Lighting Case Histories
Entec Lights System Of A Down
West London based lighting & sound rental company Entec supplied lighting equipment for the recent System Of A Down European festival tour, which saw the Armenian-American rockers return to the stage after a five year hiatus, taking up a series of headline festival slots and playing some of their own shows, for which they toured an extensive 'extras' package.
Entec was asked onboard by US-based production manager Chris Roberts, who comments, "The service was great ... and Noreen is a Godsend," referring to Entec's semi-legendary project manager and account handler, Noreen O'Riordan.
Pete Schofield from Entec went out to look after the equipment and ensure the lighting designer Mark Jr Jacobson was happy and smiling. The idea was to replicate their US touring rig as closely as possible.
Says Schofield, "It was a great tour to work on - fabulous people, excellent vibes and the shows went down a storm".
Entec supplied an eclectic mix of lighting kit including 6 x High End Showguns, 12 x Robe 8-lite LED blinders, 12 VARI*LITE 3000 Spots, 10 VARI*LITE 2500 Spots, 43 Martin Professional Atomic strobes all with scrollers, 15 x CK ColorBlaze LED battens and 9 x Martin 301 LED wash moving heads.
The amount of strobes were symbolic of SOADs hard driving energetic performance which encompasses a whole variety of genres from experimental to power punk to metallic rock - and were used to great effect.
The 301s were positioned on the floor along the front monitor line to provide a blanket wash of LED, while the strong and powerful back lighting came from 10 VL 3000 Spots, 11 Atomics and the ColorBlazes all upstage on the deck. The ColorBlazes were also used as smooth up-lighters for the backdrop. About half a metre downstage from these was the 'power' row of VL 3000s alternated with the 11 Atomics.
This floor package went into every show, along with the grandMA full size console, grandMA light for backup and 2 x MA NSPs (network signal processors).
Added to the existing (locally provided) air-based lighting rigs at each event/venue in the air was a rear 60 ft GP truss, rigged with 2 kabukis, plus another 60 ft truss in front of that with another kabuki, the 6 Showguns and the 12 LED blinders. All the rigging, motors and control for these, plus the kabuki drops and mechanisms were brought from the US.
Downstage of the mid truss were two 10 ft square 'pods' made out of 12 inch truss, which were internally toned - along with the two straight trusses - with a total of 16 i-Pix Satellite LED bricks from Entec.
On the downstage edges of each of the pods were three VL2500 Spots, and on 4 runs of upstage/downstage scaff traversing each pod, were 4 Atomics and scrollers. The pods were both on a motion control motor system that was also brought from the US.
All the touring front lighting was therefore from the floor, and additionally, they hooked into whatever 'production' lighting systems were available at the venue or festival, and integrated with their rig.
Schofield worked alongside SOAD's touring rigger Fred Jacques and dimmer-minder Bart Buckalew, who came into Entec's warehouse and helped prep the rig.
The most challenging show proved to be at Provinssirock, Seinajoki in Finland, where they arrived at midday and the first band were on at 2 p.m. Working like greased lightning, they rigged and flew the Showgun truss into the roof before the first band, then Schofield built the pods backstage. The rest of their lightshow was rigged onstage during the various changeover periods, and was all patched, pre-focus updated and ready-to-go for their headline performance.