Chauvet & ChamSys light Killswitch Engage
- Details
The longtime designer for KSE, James describes the process this way: “Killswitch on stage has no brake pedal. Even during tuning breaks, it's a full-on experience the entire time. The lights have to reflect that. When the band is coming at you at 100 mph, so should everything around them on stage.”
When lighting the band’s recently concluded 32-city Atonement Tour 2022, James powered his Chauvet Professional anchored rig with a ChamSys MagicQ MQ250M and extra wing.
Innovative strobing played a big part in James’ design vision for this busked show. Reflecting the band’s intense sound, he conjured up a varied mix of bold strobing looks, mixing in different colours and coming at the stage and audience from every conceivable angle with bright bursts of light.
“Strobing comes with the territory when you light this group,” said James. “Strobing in colour is really out of necessity if I were to go to white every time I wanted to strobe during the show, I might as well build the entire show in full open white. I strobe from different directions, because I want everyone in the building to experience the show the same way. whether they’re standing directly in front of the stage, or on the side.”
The lighting rig, supplied by JDI Productions, included eight Maverick MK1 Hybrid and an equal number of MK1 Spot fixtures, as well as 12 Rogue FX-B units, 10 Rogue R1 BeamWashes, and eight STRIKE 4 multi-format fixtures.
“I had a single MK1 Hybrid and MK1 Spot in a 5-foot HUD Truss on either downstage corner of the stage that I used for side light,” detailed James. “The 12 other pieces of these fixtures were upstage in three double stacked 8ft HUD Truss sections. The MK1 Spots rode in the bottom row and the MK1 Hybrids ran across the top. I used the six spots for a lot of back light looks and the six Hybrids did most of the aerial work.
“As for the Rogues, I had the FX-Bs mostly upstage to please the crowd with eye candy,” continued James. “The R1 BeamWash were in every spot I could fit them. I used them mainly as my stage wash to make sure I always had a decent amount of colour saturation.”
