LONDON – In the words of one critic, The Backseat Lovers latest Capital Records album Waiting To Spill, “doesn’t sound like something a bunch of teenagers dreamt up.” Instead, it was, as he wrote, “a remarkable artistic effort.” Comments like these are repeated time and time again about the music of this young, Utah-based indie-alternative […]

NASHVILLE – At its best, art holds a mirror up to its times. Not one of the fun-house variety that distorts to flatter myths or scare up false demons, but a relentlessly realistic one that reflects things as they are, and through the artist’s perspective offers hope for how things might somehow become better. Such […]

THIRROUL, AUSTRALIA – Anita’s Theatre is no stranger to change. On Saturday December18, 1965, when the curtain went down on a double billing featuring Stephen Boyd in “Genghis Khan” and Carl Gonzales in “The Little Ones,” the classic venue, then known as the King’s Theatre, closed its doors after more than 40 years as the […]

MIAMI – How do you say goodbye to a legend? For the creative team involved in designing the production for Daddy Yankee’s La Ultima Vuelta tour, the answer was quite simple, you create something “fit for a king.” This was the directive that production designer Rodrigo Proal of Darmah Studios received when he was asked […]

BOSTON – When you come right down to it, every lighting designer starts a project with the same goal in mind: to reflect the client’s music in light. Sometimes this is done through a more literal representation of a song’s lyrics, at others it can be through conveying the underlying mood or the music or […]

OCALA, FL – When Mammoth WVH, the rock band formed by Eddie Van Halen’s son Wolfgang Van Halen, released their debut album in June 2021, their sound was hailed by critics as being, fresh, original and unique. Or, as one scribe described it, “no two tracks feel the same.” Around the same time, “Pawns and […]

NASHVILLE – It is every designer’s dream: to overcome the limitations of time and space and allow the creative vision that originally sparked a project to be expressed to its fullest. Steve Cohen and Bob Bonniol journeyed very far in the direction of this nirvanic state recently when they collaborated on the production and lighting […]

MONTERAY, MEXICO – “We have broken paradigms,” Sergio Lizárraga, leader of Banda MS once told an interviewer, referring to his band’s popularity, which has transcended all expectations to prove that banda music has unlimited appeal in today’s market beyond Mexico. Sold out shows before wildly appreciative crowds from Nashville to Las Vegas have provided convincing proof […]

LONDON  – Bigger isn’t always necessarily better, but it certainly helps when you’re lighting an iconic multi-platinum band at a venue like OVO Wembley. Martin Dudley knows this, which is why he added eight recently acquired CHAUVET Professional Rogue R2X Wash fixtures to his floor package for UB40’s recent UK arena tour. “We just acquired […]

NASHVILLE – There is a powerfully moving beauty that arises when the human creative spirit transcends barriers of time and culture. Such was the case not long ago, when Rebecca and Megan Lovell, the Georgia-born sisters, better known as the widely acclaimed roots rock duo Larkin Poe, and their mother were reading “A Tale For […]

MEXICO CITY – Featuring hits like “Vete”, “Yo Perreo Sola”, “Safaera,” Bad Bunny’s two-hour show on the recent “World’s Hottest Tour” delivered all of the power-packed passion that fans have come to expect from this Puerto Rico-born superstar. The Latin American leg of his sold-out tour included stops in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, […]

MILWAUKEE – Some venues just lend themselves to creating evocative looks on stage, believes Glenn Ottenbachker. That’s one reason why the lighting designer from A.G. Entertainment USA was only too happy to take on the project of lighting a shared headline show at The Pabst Theatre recently. Opened in 1895, the Renaissance Revival style theatre […]