Chauvet lights Five Finger Death Punch
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John Santos, the lighting designer for the band, had 10 of the STRIKE 4 LED fixtures spread out evenly on the downstage truss during the tour, which ended in mid-December.
“They were my primary source of audience lighting and my blinders,” says Santos. “The show is designed around the skull over the drum kit and the two bats crossed in the back. My general lighting is very raw and aggressive, like the music. I try to create a look that matches the rhythmic and percussive feel of the music to accentuate the heavy hits. But as I am doing this, I also want to use lighting to reach out into the crowd and connect them to the band.”
This crowd connection reaches some of its high points during the band’s famous sing-along moments. “There are some great moments created during sing-alongs for tracks like Jekyll and Hyde and Gone Away,” says Santos. “You can feel the energy in the crowd. My crew chief, Marc Durning, and L2, Axel Noel, who focused the lights every day, did a great job working the STRIKE fixtures as well as the rest of the rig.
“All of us felt that the warm white audience lighting set the mood,” continued Santos. “We liked the way that each cell of the STRIKE 4’s cells could be focused individually. This gave us the ability to light both arenas and amphitheaters equally.”
(Jim Evans)
