Week the Seventh: Switchfoot

I went to the Switchfoot Concert recently and took these two photos, not sure of which one to pick because they both show different things, but are literally seconds from each other. This first one is less bright, a lot of LEDs, lekos, and moving lights are used to choreograph the live music the band is playing.


This second photo is brighter because of the PARs that shining brightly onto the audience. Concert lighting is much different from dance or theatre lighting and I never noticed it before. The lighting does illuminate the band on stage, but a lot of the strong changes and music shifts are cued with lights that are acting shining out to the audience. Oftentimes in a very blinding manner. I was very surprised that so many PARs were used to achieve this effect.


 The colored lights that dance in conjunction with the music are nicely choreographed to move in rhythm to the music. Their colors change to represent the emotion of the lyrics. This particular song mentioned the ocean and water a lot. So the cool lights were very appropriate. It's very interesting how each means of art has a particular set of rules for lighting. And as for concert lighting? Who came up with this particular idea to shine raw light onto the audience to evoke the height of the emotions and changes?  I'm not completely convinced that the designer for this particular concert was successful in that because of how blinding it was. Which actually took me out of the song more since the lights were very over powering. And on that vein, I also wonder what could have been done to still keep the intensity but not blind the audience. Perhaps come from an angle that points upward and not down into everyone's eyes.