MILWAUKEE, WI — Amplifying the coffin motif on their latest release, Death Magnetic, Metallica’s current tour is getting visual life with eight 2-ton lighting structures equipped with 56 Coemar Infinity Wash XL lights. LD John Broderick says the idea was to go for “a more simplified look for the arenas’ rectangular stage-in-the-round.” The audience and performers are lit throughout the shows, and the bright, giant coffins create are part of that.
“The feel is tribal, in the sense that everyone is included,” said Broderick. “There’s not a bad seat in the house. So, that’s the job description for the look and mood Metallica wanted me to convey.”
The Wash XLs combine brightness with a narrow to wide zoom range — 5 to 84 degrees total — and also feature a new color mix system able to achieve CMY and RGB colors using Coemar’s CMY-s. The fixtures also feature a beam shaper rotating and indexing at 360 degrees, and electronically adjustable lamp power ranging from 700W to 1450W.
“I like the Infinity Wash XL’s moon flower effect, so I use it frequently,” said Broderick, who has been lighting Metallica for most of the last 20 years. “It’s a soft-edge light that has hard-edge characteristics.”
Premiere Global supplied the lighting gear for the tour, and Inner Circle Distribution ran-through instrument particulars with the lighting crew at the beginning of rehearsals and kept in touch. The lighting programmer is Troy Eckerman, and the lighting director is Rob Koenig.
Coemar fixtures are distributed in the U.S. and Caribbean by Inner Circle Distribution (ICD). For more information, please visit www.icd-usa.com.
