More than 100 Claypaky Scenius Profile luminaires accompanied German hard-rock
legends Bad Uncles on a winter tour of their homeland in support of their first new
album in ten years ‘Memento’, with longstanding production designer Jerry Appelt
selecting the innovative fixtures to create spectacular, multi-layered lighting looks.
Appelt has worked with Bad Uncles since 2002. As a result, he is accustomed to
creating the high production values the band desires. “They’re a fantastic band with
very powerful music which is a great base on which to create stunning looks,” he
explains. “They want to give their fans the best possible experience so their
standard for visuals is very high.”
For the Memento tour, the band’s brief dictated a classic, high-impact rock show
that incorporated a diverse range of powerful stylistic elements and reflected the
identity and artwork of the album, which reached number one in the German charts.
Appelt worked alongside video director Roland Greil to craft the resulting design,
which was based around five automated triangular shaped monoliths. Each provided
three distinctly different looks by rotating to display a different visual element; one
side was made up of high resolution LED screens which displayed dynamic video
content by Berlin-based digital design house Blitzen, another featured moving lights
including the Scenius Profiles and the third side was a wall of conventional tungsten
fixtures. PRG Germany supplied the lighting package for the show.
“The Scenius Profile has an incredible light output which both allowed it to break
through the video-heavy parts of the show and also to create awe-inspiring stand-
alone looks when the screens were off,” says Appelt. “It’s an extremely powerful,
versatile fixture which complemented the rest of the rig beautifully.”
The Scenius Profile features a Lok-it! HTI 1400/PS Osram lamp, an extremely high
CRI and a zoom that ranges from eight to fifty degrees (1:6 ratio). The optical
reflector has been designed specifically for this product, in order to make the
projection perfectly uniform across the whole beam opening, avoiding the typical
hotspot effect of many spotlights. If used in conjunction with the newly developed
frost filter, the fixture can also be applied as a highly effective wash light.
As well as rigged on the monoliths, the design featured Scenius Profile fixtures in
the overhead truss, as side lighting and on the floor. From these positions they
provided visual accents in a range of colours.
The Scenius Profile’s CMY colour mixing system works alongside a CTO device,
offering a four colour mixing system each of which can be adjusted gradually with
16-bit high precision. The system provides an infinite range of colours, from bright,
vibrant hues to softer pastels and warm shades of amber.
Bad Uncles (Bohse Onkelz in their native German) reunited in 2014, putting an end
to an eleven-year hiatus. The band released ‘Memento’ in August 2016 and in
November began their tour of Germany, with additional dates in Austria and
Switzerland.
Lightpower is the Claypaky distributor for Germany and Austria.
