Lighting designer/director and programmer Thom Roberts has been working with the band for the past three years and is out on their current LoveFest tour, which runs until the end of October.
The band has been playing dates across the US since February, mostly weekends and mostly in large clubs and theatres with a few festivals and casinos on the schedule. Augmenting house or local lighting systems at each gig is an Elation lighting floor package of Rayzor Q7 LED moving heads, Sniper 2R multi-effect lights, Cuepix Blinder WW2 white light LED blinders, and Protron 3K strobes.
"The role of the Elation gear is to bring the 'wow factor'," says Roberts. "But there are specific features on every fixture we have that are important. On The Rayzor Q7's it is the combined LEDs that were the deciding factor, but the small size and low weight were also key. The Cuepix WW2 gives me a blinder with a color temperature that I love. They are not too hard on the eyes and give me an extra strobing fixture that I can point directly into the audience without killing them. And the Protron 3K strobes are monstrously bright and robust at a fraction of the cost of their competitors."
As a distinctive band with a unique look and sound, Here Come the Mummies are always looking for something new and different, Roberts says. "They specifically wanted lasers for this show but I convinced them that it was not practical in our situation. When I had asked my friend and local Elation product specialist/rep Chuck Dillingham to demo the Cuepix WW2 for me, he brought along a Sniper as well. I thought it was really cool and while it is not a true laser effect, from the audience point of view it has a similar impact. I went back and showed the band the Sniper YouTube videos and they were sold on them.
(Jim Evans)
