Remember that video I posted a day or so ago about The Killers at the EMA’s?

Well, thanks to reader Quidam, I have another source that looks awfully similar to that design:

Etienne De Crecy Live 2007 Transmusicales de Rennes from Clement bournat on Vimeo.

What do you think?  I can respect mimicry as honorable, but does this fit that category?

Did you know that the new The Killers album dropped this last week?

I found a video on YouTube of their performance at the EMA’s a little while ago - check out the projections, the content, and the general orchestration of the light.  Awesome!

MA Lighting had one of the more visually stunning booths this year, in my very humble opinion.  Big viz screen and ads, lots of people, and the new Grand MA 2.  What a desk - what a pre-viz built in, too!  I was looking at it with Mike Zinman of ZInmanCo, and the comment about how fanf&%$*tastic that console was came up a few times.

I took a bunch of pics of the MA Lighting booth - check them out:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Okay.  If I wanted to make my blog look like a cheap R-rated piece of crap, I would be saying HOLY SH%&, SONOFAB&%$, MOTHERF%$#*&^%^$%, and few other choice phrases about what I just read and saw.  Amazing.  I am so freaking thrilled right now, becauseI have always wanted the kind of lumen magic that a Catalyst provides when hooked into something like a Christie X-10, but then throw it on a yoke.

This is what I read.  It’s the product page on the Barco DML-1200.  It’s a 12,000 lumen digital light.  You have to see the specs:

The DML-1200 is the first moving digital luminaire which can truly be used as both a super bright, moving light source and a high quality video projector.

In light mode, the DML-1200 produces a perfectly circular light beam with a light output equivalent to that of a 1200W hard edged moving light – 12.000 field lumens and the brightest digital light on the market today.

In video mode, the DML-1200 features a fully sealed DLP engine which delivers full color DLP quality video with SXGA+ (1400 x 1050 pixel) resolution. With a light output of 10,000 center lumens, the DML-1200 is the brightest digital light on the market today.

An internal optical dimming mechanism ensures smooth, accurate intensity control from 0 to 100% ensuring that that your fade to black is a true black, not video black (grey).

Being digital, lighting designers are no longer limited to static, pre-selected patterns and colors. Any image, static or animated can be created and projected. All images are generated by the onboard media player, controlled by DMX512 or artnet protocol, from the lighting console.

With its brightness, unlimited image selection and the ability to seamlessly switch between video projection and light mode, cue by cue, the DML-1200 provides designers pure creativity at their fingertips delivering a truly unique show for every event, client and purpose.

The DL2, awesome.  It’s 6500 lumens.  The DL1?  I’ve used it a bunch, not a lot, but it’s 5500 lumens.  We’re talking twice a DL1.  It makes me wonder how all of the concert goer experiences I had in the early part of the 21st century would have been with 10,000 lumens of video.  Wow.

That’s pretty awesome, Barco.  So now my imaginary dream rig has some of these and some Bad Boys.

Go check out some video on this monster.

This Madonna thing has got me thinking about the older truss collapses that have happened in the past - even though nothing really bad has been confirmed yet with the Madonna thing.  For those of you who read this blog and do not come in contact with regular amounts of lighting and rigging gear, the pictures below are what happens sometimes when rigging gear fails while loaded down with lighting gear…

In 2003 in Atlantic City, NJ at the Boardwalk Hall, the Justin Timberlake/Christina Aguilera show that was close to soundcheck underwent a major catastrophic failure of the venue’s supertruss.  The show’s systems, which were rigged to that truss, rode it down to the ground and smashed nearly every bit of the show’s gear.  A few people were hurt, but only minor injuries were sustained (from what I understand), but the show’s gear was a major failure.

Here’s some shots of the disaster.  Next time you’re at a show, remember that the people who’ve rigged this stuff above you are professionals, and be glad that they are.

It looks like something happened to Madonna’s roof structure on the latest tour, Sticky and Sweet 2008, on the Dodgers Stadium according to TMZ.  They had a picture posted of the “mishap,” and I am still trying to get details.  Something tells me it will be hard to find, but I will keep trying.

I just got this off of the AP, and I will post more about it as soon as I know.

Madonna says LA show will go on as scheduled

NEW YORK (AP) — Madonna isn’t going to let lighting and technical issues keep her from performing at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

A statement from her publicist, Liz Rosenberg, says construction of the singer’s stage came to a halt Wednesday due to an equipment malfunction.

Although damage to the top of the stage created several lighting and technical issues, Madonna decided to go ahead with Thursday night’s show.

In an e-mail to The Associated Press, Madonna says: “Even though my stage roof was damaged and some lights and effects aren’t working, I want to do the show anyway because I don’t want to disappoint my fans.”

An article at PLSN this week tells of James Blunt’s current tour, and how seven Mac III’s are out on it, getting run through the paces.  Paul Normandale of Lite Alternative in England designed the Mac III’s into the rig, high on a circle truss.  Normandale, the lighting, scenic, and video director of the tour, said he chose the Mac III’s because he was looking for ‘a bright hard edge fixture for venues with trim heights of up to 48 feet, and he needed a powerful spot to go with the Martin LC Series LED panels.’  From the article:

“I’m impressed,” Normandale said, of the 1500-watt profile spots. “The fixtures offer a significantly brghter tier of lighting, a great wide aperture source, a dramatic zoom, real strobing — and finally a real red.”

Normandale also commented on the output and zoom of the Mac III:

“Even at extreme zoom it has light to spare from a trim of nearly 50 feet across a video wall,” Normandale said, of the MAC III’s ability to punch out more than 33,000 lumens.

A press release at BARCO talks about Paul Rodgers and Queen’s latest tour, “The Cosmos Rocks.”  Why is this a big deal?  I asked myself the same question until I read about the OLITE 612 LED display that’s on this show.  From BARCO’s product page:

The new OLite 612 has a pixel pitch of 12mm and has increased brightness output of 6000Nits. It also incorporates a revolutionary new shader design which vastly improves the black levels of the display especially in broad daylight. When combined with the increased brightness, the OLite 612 delivers vastly improved contrast levels.

Ok, great.  So?

Well, the “so” in this part of the conversation comes from how much detail the OLITE screen emits, being as though it was designed for IMAG (that’s Image Magnification, or a person on a screen behind a person on stage to the layperson).  It’s bright (6KNits), it’s huge, and has lots of processing power.

“The Cosmos Rocks” tour has been designed by reknown design firm, Stufish, out of London.  You might know Stufish’s work if you’ve ever been to a Pink Floyd concert in the last decade or so.  They do huge, amazing, and beautiful work - for just about everybody it seems - at one point or another.  Janet Jackson, The Stones, Pink Floyd, Juanes, lots of stuff for MTV, grand architectural openings, etc.  From the article:

The stage set for the tour was created by renowned design company Stufish, who has created stage designs for Pink Floyd, U2, The Rolling Stones and many others. The giant backdrop screen, which forms the key visual element to the show, measures 17m wide and 5m high and contains 2,500 OLite 612 LED modules.

“Barco’s OLite 612 fitted our design perfectly”, explains Mark Fisher, Managing Director at Stufish. “We wanted to present the audience with a spectacular video and light experience befitting a band of this statue. OLite’s modularity once again enabled us to create something very special with a unique mix of video and lighting effects.”

That’s right folks, my beloved favorite band, Phish, is returning for a series of three shows at Hampton Coliseum in March.  We signed up to get reserve tickets for all three nights, so let’s hope that we’re successful!

Look for more information in the coming months - even lighting designers have their favorite shows - the ones where we can stop saying “oh hey look, a Vari*Lite 3500 series” and just rock and roll.

In celebration:  a video of the hottest jam of my favorite tune, “Reba.”  New Years Eve, 1995.  Enjoy.