Alphaville play Whisky A Go Go with Rogues
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“This was a dream come true not only for Alphaville, but also for many of their diehard fans in the US,” says Richard Kay, who has been with the band as its lighting designer since 1998 and has toured 91 countries with them. “The whole experience was a bit surreal – LA, Hollywood, palm trees, who wouldn’t love it? Marian Gold (the band’s lead vocalist) always wanted to perform at Whisky a Go Go. We were on tour in the US last year; we all knew about Marian’s dream so we did some sniffing, met some people – and presto, here we are!”
Kay adds: “Whisky was very different from the larger venues we typically play at. Space is at a premium on the stage. I Skyped Raffi Ganounian at Neptune Productions, the producer, to get as much information as I could about the venue and the house rig. What I learned was that the stage here is small, and it’s in a corner.
Complicating matters for Kay was the 15’ trim of the venue’s house rig, which limited what he could hang from a floor package. “Luckily, Whisky had just added four Chauvet DJ Intimidator Spots and some flat spots to the house rig,” says Kay. “That served as a good foundation. Then it became a question of which fixtures to add for eye candy? The Rogue FX-Bs were my obvious choice, because I could do so many different things with them without taking up a lot of valuable space. They were my main show fixtures.”
Drawing on the infinite pan and tilt rotation of the Rogue R1 FX-B’s five individually controlled moving heads, Kay relied on the compact fixture to create “loads of geometric patterns,” as well as ripple effects, sweeps and downstage light curtains. Thanks to the output of the fixtures, he was also able to have them serve as blinders.
(Jim Evans)
