HSL Goes Bang with Thunder!

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HSL supplied lighting equipment and crew to the most recent leg of UK rockers Thunder's “Bang” tour, LD'd by Ian “Scampi” Bintliff. It's the second Thunder production tour that HSL has supplied, and was managed for the Blackburn-based rental house by Howard Dean.

Scampi states, “It's always a pleasure to work with HSL – their kit, crew and service is second to none, and they also came up with a very good deal!”

His designs are well known for being based on a realistic amount of equipment for the venues and budgets involved, and also for perfecting the fine art of making any rig – whatever size – look far larger than it actually is. With a challenging mix of different sized gigs on the itinerary, this creative philosophy certainly paid off, ensuring that the band had their full show everywhere.

The trussing structure comprised of four 5 metre pre-rigged ‘fingers', each fully loaded with 24 PARs, and each length also forming an integral architectural element of the design. The fingers fanned out from a central point at the back, and in between them were three 2 by 3 metre triangular pods, made up from 12 inch trussing. Each pod was rigged with four Robe ColorSpot 575E AT moving lights, 4 JTE PixelLine LED battens and a string of ACLs.

The impact of the pods was maximised by being moved in and out during the show, a ploy that worked equally as well for big rock-out numbers as it did for ballads, where they closed up the stage space and increased the intimacy.

There was an additional string of ACLs on the floor, and two 8-lite blinders upstage of the drummer. Anything on the floor had to go behind the backline due to the band's energetic performance which needed a clear deck!

The front truss was also made from a standard run of pre-rig truss, complete with 8 bars of 6 PARs and 4 blinders on the downstage rail for audience blasts.

HSL's crew were Rory MacKay, who took care of all the rigging and operated the moving trusses, and Ed Marriot on dimmers.

Scampi used an Avo D4 console – his desk of choice – to operate the show. They needed a classic rock ‘n' roll lightshow show, so no wheel reinventions were required – lots of powerful looks, accents and strong colour combinations worked a treat. He adds, “They are a great band to work for, we have a good time and it's huge fun to operate lights for them”.

As large PAR can rigs are quite a rarity at the moment, the lighting design also attracted lots of interest from local crews and other industry individuals.

SSE supplied audio, which was FOH engineered by Pete Russell.