AUSTIN, TX — The Summerland Tour teamed Everclear with alt rock bands Soul Asylum, Eve 6 and Spacehog. Everclear LD Rick ‘Shaggy’ Ehmcke, pictured here with HES’ Richard Belliveau, chose the tour’s Austin, Texas show at the Moody Theatre to demo High End Systems’ new Shapeshifter fixtures.
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Shaggy’s initial reaction to Shapeshifter was understandably positive: “I love Shapeshifter. What a incredibly cool piece of gear,” he enthuses. “I also got to test the fixture’s personality for my Avo console, and that was exciting. I ran the W1s off the Hog 4, but I ran the six C1’s from my Avo and they worked flawlessly. I really feel like I put some of my flavor to that moving light during this show.
Shaggy used a total of six C1’s and two W1’s. The LD explains, “I refer to this layout as the ‘ring of fire’. I had two color fixtures on the downstage edge on either side – as footblinder/kickers. Then there’s about eight open feet of mic positions, along with a keyboard riser and a drum riser that are each five feet off of center, so I put another set of C1’s on shorter road cases right there at the downstage edges of the risers, and another set of colors on taller road cases right behind the drums and keys. Finally, dead center in the gap between the risers we put the two W1’s, which made for some really fantastic back light on Art, as well as some really kicking strobe looks. They were amazingly punchy!”
Shaggy says the versatility of Shapeshifter puts it in a class by itself as a designer tool. “You can really get such versatility out of the fixture,” he points out, “and with proper programming time and a repeatable show, the vast amount of different looks LDs are going to come up with is going to be really cool. I’m looking forward to seeing how different designers will use Shapeshifter. Everybody has their own individual style, and that fixture can adapt to all of them.”
The fixture’s indigo backlighting capabilities were also a selling point for the LD. “I had a little time to research the fixture’s capabilities, and the indigo backlighter is even cooler than I imagined. You move those fins with just the indigo on, and it’s so groovy. You can’t do that with any other light! I really enjoy just lighting up the UV while waiting for the band to retake the stage – that sort of thing.”
With the limited time afforded, Shaggy did not use the fixture’s extensive macro functions. “I wanted to use the macros,” he points out, “but in the end I didn’t have much time, and decided to go with the things I do to moving lights, but if you had to ‘throw n’ go’ with this fixture you could quite easily.”
For Spacehog, Shaggy toned down his employment of the Shapeshifters to provide a different set of looks. “I used the Shapeshifters very intimately with Spacehog because they’re the first act of the show. On the tour, I’m running each band, and I try to make it look like there’s four different designers at FOH. As the night progresses I use different tricks for each band, and build the show throughout the evening, so we see a full evening of rock n’ roll, and nobody’s being neglected. I had a lot of fun being intimate with it, and then blowing it up. When I fired up all six of the floor Shapeshifters against the house rig. I was amazedat this new fixture’s immense power. With the Shapeshifters on full, the house rig had difficulty keeping up. It felt like a really awesome big floor package, and I’m not carrying one at all! Even four would make an amazing floor package. Again, it’s going to be fun to see what designers do with Shapeshifter. EDM is going to go one direction with it, whereas Bruce Springsteen’s LD could go in another direction with it, and both of them are right!”
