News

Arcade Fire take XL to the suburbs

Posted on 15/08/2011

Shortlisted as one of 10 nominees for the prestigious 2011 Polaris Music Prize, Arcade Fire’s third album, The Suburbs, hit the No.1 spot in the UK, the USA and many other territories upon release, prompting the innovative Canadian band to add a European festival leg to their acclaimed world tour.

XL Video was once again appointed as a key production vendor for the indie-rockers when their latest tour began last year in the US, where Phil Mercer originally looked after the project management for XL from its Los Angeles office. In the UK and Europe, however, the supply of production video equipment and crew is being managed by Jo Beirne.

Richie Stembridge is Arcade Fire’s visuals designer and video director, and the stage screen design is a collaboration between him and lighting designer Susanne Sasic who also designed the set.

Onstage, the main screen is constructed from 49 panels of Pixled F15, which for all the indoor shows is covered by a custom silver spandex skin that diffuses images and gives the quality and appearance of a projected movie screen surface.

Situated above is the band’s ‘Marquee’ screen consisting of 96 Pixled F11 tiles built in to 16 of XL’s custom touring frames, which facilitate extremely quick rigging and de-rigging. This screen is bordered by strips of individual incandescent light bulbs, evoking a classic movie marquee feel.

Around Europe, where Arcade Fire have been playing on smaller stages at some of the more off-beat and unusual festivals, having a light, highly transportable and very easily rig-able system has been a “huge benefit”, according to Richie Stembridge.

His design incorporates eight Sony BRC 300 robocams. Six of these appear onstage with wide angle lenses while two are at FOH with tele lenses. There are also five static ‘lipstick’ cameras positioned around the drum kits and on the keyboard riser.

All 12 camera inputs are fed into two high specification Catalyst media servers, with everything running in composite allowing Stembridge to send 12 video inputs into each Catalyst. With 24 layers of control on each server, he can have a layer for each camera at any time plus a layer for playback content, giving him a hugely flexible system with which to mix the show live each night in his own very unique style — tightly cued in some places but with a genuinely organic and spontaneous feel.

The Catalysts are triggered from a Hog PC and run live on two playback wings, so he has a fader for each camera.
All the playback content was produced by Stembridge, who has now worked with Arcade Fire for four years. Some ideas and suggestions come from the band, but he is also given plenty of creative freedom to suggest and experiment with this, which is a stimulating creative atmosphere in which to work.

Stembridge filmed much of the new footage for this section of the tour on a Flip HD camera, which is perfectly suited to the slightly dirty, grainy and dramatic nature of the images on-screen. Some of the current content has been developed from last year’s tour, and has been edited and modified to fit the new screen layout.

The mix comprises roughly half cameras/I-Mag and half playback, following a surreal aura and the teasing out of complex threads to some of the songs in abstract ways which is simultaneously both cerebral and beautiful.

Stembridge has worked with XL Video on many previous projects and commented: “As always, XL is an excellent supplier. The service is brilliant, the crew are great and we are looked after really well — nothing is too much trouble. It’s really also good to have the continuity on a properly international operation when touring the US and Europe.”
Having already stormed Hyde Park on June 30, Arcade Fire return to the UK at the end of August to play shows at the M.E.N. Arena and Edinburgh Castle.

Arcade Fire website