Sophia & William Fitzsimmons @ den atelier

21.05.2009 in Listen!, Touring! | No comments

No 24 hours after having seen the hard-rockers of AC/DC in Cologne, I’m back at home and in my favorite club. Sophia are playing at den atelier with support act William Fitzsimmons.
First of all, this man amazed me. He’s a gifted singer/songwriter who plays sad and slow folk songs, just he and his guitar. Buy his records (or download them on iTunes, whatever)

Sophia were great, the place was less crowded than their last gig in Luxembourg, but this time it seemed that only the fans where there, and less people who showed up without knowing anything about the band and the music. A circumstance that pleased me, an it felt like the band liked it too.

All in all a great concert evening, very different than the night before.

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AC/DC Black Ice Tour – Cologne, Germany 19/05/2009

20.05.2009 in Listen!, Touring! | No comments

I had the great luck to get tickets for this AC/DC Tour (german stadium concerts were sold out in 77 minutes). They are one of the few bands that one has absolutely to see in your life (or theirs) comparable to the Rolling Stones or for british heavy metal fans maybe Iron Maiden, too.

As a stage design adept, I was amazed by their setup. Even with exclusivly up to date gear being used, the influence of  a classic rock’n'roll stage with it’s tons of par cans was clearly visible as intended by the designers. Centerpiece of the stage was an impressive train influenced by a famous train accident in 1895 at the “Gare de Montparnasse”, Paris. In a animated video intro, the Rock’n'Roll train, was heading towards a city, when Angus was seduced by 2 girls who made the train derail. After several Pyro effects the LED Wall spitt and revealed the Stage and the train replica.

The lightning grid was inspired by the architecture of several train stations, with it’s large roof arcs. The many washes and Studio Beam fixtures gave the stage a neat rock’n'roll look.

The setlist had a reasonable lengt and all the most wanted songs could be found in the set. Angus’ solo in the center of the stadium was a real highlight and this not only because of the 6 follofspots used. The crowd was fantastic, all in all a great night and superb show.

Thanks to AC/DC and their road crew.
For those about to rock, I salute you.

Cologne - People waiting for AC/DC AC/DC Black Ice Tour - Stagedesign

AC/DC Solo AC/DC Stage - Hells Bells

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Mac III

4.05.2009 in Buy!, Touring! | No comments

A few weeks ago I had the chance to lay my hands on a brandnew Martin Mac III for an hour. Here my first impressions.

This fixture is big, and by big I mean enormous. The 2k was not a small fixture but this is definitly no kids playground anymore. The design is well done and everything looks nice which means it’s a fixture that you don’t have to hide because of its uglyness. :)

One thing I didn’t like was the new display. Even if the kryptographic 4 char messages were often not understandable and the navigation drove most people crazy, the shortcuts on the old Martin Menus were a great feature. Turn the display by 180deg and go to address 1 were usefull time savers. The known shortcuts seem to be missing (untill now) so that it took me 3 steps to turn the display around. That’s OK when you are standing with you two feet on the ground, but is annoying when your hanging somewhere on a truss.

After switching it on I was surprised by the brightness of the new Mac III. In a good way! The lamp is powerfull, the colors are, spoken in martin terms, astonishing even on the boundaries. Unfortunatly Martin kept the habit of putting unusable gobos into their fixtures. Third party suppliers will be happy, I am not.

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Pimp My Church 2009

21.03.2009 in Touring! | No comments

Hey there … as mentioned before, I assisted the “Providers – Coverband” at their concert at the St. Joseph church in Esch-sur-Alzette tonight. The local church organizes a festival concert style evening once a year, as far as I know for the fourth time this year, and it is the third time the providers play this place (3 in a row! yeay! :-) ).

The setup for lights is quite easy because the place looks gorgeous even before we capture the stage. The architecture in itself plays for us and makes nice looks a real no brainer. Due to the fact that the stage is set before the altar, we can change between a real impressive big look, by lighting the complete altar space or fade the whole scenery out and create a nice warm cozy look on stage.

Providers Coverband at Pimp My Church 2009

One thing is though that the space on stage is rather limited, so our musicians have to cuddle on stage ;-) . To make this cozy sitting room feeling even more realistic, we setup several old fashioned TV Sets on Stage, a nice place to show our usual big screen visuals.

The crowd was amazing, quite cold at the beginning of the show, but really on fire as soon as the setlist switched to some upbeat songs.

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pimp my church: first impressions

20.03.2009 in Touring! | No comments

setup is over. waiting till soundcheck finishes.

Upcoming Event: Pimp My Church 20.03.2009

16.03.2009 in Touring! | No comments

For about 4 years (oh my god time passes that fast) I’m touring with a coverband project (yeah I’ll do everything for money ;) ) as a light and video jockey. Most events are not worth blogging, and those that are are usually a matter of non-disclosure agreements.

But since 2007 they are playing a quite unique event called “Pimp My Church” taking place in … well … a church.This years edition is on 20 March and it’s worth having a look. So if you have no plans for this Friday night and are around the Luxembourg area, feel free to join us and hopefully have a drink with us at an aftershow party.

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Bieles am Jumm 2009

28.02.2009 in Click!, Touring! | No comments

Bieles am Jumm is a local carnival event, visited by several thousand people year by year. It takes place in 3 different venues, all with different kings of music and a different style of customers. The guys who organize this event really take care and even not being professional event managers, they set up a pretty neat feast for everyone to enjoy.

We lived now for a few days on the site and I’m proud to present some making of pictures, as well as some snapshots form a night to remember: Read the rest of this entry »

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How to address intelligent lighting fixtures dip-switch-style

26.02.2009 in DIY!, Touring! | 1 comment

Not so long ago I saw a setup with a lot of Martin Atomic fixtures … and by a lot I mean a lot (anybody heard of Tiësto? :-) ) This remembered me of the good old days and my beginnings in showbiz and the lighting industry. Actually one of the first things I was taught when I started was calculating in binary to address a lot of Martin RS812 Scanners. And it was so confusing in the beginning. Lighttechs were running around mumbling numbers, an there was not a single production without addressing mistakes. (I still can hear the sentence “Could someone hand me a small screwdriver? I can’t switch this %&ç*ç dip” :-) ) Those were the days.

I wonder if newbies nowadays still know how to use the dip-switches? If not, here’s the “maboo guide to binary dip-switch addressing”.

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