LONDON — Don’t let the flower-petal shaped LEDs fool you. Max Conwell, LD of Naked Eye, was looking for a visual accompaniment to the aural “attack” that is part of the vibe for Morrissey’s 2009 Tour of Refusal, and he has been using 12 i-Pix BB7 beam lights to give the visuals a “combative” aura. It’s the first time Conwell has used these fixtures into one of his touring designs — although he had previously used them to light the top of the “Gherkin” office building in central London, where the only available power supply was two 13 amp sockets.
For the Morrissey tour, Conwell is using the BB7s to provide a contrasting visual texturing from the moving lights, and as a major secondary lightsource on his minimalist rig. Six of the BB7s were rigged overhead on the back truss and the other six positioned on the floor, upstage of the band, for backlighting.
Conwell said he liked the fixture’s ability to look more like an incandescent source rather than an LED, due to the fixtures’ light engine, which homogenizes the source. “That, and the fact that you can strobe and chase them, exactly as you would a classic lightsource,” he said.
Conwell added that the fixtures have proved reliable and a real “life saver” for the smaller venues on the itinerary, which includes venues with capacities ranging from about 700 to 7,000 fans — and the cooler LED technology helps him avoid cooking the band members on the smaller stages.
In the U.K. the equipment was supplied by Neg Earth, and in the U.S. by Epic Production Technologies, which purchased the BB7s for the tour.
For more information, please visit www.i-pix.uk.com.
