Journey is drawing the curtain on a 50-plus year career with the ‘Final Frontier’ farewell tour. At the heart of this sendoff is Follow-Me 3D, the manual performer tracking system that enables lighting designer Tim Routledge and his team to deploy fixtures across the entire rig to track all six performers on stage simultaneously, while maintaining the freedom to influence the look for every performer individually.
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Routledge approached the design by looking back at original Journey tour rigs for inspiration. Drawing on archive imagery of a circular truss with radiating spokes, he transformed the band’s previous rig into something far more ambitious: a three-dimensional central hub built from hundreds of LED blinders, giving the show a classic rock aesthetic delivered in a thoroughly modern way with full color-changing capability. Pre-rig trusses loaded with moving lights and banks of ACME Tornados extended from the hub, referencing the original par can bars of Journey’s heyday while offering the flexibility and dynamism expected of a contemporary production.
The fixture lineup featured ACME Lyra as the main moving light, alongside Elation SŌL IV Blinders, ACME Tornados, and Robe iForte LTXs deployed as key light. With 124 Lyras in the rig alone, the scale of the system meant the potential for Follow-Me to transform the show was significant.
Each of the six performers on stage were tracked using Follow-Me, with two unassigned targets for the drummer and keyboard player. The Robe iForte LTXs were chosen as dedicated performer tracking fixtures for their output and CRI performance, but it was Follow-Me’s fixture-agnostic architecture that truly unlocked the creative possibilities of the rig.
“Follow-Me gives us options over and above any other performer tracking system,” said Routledge. “Follow-Me is fixture agnostic so we can use it with anything, and then create these epic rock god looks with 30, 40 or 50 lights tracking a guitarist on a solo with wind-blowing-in-their-hair vibes.”
This was most evident in the treatment of lead guitarist Neal Schon’s celebrated solos. Rather than being confined to dedicated key light fixtures, Follow-Me enabled the team to select any light in the rig to track, meaning up to 30 backlights could simultaneously follow a single performer, strobing as they tracked across the stage.
“The real special part of using Follow-Me on this show was the ability to grab the whole rig and point them at a performer while they’re running around with a guitar,” added Routledge. “Any light becomes a follow spot that can track.”
Integrating a new design into an existing, long-established touring team required care and respect. Routledge and show programmer James Scott worked closely with the incumbent crew from the outset, conscious of the existing workflows that had developed around Journey over many years. Kevin “Deuce” Christopher, the band’s original LD now serving as production manager, proved an invaluable guide to how the band operates, the history behind production decisions, and the nuances of how the performers work on stage.
Calibration of the Follow-Me system was handled on site by Follow-Me technician Jon Fishman and Chris Lose, himself a Follow-Me expert, who had also served as the band’s lighting director on previous tours, making the integration process seamless. Fuse Technical Group was the lighting vendor for the tour, and provided the Follow-Me system, with A.C. Americas serving as Follow-Me sales partner for North America.
With 25% of the show running to timecode and the remaining 75% left open for free-flow playing and improvisation, precision was essential without being restrictive. Programmer James Scott brought a new level of timecode detail to the Journey show, pushing fixtures to their dynamic limits with vast shifts in lighting throughout. Follow-Me provided the reliable, responsive tracking backbone that allowed those creative ambitions to be fully realized, in both the tightly coded sections and the moments of spontaneous performance.
“This band has incredibly high standards, and so does everyone around them,” Chris Lose, Follow-Me designer relations liaison North America, concluded. “Follow-Me fitted seamlessly into a workflow refined over decades on the road with Journey. Seeing Tim and James take the show to a new level on this last tour, with Follow-Me at the core of it, was genuinely special. It's a fitting send-off for one of rock's great live acts.”
