Most of us spend our teenage years dreaming of playing arenas and
getting to do cool things like blow up a Tyranosaurus Rex on stage,
shoot lasers through your legs during a guitar solo and project images
of frogs being blown up like a Jodorwosky film. OK maybe those were my
teenage dreams but we still want to do something looks totally awesome
on stage. The good news is you don’t have to wait untill you get to the
arenas to do something cool on stage. The bad news is it just takes a
little bit of effort. Here are some ideas of how you can easily add some
cool visuals to your live show for cheap.
Light Show
You
know your stoner friend who hangs around your practices flicking his
lighter while you rock out? He probably would be the perfect guy to run
your light show at your show. This can mean everything from playing with
the lights that the club has while you play, to bringing your own
lighting rig which you can piece together easily.
TV’s
These
days everyone is throwing out a TV that isn’t flat or the size of most
small Manhattan aprtments. These TVs can be great to scatter around the
stage and play your film students collage videos on while you look at
your shoes and hide in your bangs pretending to be deep to you audience.
Even better is with some cheap wiring and knowledge all of these TVs
can be fed by one DVD player or computer and chained together.
Powerpoint Presentation
While
you may think of these things as something your nerdy Dad does when
trying to show quarterly earnings they can be a cheap way to project
images on something while you play. They can easily be synced up to
beats, events, the click of a pedal and do many color tricks if you
spend time with the program. Best of all is Google Docs will let you
make these for free if you just make a new Presentation. Either hook
into the clubs projector or get one yourself and bring along a laptop
and let your creativity take you where you want.
Projection
Man
a drugged out college band has played behind a white sheet while
projecting an Andy Warhol film in front of them. They have then looked
back at videos of themselves doing this and pretended it was not them
behind that white sheet. Despite this obvious faux pas it does not mean
you can’t get a projector and show some really cool images while you
play. Many clubs even have projectors and screens for them at the club
that you can use to pull this off. Bring your laptop and some cables and
you are set.
Doing It On The Cheap
We discussed all
of these creative ways to do this stuff, but this all costs tons of
money right? Lights, TVs, projectors can all be had for little to no
money by scowering friend’s basements, craigslist, eBay and sites like
Freecycle. With a little effort, creativity and hacking you can do some
really amazing stuff on the cheap.