PARIS — PRG noted the debut of its Bad Boy luminaire on the recently completed first leg of the Oasis Dig Out Your Soul tour. “The Bad Boy was just what I had been looking for—a big bright large-format luminaire, that could be used as a narrow washlight with a couple of gobos as a bonus,” said LD Rob Gawler. PRG has been supporting the band’s tour from a Roman amphitheatre in Vienne near Lyon, France to stadiums in South America, with dates throughout Asia, Mexico, Western Europe, the U.S. and the U.K. The tour is the most far-reaching for Oasis yet, bringing the band to several countries for the first time, including dates in Lima, Peru and Taipei, Taiwan.
Gawler turned to PRG’s Concert Touring group knowing it could effectively handle the global aspect of the support as well as the wide range of venue types. PRG adds that its Bad Boy provides “48,000 lumens with precision speed and control over color and gobo changing as well as spot to flood zoom and full-field dimming.”
“The units worked great ‘out of the case’ and I was pleasantly surprised at how many different beam looks I could really get out of the unit,” said Gawler. “I was initially a bit unsure about the fixed color mixing but it is working out fine, in fact it is nice to see all eight lamps the same color rather than the three or four hues that you get with some of the ‘true’ color mixers.”
PRG also noted that the fixture’s features meshed well with Gawler’s design. “I wanted a design that would fit into a number of different venue formats and scale between them well, without compromising the overall look,” Gawler said. “I knew I wanted to use a selection of contemporary fixtures but to create a look that is reminiscent of a more progressive, psychedelic period.”
Gawler added that “it’s relatively simple to hang and once it’s up there it is going to work. I especially like being able to zoom it down to an almost parallel intense spot beam, or when I drop a gobo in and zoom it out, it just keeps going, until you have a sharp image covering a surprisingly large area of stage, cyc, or even the back of the house. It may seem a bit big in the road case but the power consumption is reasonable. And the status display on the fixture is intuitive to use, as well as informative. While the units we have out on Oasis have proven very reliable, it is clear that maintenance has been carefully considered.”
Gawler is now preparting for the next leg of the tour. “The challenge is to put on a consistently good show, without being dependent on rigging capacity, load-in time and specific production elements. It has been an exciting design challenge and PRG’s Concert Touring group has been fantastic to work with—they have provided good kit, fantastic crew and great support.”
For more information, please visit www.prg.com.
