After a collaborative process with the production team, Ungerleider turned to Solotech to provide him with the innovative lighting technology to best accentuate the R40 Live tour which included VL4000 BeamWash, VL4000 Spot, VL3500 Wash FX and VL3500 Spot luminaires from Philips Vari-Lite.
"Our designs always begin with a full production team collaboration and brainstorming session," began Ungerleider. "For this particular tour, an evolution concept was conceived about going back in time and deconstructing Rush from their earliest beginnings to present day. With our concept in mind we then turned to Solotech to be our tour provider for lighting and video along with their sister-company 4U2C. Once the backbone was all in play, I started putting my lighting design in place which would be filled primarily by VL4000 Spot and VL4000 BeamWash luminaires."
Having worked with Rush for over 40 years through 26 tours, Ungerleider knew exactly the type of design that both the band and their passionate fans would want to see. So as he started to look at the automated luminaires to use in the design, he got an intriguing tip that would put in motion the solidification of his Vari-Lite rig.
"I really like to use saturated colours in concert lighting and because of this my programmer Tim Grivas told me I needed to take a look at the new Vari-Lite Series 4000 fixtures," explained Ungerleider. "Open to the idea of looking at them for this tour, I went to LDI and saw a demo of the fixtures for myself. When I got to see the VL4000 BeamWash and VL4000 Spot, my decision became a no-brainer. These fixtures are truly fantastic because they are multi-faceted and I love their saturated colour."
He continued, "I'm using the VL4000 BeamWash luminaires in the upstage truss for their high impact going in and out of all three modes throughout the entire show," added Ungerleider. "I also use their animation wheel along with everything else they have inside and they look incredible.
"With the VL4000 Spots, I have a few of them placed in the upstage truss, but then I also have them on automated pods designed to fly over the stage on 5-foot truss pieces. From these positions, the lights give me a ton of options with a lot of versatility and tremendous power."
To complete his design, Ungerleider chose even more Vari-Lite fixtures with the addition of the wildly popular VL3500 Wash FX luminaires and the industry-standard VL3500 Spot luminaires.
(Jim Evans)
