The Dave Matthews Band have been touring beneath a rig with effects from Elation Chorus Line LED battens.
The lighting design was by Fenton Williams together with Aaron Stinebrink of tour lighting vendor TMS of Omaha, Nebraska. Both Williams and TMS have been associated with the Dave Matthews Band for over 2 decades.
The designers used 30 Elation Professional Chorus Line 16 LED battens in the rig, 15 on the backdrop truss and another fifteen just downstage of the backdrop on the floor. Stinebrink calls the zoomable RGBW colour-changing linear bar light a dual purpose fixture.
“We chose the Elation Professional Chorus Line due to the tight zoom angle you can achieve as well as being brighter than other products we tested,” he said.
The Elation Professional Chorus Line 16’s power comes from sixteen 40W LEDs that allow for use on large stage performances and enough punch to compete with bright LED video screens. Motorized zoom optics means it can be used to light set objects and cycs or backdrops and a 220° tilt motor function lets designers position the unit dynamically during a show. It also has full pixel control for direct eye-candy looks.
“The intended use in this Dave Matthews Band design is to light the backdrop,” Stinebrink explained. “But then they also tilt towards the downstage edge to create a wall of light that projects over the top of the projection set piece. The Elation Professional Chorus Line floor units also shoot under the same set piece in the same manner. We also use the floor fixtures to create a silhouette of the band due to the incredible zoom the fixture has. In the end, the feature set in the Elation Professional Chorus Line gave us a lot of options to use in a multitude of ways.”
Williams commented: “My favourite part of using the Chorus Line is the versatility it affords us in the rig. It has been a great addition with its individual cell control and tilt. The light will be a must-have on all of my upcoming shows.”
