Coldplay on the Road with Extra Bright Martin MAC 2000 Wash XB™

One of the most successful alt-rock bands of the past decade, England’s Coldplay, is out on the road with a Martin rig that includes the new extra bright MAC 2000 Wash XB™ luminaire.

Touring Europe and North America in support of their new album, “Viva La Vida,” the show uses no LED screens or crowd imag at the band’s request. Lighting, set, and production designer Paul Normandale makes sure of that, opting for visual impact from video projection and Martin MAC 2000 Wash XBs, MAC 700 Profiles, MAC 250 Washes and Atomic 3000 strobes.

“Coldplay are a high impact band that requires dynamic looks with lots of cues,” Paul comments. “The MAC 2000 Wash XB is used primarily as a rear wash light and is so bright it means I can use less than I would with other fixtures. Plus we trim at 48ft so I needed a wash that would reach with cover to spare.”

The MAC 2000 Wash XB is a new 1500 W Fresnel that takes the proven optical and effect qualities of Martin’s MAC 2000 Wash and adds even greater brightness (over 60,000 lumens of power), new efficient fans, ballast, starter and more.

Specific features of the XB that Paul likes include its “sheer punch. They are very, very bright and compact,” he says. “And reliability has been really good.” Paul has them spread across the top sub-grid for washes and as a rear floor light.

“All the fixtures have been excellent,” he continues. “The MAC 250s as cross wash and air shot lights add a scale to the stage. Its 80 ft wide and has two 40 ft plus walkways so I needed a physically small but bright unit.

“The MAC 700s live on moving Kinesy control custom curves and have again cut really well, plus their physical scale and weight was critical.” Lighting operator on the show is Mark “Sparky” Risk.

Paul expresses his gratitude to Sparky and “an excellent crew headed by Dave Favorita.”

Coldplay opened their 2008 tour mid-summer in North America and hit Europe starting in September. This fall sees them back in North America before a string of shows in the UK in December. Lighting vendor in Europe is Lite Alternative with Upstaging handling the US leg.

Lighting Equipment:
32 x Martin MAC 2000 Wash XB
28 x Martin MAC 700 Profile
24 x Martin MAC 250 Wash
16 x Atomic 3000