MAC 700, Atomic Strobe for Kaiser Chiefs Expansive Tour

Following the release of their second CD earlier this year, “Yours Truly, Angry Mob,” the Kaiser Chiefs have been on the road playing to packed houses everywhere. With the European leg of their tour over, they have reached the UK and the show just continues to get bigger and bigger.

Lighting designer Richard Larkum has put together a truly awesome light show with a rig that rocks as hard as the Leeds band itself. When asked about his inspiration for the show’s design, Richard said, “Big, big and more big. I normally start with the biggest look and work back from there. For this tour it was making the last song ‘Oh My God’ as bright as possible. Then I worked backwards adding in fixtures for all the looks I wanted.

“The European tour ran straight into the UK tour. It was a completely different design but with the same fixtures – only more.”

And then some. “The UK rig sports over 80 MAC 700 Washes and Profiles while an army of Atomic strobes – over 70 in total – redefine the term ‘blinding effect,’” Richard states.

Big kick, small body
Looking to pack such a punch when touring obviously has its challenges in regards to weight, so Richard went in search of the biggest kick in the smallest body.

“In Europe we had big weight restrictions due to the amount of fixtures that I wanted compared to the rigging capabilities of the venues,” Richard explains. “This ruled out anything in the size and weight of the MAC 2K. I had already been using the MAC 700 Profile as my lamp of choice since January, so that part was sorted but wash lights on a production tour were new territory for me. We tried most of the fixtures available in the 700 size and the MAC 700 Wash ticked all the boxes and out-performed all the others.

“What I really appreciated in the MAC 700’s was their speed and brightness along with their light weight and compact size. The Atomics have been a staple of the Kaiser shows from the beginning though, and we used about a dozen color scrollers too.”

New pod concept
With help from his crew chief, Mark Roberts, Richard realized his idea for a new rigging concept of ‘pods’, which when combined with stage set and drop bars, sped up the rigging.

“The pods are so tidy, easily rigged and fit two together in a dolly for transportation,” Richard said. “The drop bars have a sleeve built around them that clamps to the truss using two half couplers. Once fixed the bar sits vertically in place and rides up with the truss and locks into place when it reaches the right height. So there is no longer a need for someone to ride up the truss to lock them off.

“We had 10 ‘pods’ containing either 12 Atomic 3000 strobes or 14 x 4 Lite Molefay strips with 22 LED color blocks around the outside of each,” he states. “These are hung from a mother grid at various heights, angles and depths.”

The fixtures were supplied by Prism Lighting who has worked with Richard on other shows such as The Cribs, Shed Seven and Arch Enemy. When asked how the lights were performing given the rigors of the tour and intensity of the shows, Richard offered, “Absolutely rockin! As always.”

The Kaiser Chiefs are soon to be heading back to the studio to record their third album, and we can only look forward to what their next tour has in store.

Equipment List Europe:
Martin MAC 700 Wash
Martin MAC 700 Profile
Martin Atomic 3000
Martin FiberSource CMY 150

Equipment List UK:
Martin MAC 700 Wash
Martin MAC 700 Profile
Martin Atomic 3000
Martin Atomic Colors