Victor Zeiser Reunited With Intimidators At London’s Legendary Electric Ballroom
March 2016LONDON – Musicians love to play in Camden Town’s Electric Ballroom, even when their commercial success has taken them beyond the capacity of this 1100-person venue. Muse gigged here before their recent arena level Drone World Tour. Prince did a surprise concert on its stage one night in February 2014. The Clash, Red Hot Chili Peppers, U2 and Public Enemy, among others, have also performed at this venerable two-story building. A raw, unapologetic living reminder of angry guitar rock’s glory days, the 71-year-old concert site has undeniable character. It also has a house lighting rig replete with Rogue moving fixtures from CHAUVET DJ’s sister company CHAUVET Professional.
Lighting designer Victor Zeiser of Squeek Lights (New York) felt like he was meeting an old friend when he encountered this rig during a stop at Electric Ballroom on his UK tour with his client, the multi-Grammy winning They Might Be Giants. Zeiser often uses a variety of Rogues on his US gigs, but he didn’t have the high-output fixtures in his rig for the UK tour.
“It was great coming here and having Rogues at my disposal,” he said. “They’re amazing fixtures and I get a lot out of their output, speed and features like split colors and layered prisms.”
However, Zeiser wasn’t bereft of lighting power on his UK tour. In place of his usual Rogues, his rig included 10 of their cousins, the Intimidator Spot 355Z IRC from CHAUVET DJ. A powerful 90-watt moving LED spot with motorized focus and zoom, a 3-facet rotating prism and built-in effects macros, the fixture gave him the output, color, crisp gobos and varied effects needed to deliver a standout lightshow for his client.
“Taking a US tour to the UK provides some interesting challenges, the largest being that UK trailers are significantly smaller than trailers in the US,” said Zeiser. “The band wanted me to keep as much of the production intact for the UK run as possible while taking up much less space. I contacted Martin’s Lights (Reading, UK) for a solution, and they recommended that I take the Intimidator Spot 355Z IRC fixtures with me on this run.”
Zeiser had particular praise for the zoom feature of the Intimidator Spot 355Z IRC. “The zoom added a nice trick to these fixtures,” he said. “I could still do the wider gobo looks I like, and the zoom let me bring the beam tighter and do more ‘beamy looks,’ which cut through the haze. When I got here and saw the Rogue fixtures in the house rig, I felt that I’d come home. I wasted no time in incorporating the power and the stacked prisms of the Rogues into my show. Working the Rogues and Intimidators together was a great combination.”