And Entec boost European tour by purchasing award-winning X4 Bar 20 battens

 With his controversial stage persona Marilyn Manson will always be a major box office attraction, and the announcement of his latest tour has been no exception. The band embarked on a series of pre-Christmas, pan-European arena and theatre shows followed by a US tour with French LD, Nicolas Riot (of Chirac Design) — a recent recruit to the creative team.

Riot — hitherto better known for his work with French metal band Gojira — has been using ground-breaking LED fixtures from GLP, including 15 x JDC1 hybrid strobes and 35 of the award-winning X4 Bar 20 battens in the set design.

All inventory was supplied by the band’s regular vendor, experienced UK rental company Entec Sound & Light. Their MD (and Head of Lighting) Noreen O’Riordan confirmed that while this is the first time Entec has worked with the lighting designer, they have a long-standing relationship with Manson’s production manager Matt Doherty. They purchased the X4 Bars in response to the LD’s rider. “We know the product is a good one, having successfully rented them for use on other shows,” she explained. “The current Marilyn Manson tour presented us with the perfect opportunity to commit to a purchase.”

Yet it was the JDC1 that has caused the biggest stir, after Marilyn Manson himself was adamant he wanted them on the show. But more of that later.

Prior to this stint, Nico Riot had covered only a handful of shows with the band after dates in the States were suspended after Manson injured himself while performing on stage.

His introduction to GLP’s new hybrid strobe could not have been more unusual. Although he had noticed references about the product on a French magazine website, it was Marilyn Manson himself who demanded the JDC1 strobe. “I wasn’t really aware of the product to be honest until Matt Doherty emailed me saying ‘Manson wants that strobe’. I have no idea how he found that product but I checked right away on the GLP website and instantly knew that something cool would come out of this product when looking at the specs.”

He has been using 15 units — divided between upstage and downstage — but says he wished he could have secured more.

“I tried the rig with the ChamSys MagicQ pixel mapper and I was really excited about the result. I made three different layers of Pixmap, one per section, and the result was intense.”

The three different dimming sections were assigned, one as a Wash part, one for the Strobe and one to control the pixel map section. “Then it was really easy to manage the JDC1 on all the different cue-stacks. I was really surprised by the strobe, with its in-built FX section — I wasn’t expecting that at all.”

I was really surprised by the strobe, with its in-built FX section — I wasn’t expecting that at all.

Nico Riot

He continued, “Most of the time the strobe would pop out of the Wash section. Usually when you use multi-element fixtures it’s hard to keep every effect running at full tilt — but with the JDC1 strobe you can run full blast even when you have busy Wash effects going on. The only tricky thing is that you would need those JDC1’s permanently in your inventory as you would have a hard time morphing or cloning those into a festival rig as there are no equivalents.”

As for the X4 Bars, the first time he saw them in a live environment was at Linkin Park’s summer European shows. “I was really surprised by how the Bars were kicking through [Linkin Park] LD Céline Royer's design,” he said. And so he turned to the fixtures for the first time.

“On the Gojira tour I was using a similar product but was really struggling to have enough punch to use them as a back wash and batten beam as well. So I changed my design because I wasn't able to find the right product — but after seeing Céline’s design [using the Bars], I was like, yep that's what I need!”

The LD has been running 35 X4 Bar 20’s on the rig — two rows upstage and a couple on the flown rig. “The first row is mainly for backdrops,” he explains. “We have multiple layers of backdrops and drapes, so the tilts and zooms are perfect for keeping the backdrops perfectly lit as the show goes on — the backdrops move further upstage as they drop. The second row is for backwash, and sometimes they go to backdrop position when needed. The flown X4 Bars are mostly used for the narrow-batten look that I like.”

Nico himself has been touring as lighting director and programmer with colleagues from Chirac Design also on duty. The tour has been running flawlessly, with Entec providing their customary support. “Their gear is of high quality and is always maintained to a high standard,” he says.

Summing up, Nico Riot says he is delighted with the performance of GLP’s new generation fixtures. “I will definitely go nuts on the next Gojira tour using JDC1s,” he promises.