The show's designer, Chris Lisle had been alerted to the new light last year, "I had seen a couple of YouTube links of the B-EYE prior to going to LDI last year." He said. "I knew right away that it would be a great fixture to use on One Republic. After seeing it in person, that feeling was confirmed. I had started to get the ball rolling with Dave Ridgway of Neg Earth as soon as I had seen the videos. He asked that I speak to Philip Norfolk from Ambersphere who represents Clay Paky in the UK market: Philip would be at LDI."
"Chris really wanted to try them out," explained Norfolk, "and when he told me One Republic would be coming to the UK in March I said we should have taken delivery by then and would bring some to rehearsals for him to try out." The week the tour rolled into Neg Earth's LH2 for rehearsals the first of the new lights arrived in the UK, much to Lisle's delight. "Philip and Dave Ridgeway worked hard together to make sure that we would be able to get the fixtures as they rolled off of the assembly line." Why the urgency? "Quite simply, its uniqueness - I had never seen anything like it before! The endless possibilities of playing with pixels and patterns, to the morphing that you can do with the zoom feature, and without a doubt the lens spin is an amazing effect. On top of all that, it's pretty bright as well!"
Lisle had to depart after rehearsals, but AJ Pen has had plenty of opportunity to exploit the light's innovative features. "My first observation is that they really hold their own as a large aperture beam light. The B-EYE is an excellent wash light and even though we don't use them in full seventy-five channel mode and do pixel mapping through them, we do use many of the in-built effects. As I said, first and foremost it's a very useful wash, you know how some lights come out that have effects and claim to be a wash as well? Most aren't, but the B-EYE certainly is. I like the lexicon of effects, the surface look adds a really neat texture to any stage. There's a lot more to it than some disco effect."
For Lisle the short run through the UK had other implications, "This was definitely a trial run for them, but after night one of rehearsal programming, I knew without a doubt that they were a keeper. I am already specifying them for use on the bands upcoming US tour this summer, and will definitely keep them around for fall as well. If anything, I am hoping that we can increase the amount that we have in our show." His experiences point to other 'keepers'
"Neg Earth was the vendor for the bands tour in Europe last year, so I had a little relationship with them already. I will tell you that without a doubt the customer service that we get from them is phenomenal. The prep' was one of the best that I had ever seen in twenty three years of touring, and the techs are all top notch. They definitely went the extra mile to take care of us."
Any concluding thoughts? "This fixture is super versatile. If you want it to look like a small range moving light (i.e. Mac 101), you can do so. If you want it to look like a large range moving light, you can do that too. For a programmer, the bag of tricks is deep, and the more you play with this light the more you realise just how much it can do."
(Jim Evans)
