LONDON – LD Andy Hurst opted to use GLP 120 RZ impression zooms for Faithless' European arena tour at the end of last year. Hurst also incorporated 100 standard impressions into his rig for 30 Seconds to Mars' shows, led by Jared Leto. Hurst chose the gear to give the stages the fast-moving impact of a digital club environment. The concept was particularly apropos for the Faithless shows, which supported the band's sixth album, The Dance, marking 15 years of the Maxi Jazz / Sister Bliss collaboration.
Hurst selected a mixture of conventional and LED washes – detailing 68 of the impression zooms, mounted both on the main V truss and custom made floor towers (at stage left and right) for the chase and movement elements.
Hurst had noted that the impression's speed of movement makes the fixture well-suited to electronic and dance bands, and used about 120 of the fixtures for Prodigy's biggest-ever solo show at Milton Keynes Bowl last summer.
"Over the last couple of years I've done a lot of dance shows with the likes of The Prodigy, and the advantage of LED is the speed of it," he said. "If you're doing fast shutter chases through lamps, with LED there's no stutter as there's nothing physically opening or closing, so it's perfect.
"The GLP impressions are also very light, and therefore move very quickly – which is a further advantage. They are not far off the speed of a mirror which means you can take them from one focus to another very quickly."
Hurst's lighting array was spread over 12 lines of DMX and controlled from a Hog Full Boar with touch screen wing and a DP 8000 DMX processor.
For 30 Seconds To Mars, after Hurst had designed and programmed the show, Richard Larkum took over the operation and on-the-road lighting management. "As he had done such a great job on Prodigy for me he was perfect for this," said the designer.
The set was constructed around 10 16-foot floor towers and 10 24-foot flown towers – controlled by moving motors to create different truss looks throughout the show.
All the impressions used on the show were cabled and built into D3 truss along with strobes and color changers.
"The impressions were used as an effect light, to create patterns and movement within the show," he said. "The band generally favored cold colors – steels, fluro greens etc – but we did manage to splash some saturates in."
The lighting for both tours was supplied by PRG.
For more information, please visit www.glp.de.
Photos by Jessica Gilbert
