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As one of this decades most popular rock groups, Kings of Leon has recently toured Australia with their “Only By The Night” show. Kings of Leon whipped up a storm with sold out shows nationwide. All lighting equipment was supplied by Chameleon Touring Systems.
Lighting designer/director Ali Bale had no hesitation in specifying an Avolites Pearl Expert console to control lighting for the world wide Kings of Leon tour. Bale is a big Avolites fan and has used Avolites consoles for the last 15 years.
Bale has worked for Kings of Leon for the last four and a half years since he was originally asked onboard by co-LD and the show’s creative designer Paul Normandale. This latest tour is a co-lighting design between the two of them, on which Bale is also working extremely closely with video director Phil Woodhead and the live visuals director & Catalyst (digital media server) programmer/operator Phil Haynes.
The arena tour design is a creative fusion of video and lighting that illustrates first hand the concept of “convergence” between the two visual mediums. It also sees Bale, Haynes, and Woodhead all operating from the FOH position – to maximize synergy and communication for producing the show.
The lighting rig is based on 3 chevron shaped fixed trusses. Each truss has a cluster of Element Labs using VersaTUBE LED frames which are driven by Hayne’s Catalyst with Barco Matrix screen. Down stage had approximately 80ft of Matrix, 3 Panels Deep, Midstage and Upstage had 4 VersaTUBE LED frames. Lighting fixtures comprise of 20 x Martin MAC 700 Profiles, 14 x MAC 700 Washes, 20 x MAC 2K Washes, 8 x Atomic strobes with Colour Scrollers, 4 x Syncrolites, 22 x 4 Way Molefays – 6 of them were floor mounted and had Colour Scrollers on them – and 7 x ACL Bars. In addition to these were 6 Floor Cans with Colour Scrollers.
All of this is controlled by the Avolites Pearl Expert, on which Bale remarks, “It’s a perfect sized desk for an arena tour of this size – offering plenty of power and options without being at all over-complicated”. The two rollers enable him to split the rig between moving and generic elements which is very convenient.He first started using the Pearl Expert shortly after its launch at the end of 2007, initially on the Kings of Leon, followed by The Rifles.
“Like all Avo desks, it’s great” he says, “quick, easy and intuitive to program and operate”. He also comments that having the additional top row of 30 faders available makes “All the difference”, and it’s also great to be able to work with a small desk and within a tidy footprint. Bale always specifies Avo desks for his tours. The Avolites Pearl Expert was supplied by Chameleon Touring Systems. Kings of Leon have been on the road since June 2008, and the tour is currently scheduled to run until September 2009.
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