiful, like absolutely stunned with it. Love the fixture. Um, not a hundred percent sure I was going with all of this. So talking about the one trick pony being in the light and everything else, and then being good fixtures. I just did, there we go. Shootout. I just did a large shootout. I had the exception of Aton. Everybody's fixtures there and I already knew what the Aton stuff was, so I wasn't too worried about it.
Speaker 3 00:38:19 I would like to have seen it next to it, but I had the new Acme fixtures there because they're taken off right now. Uh, Jordan, if you don't know, there's a company named Acme that's coming outta China. And basically they've manufactured everybody's lights over the years. There's three or four different manufacturers that Martin or whoever will go to and say, this is what we're looking for. Here's a design of light. They go, okay, great. They machine it out, they create it, they stab the Mar Martin tag on it and it gets shipped off. Got it. So Martin doesn't actually create that light. Like the Axiom, uh, was one that DPS created and Martin said, we like that little license it in the States. So when you see 'em in Europe, it's the DPS axiom. When you see 'em in the States, it's a Martin Axiom.
Speaker 3 00:38:59 Interesting. And it just depends on who did the rights. So Acme now is a black box company, looks like v r was, and they're manufacturing their own lights. So they said, fuck it, we wanna push on the market. So they've been coming out with stuff and some very, very cool stuff. Some stuff not so good, but what they, what mostly what they're doing is doing really well. Um, so at Acme Chauvet, elation, very light Martin, all the usual suspects there. Um, and one thing that I said was, I would be happy to use any one of these lights, but we were looking for something specific and we were looking for something unique that had its own thing to it. We were looking for a magic panel. We were looking for a sharpie, we were looking for something. We didn't know what it was, but we're looking for something that was unique, that was bespoke, that we could bring it onto our show and have it be kind of its own little force.
Speaker 3 00:39:49 And that's what, like what we did with the VL six thousands and 65 hundreds, this big honking ridiculous light with a big fat piece of glass. It's almost more of a set piece than it is a light. But damn it didn't look great for our purposes. It was awesome. But we did, there's none of that out right now. There is, there, there's nothing that is that set piece. There's nothing that's a unique thing right now to kind of diversify your rig. So, and that's kind of goes back to my earlier point of what the lot of the companies did during the pandemic is get back to basics a bit. And I think you're seeing it in everyday life. Like here in Los Angeles, we used to never want for anything at two o'clock in the morning. But after the pandemic restaurants close earlier, they're staffed a little less.
Speaker 3 00:40:32 They're a little, they, they don't throw the kitchen sink at the wall anymore, pun intended, uh, to say, Hey, we're no, we're gonna be blowing the fuck up all the time. They're, everybody's a little bit more cautious right now. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So they're not willing to make these giant investments going back a few years. And I went to the Robi factory and talking to Joseph about, uh, they were having to possibly expand into a second, um, a second warehouse and a second manufacturing facility cuz they were getting so many orders and it, the mega point was dominating them at the time. Sorry, I'm trying to plug my computer in. Um, I said, well that's a great problem to have. And he said, well, you would think so, but it's actually a terrible problem to have because what if the market crashes in two years and I'm stuck with two manufacturing plants and a lot of people I have to pay mm-hmm <affirmative>.
Speaker 3 00:41:22 Well it'll be damned two years later we went through a pandemic <laugh>. You know, so, uh, you gotta feel that pain a little bit and you gotta understand where some of these companies are at and a long time without income. I told everybody, when you come back, don't start demanding crazy shit because it's gonna be literally whatever that sits at the back of the shop. That's firewood. That's what you're using. So that's what you're get to take. Cuz we're not buying anything right now. And that's what happened for a good year. Now we're starting to see investments again. Yep. But for a good year it was No, we've got that light and that's what you're using.
Speaker 0 00:41:53 <laugh> take it. Take it or leave it.
Speaker 3 00:41:55 Yeah, take it. Take it or leave it cuz we ain't buying shit. Alright, we'll take it
Speaker 0 00:41:59 <laugh>. But hey, that's where the creative side of things comes in. Take what you have and turn it into something that looks different than it did last time.
Speaker 3 00:42:07 I love handcuffs. I put, I put handcuffs on myself every, and don't take it the wrong way, Joe Mack. Hey yo, I put handcuffs on myself every time we go to program because it's like, okay, what am I not going to use for this song? What am I not going to do for this show? What am what limitations do I have set? How many lights can be on at one time? How many gobos am I going to use? Do you use, how many times am I gonna let that gobo spin during the show? How many times, uh, do I really need to accent the kick in the snare in the high hat during the show? Do I wanna do this every song? No, let's do this only twice in the show. You know, things like that. So I like putting handcuffs on myself so it doesn't just become, um, just rainbow bright festival of just garbage being spewed at you with no, with no real narrative in the lighting whatsoever.
Speaker 3 00:42:51 Just like, here it is. You know? So I like putting those kind of handcuffs. So if one of the handcuffs is a specific light, okay, cool, let's go for it. Let's see what we can do with this thing. I'm, I'm totally cool with that. Yeah, I like that kind of thing. When we're, when we're doing these tours for Metallica, PGP has been a long, long partner of Metallica. So we'll go, okay, we need this light. This is very specific, this is the one that we want. This is our workhorse. These positions here can be X, Y or Z X Y or Z X Y or Z. And let us know what you have in the shop cuz maybe something in the shop will work. We want them to make money, we want them to be successful, we want them to be able to continue to do this with us. Yep. Just like any other company. So I might pound my fist about this over here, but these guys over here not so important because is that dude in the audience gonna know that I just used a, uh, a Titan as opposed to an Sgm Q seven? No. You know, give a fuck. Does it fit into the design? Great. Does it do what I need it to do? Rad. Does it look nice? Awesome. Done deal. Now let's see what else we can do with it. The
Speaker 0 00:43:51 Funny part is, is I have no idea what two fixtures you just referred to <laugh>. And so that shows how far out of the game I have been like, like looking at lighting and everything else. So, um, I, unless No,
Speaker 2 00:44:02 That just shows you that, that shows you how many manufacturers have got
Speaker 3 00:44:06 Yeah. Elevated. I can't keep up with the net with the names anymore. I cannot keep up with the names of fixtures anymore. It's just not, it's like I heard a story recently that, uh, that a well-known TV designer, um, calls fixtures by his own name because he, he couldn't keep up with the names for years either. So in his head, this is a high end 10, this is a Martin four. So they have to have a chart at their office. Like, oh, okay. The Martin four is an aura. Okay, cool. You know, <laugh>, <laugh>, they have to have like a little chart whenever they talk on the phone to this guy cuz he does things like this. I just, I think it's funny but it's, it's symptomatic of what's going on right now. I cannot keep up. And the worst, the worst product line I have, I don't know why I have a disconnect with is all the elation stuff I'm having the worst time trying to keep up with Proteus Maxima, six Calibers, <laugh>, uh, uh, uh, Titanic Unis Artis rebrand
Speaker 2 00:45:07 Right there. You,
Speaker 3 00:45:08 I mean, I like the, I like the naming of it, but it's, it is so difficult to keep up and they just keep pumping shit out right now too. So
Speaker 0 00:45:13 Yeah. Lots of good stuff.
Speaker 2 00:45:16 Well, fantastic. Vango only, only got one yolk.
Speaker 0 00:45:19 Say that again, Joe
Speaker 2 00:45:20 <laugh>. I said the Van Gogh has only one Yolk. <laugh>.
Speaker 0 00:45:27 Awesome dude. Well Rob, thank, thank you so much for joining us today buddy. Um, thanks for having me. Love hearing, love hearing all of the great fun and exciting things that are happening and, and, uh, I think that, I mean, live is going to be live and it's going to be something that everybody's gonna wanna do. We know that entertainment or event or learning or whatever the case may be, nothing can replace a screen even with the stuff that we see, the, the Oculus or the headsets or mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, it, it just, it it gets close, but it will never be, it will never be the same. I mean, I don't even
Speaker 3 00:46:06 Think it gets close. Uh, honestly, I don't think it even gets close. I really don't. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:46:10 Well I was trying, I think there's, I was trying to be kind, but I mean,
Speaker 3 00:46:13 Well there's a, there's a giant difference between me sitting in my living room and turning on the Grammys right. And looking at all of these unique, um, singular performances and enjoying it and loving every minute of it and loving all my favorite performers doing that. Then sitting there and trying to watch them piece together in 90 Minute Show with no audience, no vibe, nothing in the room. Mm-hmm <affirmative> just painful. Yeah. You know, we had to do a couple of these for Metallica, uh, during the pandemic. One of them we did in a mountain winery with no audience with nothing. We managed to stitch together video in between some of it of clear calm conversations and guys doing guitar changes to make it a little interesting. But it, it did feel a little flat. The next one we did learning from that one, we did a virtual wall wrapped around the band in their studio, uh, that the fire play folks helped us out with.
Speaker 3 00:47:08 And it was 200 contest winners on the zoom wall around them. So you got to see people wrapped around the band and their reactions and then the band would talk to them on the wall and be able to have two a communicate. And that one to me was a bit more exciting. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> because we did have the audience interaction and that's so important. Watch these Grammy performances, watch any of these live TV performances. Half the excitement you're getting is from the crowd reaction. We all joke around about, you know, little Tay there, Taylor dancing to every song. She's a fan. She gets up and dances every song. She is, you know what? We find it endearing. We laugh our asses off that she gets up and dances at every one of these songs. The crowd goes nuts. People that are trying to be cool are going crazy over their favorite artists on stage. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And it's that audience interaction. It's that symbiotic relationship that the artist has with the fan and that the cameras have with the fan that was lacking during the pandemic, that we weren't allowed to do that. No amount of lighting or trickery or fuckery could ever take that away.
Speaker 0 00:48:08 Yep. That agreed. Very true. And that, I mean, that kick drum, when it hits there, you can't replace it. I don't like it.
Speaker 3 00:48:15 It just, man, you know, go to a pop show and let them make them hit that 8 0 8 for you. Yep. Wow. <laugh>, you know, go to an EDM show, have 'em do that same shit. Like, I'll sit out front and watch EDM artists all day. I know they're not doing shit. I don't care. <laugh>, I do not care. Play
Speaker 0 00:48:30 Play, you know, warms up <laugh>.
Speaker 3 00:48:32 I d I dare you to uh, look up the new Ben Danglish Swedish House Mafia show and oh, that's a great show and not be moved by it even on video. But the, but it's gotta have the crowd with it. But I mean, damnit what those guys do with their visuals, what they do with all their imagery and audio is just as important to them. And that whole experience and that vibe and the feeling of being in that tribe and everything else, that shit doesn't go away man. It's just as prevalent to me at almost 50 as it was when I was 14, you know? That's
Speaker 0 00:49:03 Right. I love it. Well, awesome dude. Well hey, thanks for coming in, love having you here and, uh, thanks having me.
Speaker 3 00:49:10 See you. Guys even from afar, great
Speaker 0 00:49:11 To see you as well. That's right man. And until next time guys, this is gig ready and we'll talk to you on the next time around.
