The MAC 2000 Performance is the main profile spot on the show and Watson uses its graphical features extensively. "I love the Performance fixture mainly due to the animation wheel," Watson stated. "It enables you to give such a fantastic direction to the energy and light you're using. We use that quite a lot, probably more than we use gobos. It tends not to be spectacularly dark when we start the stadium shows - a lot of the time you don't see the beams right at the beginning - so a lot of the gobos aren't actually that visible so it's more about texture and the artist and where that light ends up."
Watson uses the animation wheel as a combination of aerial effect and targeted effect. He explains: "We have eight Performances on either side of the stage on staggered bars, some on the front truss, and three sets of four on 'quads' which are moving lighting pieces mounted on three curved trusses used to create different levels of truss and different dynamics. Those Performance fixtures may all be pointed down to the band doing a moving texture effect but the animation will be angled so the audience looks straight across the animation. They do an aerial effect as well as a dynamic movement effect across the band or indeed across some of the metal set structures or on the back line on the cyc themselves.
"If you take a gobo and rotate it in smoke, if you don't have a huge amount of light, the differences between the layers where you have got the gobo and the part where you don't have as much gobo aren't that distinct necessarily. But if you get the animation wheel with the radial breakup and you look into the beam or across the beam you have areas of light then nothing, light then nothing - it's dynamically moving. This dynamic lighting feature fits well into higher ambient light conditions."
The MAC 2000 Wash units are the workhorse light on the show and are located throughout the rig. The front truss rotates between Performance and Wash fixtures, with either light used to light the band, cycs, audience, set, etc. A large number are located on the quads, as well as an on a back drape exterior cyc truss lit top and bottom by eight MAC 2000 Washes. 2K Washes are also used for top parallel lighting from the top truss and for aerial fan looks on the run to the floor."They were chosen because we love them," Watson stated. "We use PC lenses and get such a beautiful beam. Even in the UK in the summer in almost complete daylight I can still use them with some haze and create complete looks using 2K Washes." Despite quite a few UK dates with a good amount of rain in which the MAC 2000 Washes got soaked several times, the gear has held up very well, he stated.
Other gear includes James Thomas Pixelines, Syncrolite SX 3kW, Barco DLite 7 LED video screens and La Maitre stadium hazers. Lighting control is from two Wholehog II consoles with wings and PixelMAD software to run the James Thomas units, coupled with two Catalyst systems.
(Lee Baldock)
