Sonny Moore’s 2011 Mothership Tour consisted of 66 shows, 50 of which took place in the United States and 16 in Europe. Sonny worked with dozens of talented artists, producers, designers and engineers to create a three-dimensional set called the Skrillex Cell that blended perfectly with Skrillex’s 2010-11 albums My Name is Skrillex, Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites, More Monsters and Sprites and Bangarang. David De Juan Navarro, Director and friend of Sonny, explained that space and aliens had always fascinated the duo and putting on a show like this one gave him just the right amount of creative leverage to develop a story. Sonny states, “A good director could write a whole story about a doorknob. And the doorknob’s just a doorknob, but if the Director’s a good Director it’s beautiful, right?”
Phil Reynari, Chief Technologist, dives a little deeper into development and expresses how hard it really is to get all of the different aspects of the stage and technology working together. Every beam has to be placed into the stage at exactly the right angle in order for the lighting to project effectively. Image mapping was yet another part of the Mothership Tour, which involved the use of a suit designed by Bryden Lando of Future Heretics. The suit captures Sonny’s motions and projects them onto the screen behind him, transforming Sonny into a giant monster character named, “Ilgamesh.”
Take a look at the short documentary below and you’ll grasp a better understanding of why stage development is so key to electronic music, artists and audiences. One can only begin to realize the amount of effort that goes into shows as large as Tomorrowland, EDC and Ultra.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5zehetWR4Q
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