Beck "Summer Odyssey" tour

When Beck and Phoenix began planning their co-headlining “Summer Odyssey Tour,” Silva Artists Management reached out to Lightswitch to design Beck’s live show. This colorful summer celebration, which reflected Beck’s varied, innovative, and critically acclaimed body of work, visited arenas and outdoor amphitheaters across North America.

Because both the tour’s artists had agreed to use Phoenix’s existing set design, it was up to the Lightswitch team to create a unique show for Beck. We aimed to design a performance that was very visually distinct from Phoenix’s show, in order to reflect the artists’ differing musical styles and onstage energies. Our goal was to immerse Beck and his band in visuals as artistic, varied, and authentically impactful as his impressive discography.

To create new visual art pieces for this tour, Lightswitch worked with several artists, including Jimmy Turrell and Robert Beatty, from whom Beck has previously commissioned work. We also directed Paris and Brooklyn-based multimedia studio Superbien to create multiple new pieces that placed the band into multimedia, quasi-3D environments. Additionally, our team was responsible for many in-house media pieces, as well as designing lighting and lasers for the entirety of the show based on these new visuals.

Beck’s show exceeded audience expectations and delivered a high-impact visual experience that proved both genuine and fresh. Longtime fans raved about the concert’s design, while newcomers who’d attended the tour to see Phoenix were pleasantly surprised to be introduced to another prolific and stylish musician. Throughout the process, our team sought to embody the Lightswitch philosophy of Pragmatic Design, which involves balancing the client’s creative, financial, and logistical objectives. Guided by this ideology, we’re pleased to say we delivered a show that concert-goers will be talking about for years to come.

photography by Chris Medvitz & Cameron Allsop