GLASGOW, U.K. — Lighting designer Jonathan Armstrong, a.k.a. “Leggy,” is using 21 i-Pix BB7 LED wash lights and 19 i-Pix BB4 blinders for Bloc Party’s Intimacy world tour, the first time he’s used either fixture on one of his shows. “I wanted to keep everything soft edged in keeping with the ‘intimacy’ theme, so I decided to go for an LED-based rig and use the BB7s as the main stage wash light. I knew they were bright but I have been really astounded by just how bright, and how efficiently and easily they can cover the whole stage,” he said.
There are four BB7s on each side for front and stage washes and four on the floor behind each musician, for silhouetting and other backlighting effects. The remaining nine BB7s are arranged on an inverted triangle on the back three trusses, which is normally a main truss with two sub hangs. This configuration can also be used as ‘specials’ for festivals later this year.
Fifteen of the BB4s are positioned on the floor in a straight run across the back of the stage, used for a wall-of-light effect, with the other four used as footlights across the front of stage. “This gives me the option of lighting entire songs just with LEDs,” Leggy said.
The rig also contains Studio Beam moving lights, Source Four profiles, 4-lites, strobes and four floor PARs.
Leggy uses the color range of the BB7s, particularly the pastel and more off-beat shades and hues, in single-color looks that go with Bloc Party's rocky urban sound.
“I can get a massive variety of effects from the BBs,” he said. The fixtures hide the LED point sources, giving them a look more like incandescent sources.
Using the Effects Engine of his Hog 3 console, Leggy also gets chases going around the seven individual cells of the spherically-shaped BB7s.
Bloc Party is scheduled to be touring and performing live throughout 2009. The gear for the U.K. is being supplied by Neg Earth, and Leggy is working with crew mates Gus Kidd-Stanton and Craig Lewis.
For more information, please visit www.i-pix.uk.com.
