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Metallica Rocks Europe with Flares and ProPlex

Europe – The more things change, the more they remain the same. Before there was even a European Union, Metallica was bringing aggressive thrash metal into the mainstream. This month the legendary California band begins an extended European tour, shredding the continent through May 2018. While the music is Metallica’s unique brand of traditional metal (and may it never change), lighting technology and control has come a long way since Metallica’s first gigs. The tour uses 50 Solaris Flare LED fixtures, and DMX distribution based around four ProPlex IQ Two 1616 Ethernet-DMX nodes, all supplied by Premier Global Production (PGP) of Nashville, Tennessee.

“The Flares are used 99% of the time for blasting the crowd,” says Geddy, PGP’s design manager. “Located atop the main centre cube structure and cable bridges, we’re hitting the audience all night with whites and saturated colours. About one-fifth of the Flares are the new brighter Q+ version, which we find mix perfectly with the original Flares. The Q+ Flares can be calibrated to match the earlier generation units, but we found that simply running them in theatre mode works just fine; you can’t see the difference between the old and new. Even with the Flare Q+ ‘padded’ a bit, we have all the brightness we need. And what you would expect at a Metallica concert. We have two other rigs out with Flares at the moment and we’re always looking for more. We can’t get enough of them!”Geddy adds: “A large part of our data networking is handled with ease by four ProPlex IQ Two 1616 nodes. We’re using 18 universes of DMX for lighting alone, plus additional data for video and motion gags. These ProPlex units have proven their worth on the road, simple to operate yet very powerful, built rock solid and extremely dependable.”

photos: Jeff Yeager / Brett Murray

www.tmb.com

22nd September 2017

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