Guthrie turns it up for NIN with Chauvet
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The tour is promoting the band’s ninth album Bad Witch and opened on 13 June at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas, with an extended run in Europe and Japan to take place in the summer before the band returns to the US for 28 shows at venues like Radio City Music Hall and the Hollywood Palladium. Guthrie’s rig, which has its STRIKE 4 fixtures on rolling stage carts, was designed to adapt to any venue.
Guthrie explains: “We’re keeping this rig very flexible and basic, focusing on boldness and power. The show is intended to be the same at every venue, and that look can be described as messy, brutal and punk ugly.”
Powered by four 100W COB warm white LEDs with a total illuminance of 999 lux at 5 meters, the STRIKE 4 fixtures are critical to delivering the in-your face-intensity called for in Guthrie’s design. “The STRIKE 4s are used as strobes and blinders throughout the show,” he says. “In some songs, we deploy just one of the four cells in each fixture, while in others we have every cell on full blast. It all depends on the music.”
In addition to the STRIKE 4 fixtures, the Nine Inch Nail rig includes “lots of pars”, as well as high-output battens and dedicated strobes. It is a very elemental, primordially powerful rig that moves the audience through its changing patterns of intense light. Despite not emphasizing moving fixtures, Guthrie’s lightshow is in constant flux. Much like the music of his clients, his design follows its own path, never remaining in the same place for long - and never even for a moment taking its foot off the pedal.
(Jim Evans)
