My Chemical Romance return with Martin MAC
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The band aimed to exceed fans’ lofty expectations with massive, immersive visuals that accentuated their music’s raw energy and adapted to their constantly changing setlists. To meet these requirements, Penlight worked closely with the band to design a detailed and versatile lighting rig featuring Martin MAC Ultra Performance, MAC Quantum Wash, MAC Aura XB and Atomic 3000 fixtures.
“For this tour, the band never does the same setlist twice,” said AJ Pen, founder, Penlight. “And by that I don't mean that they swap some songs around. Literally, except for the first song, they wipe the board clean every night. I think we're up to 55 songs that they've rehearsed, and we have programmed, and the set list is only 20 songs long. Anybody who bought tickets to multiple shows will have a completely different experience each time. Lighting-wise, each song had to stand on its own, so I collaborated very closely with Gerard Way, the lead singer, and the rest of the band to get a rig that could adapt to whatever they needed.”
With a jagged, asymmetrical design and a washed-out colour palette, the tour’s lighting rig matched the stage’s depiction of dystopian urban decay while also providing the coverage and output needed for stadium-sized venues. The system most prominently showcases the Martin MAC Ultra Performance, with 36 units used throughout both the trusses and six custom-built, collapsible ground towers.
Equipped with Martin’s proprietary 1150 W, 6000 K LED light engine, the MAC Ultra Performance is capable of a massive 46,500-lumen output as well a 1:7 zoom range for a wide coverage range. Combined with the fixture’s extensive features collection, the result is a compact, all-purpose light that easily surpasses lights of similar size.
“The MAC Ultra has never let me down,” added Pen. “There are some songs where I push them forward and they completely alter the mood and take over the space. Even after the entire set design went through a major direction change, the MAC Ultra was always in the design.”
In addition to the MAC Ultra Performance, Martin Atomic 3000 DMX strobes and MAC Quantum Washes were placed on the hanging trusses. Pen found that they both complemented the MAC Ultra Performance’s modern effects and beams with wide-reaching strobes and audience blinds.
“When Mikey Way, the band’s bass player said, ‘I want strobes,’ I knew he was talking about Atomics, which is still one of the best strobes ever made,” explained Pen. “It's a fixture that was all over everybody's rig back in the early 2000s, so it made sense to have them for MCR. And then the bulk of my audience lights are Quantum Washes - I find that the nice big face of them gives you that epic, all-encompassing look. They’re not the latest from Martin, but they’re still the greatest.”
Finally, the rig featured 18 Martin MAC Aura XB. With 6,000 lumens of RGBW output and an advanced colour mixing system, most of the Auras hung in scenic trusses to downlight the set as well as on side "banner" trusses for audience lights, providing striking walls of colour that accentuated the stage design’s ominous, post-apocalyptic aesthetic.
“The XB does the same task as the Quantum Wash, and that's audience lighting,” added Pen. “It was very important for me to light up the crowd evenly, and to do that, I couldn’t think of a better fixture than the Quantum Wash. But the XB was almost as bright as the washes, so it filled in all the gaps for fuller coverage. That little guy punches way above its weight.”
The MCR tour kicked off this past summer in the UK and will take the band to almost every continent through spring 2023. Pen noted that the band was thrilled with the lighting’s final design, and he thanked Martin for their continued support and consistency.
“All of the Martin fixtures put a huge emphasis on the quality of the light, and that's where they don't compromise,” said Pen. “They've always been ahead of the competition; there's a lot of really great moving lights out there, but Martin's always have that little extra edge.”
