One of the most anticipated rock tours of 2015, The Foo Fighters’ Sonic Highways Tour has just blasted its way through Australia and New Zealand. The band delivered many of their mammoth stadium anthems, as well as new songs from the Sonic Highways album, in two and a half hours of pure unadulterated, legendary stadium rock.
Lighting designer Dan Hadley produced an impressive light show that featured 48 x Martin MAC Viper Profile and 39 x Martin MAC AirFX Wash. Twenty MAC Viper AirFX are located directly above the band, another seven upstage centre, and twelve on the downstage truss.
“It was refreshing to see lighting operated with a real feel for the music,” commented Tony Davies, managing director of Chameleon Touring Systems who supplied the rig. “No gimmicks, no crap ….. just a solid good rock gig.”
Chameleon invested in a large quantity of Martin MAC Viper AirFX just prior to the Foo Fighters Tour with Tony commenting further “like all of the Vipers, they are low maintenance and deliver a high output, no wonder everyone wants them.”
The MAC Viper AirFX combines hard-edge, mid-air effects and a beautiful wash field in one luminaire. Featuring a great selection of all-new gobo designs, hard-edge effects remain stunning across the fixture’s entire 11 – 59° zoom range. Capable of snapping or fading into a wash light at any point, a unique and highly efficient optical system means the MAC Viper AirFX can offer the features of a profile at the output of a wash light.
“I believe that the Martin MAC Viper AirFX is the future of wash lights,” added Tony. “We have a shitload of them and can’t keep them on the floor as they’re so popular. I just can’t get enough of them, love them!”
The Viper AirFX has adopted the compact form, impressive speed, superior light quality and beautiful colors that the MAC Viper Profile is renowned for. It is also based on the same 1000-watt lamp for an output that convincingly exceeds any larger, heavier and more power-demanding 1500-watt profile fixture.
“Martin has always delivered my standby workhorse fixture for spots and washes,” remarked Dan Hadley. “The MAC Vipers were exciting enough but the MAC Viper AirFX does a better job of being a wash than a profile does when I want to switch it, but can also do things that the washes cannot. Also, I knew I would be doing quite a bit of cloning on this tour as we’ll be doing plenty of shows without our overhead rig, so I need to keep the rig easy to clone. I did that by calling the MAC Viper AirFX fixtures my washes and the MAC Viper Profiles my profiles. Martin products are always reliable, good and available worldwide.”
Photos: James Den-Ouden
