Lighting Designer Ian MacDonald utilized a large complement of Xtylos fixtures, Claypaky’s compact beam moving light with a tailor-made RGB laser source, for the recently concluded US arena tour of multi-platinum powerhouse, Five Finger Death Punch (5FDP).
Five Finger Death Punch teamed up with Megadeth for the summer amphitheater run and Brantley Gilbert for the fall/winter Arena run. The tour reunited the hard rock and country rock artists who had previously partnered on the global hit, “Blue on Black,” in 2019.
Ottawa-based MacDonald, formerly Lead Lighting Director for Moment Factory in Montreal and the Lighting Designer for Suicide Boys, got involved with 5FDP before the Covid pandemic when he did a design that he was able to reprise for the band’s summer 2022 amphitheater tour.
“Initially, that design featured a different laser fixture, but we decided to use Xtylos instead, and they did great,” MacDonald reports. “So, when we changed the design for the arena tour this fall we added more Xtylos.”
“My objective is to create different looks for each song with layering and eye candy for fans,” MacDonald explains. 5FDP’s arena show linked their legacy and new music opening with a giant, inflatable figure-eight snake – representing the band’s eighth album cover art – as a backdrop behind the band and ending with a kabuki drop that revealed their just released ninth album, AfterLife, as the band performed the new cut, “Welcome To The Circus”. Pyro and smoke effects contributed to the dynamic mix onstage.
“We hung 18 Xtylos above the band and had 10 on an eight-foot riser upstage of the band,” says MacDonald. “I used them strategically to get the most out of them, sprinkling them into songs to create impact and deliver a real wow factor. I think they had the biggest impact in the intro to ‘Sham Pain’ and in a keyboard patch where they worked really well for accents.”
He notes that “the Xtylos’s colors are really good: Some fixtures lose their effect when you’re shooting for distance. But these had a continuous beam with impressive deep blue, red and green saturated colors. They really had a lot of punch.” Christie Lites provided the fixtures and holds its own variance for the use of the laser-source fixtures so they can provide a technician for projects, such as 5FDP’s arena tour. MacDonald adds, “The Xtylos performed really well, and we had no issues with regard to maintenance. I plan to continue to use Xtylos for 5FDP and will consider putting them into the designs I do for other artists.”
Further information from Claypaky: www.claypaky.com
