The Briefing Room

As VH1’s 3rd annual Rock Honors and top-name bands applaud British history-making mega-greats The Who, A-list lighting designer Tom Kenny made the most of color and motion with Coemar Infinity Wash XL and ParLite Led lights.

VH1 paid homage to legendary British rock band The Who in the network’s third annual “VH1 Rock Honors” celebration of artists who now represent the pinnacle of rock music. As a result of The Who’s revolutionary and era-defining influence on rock music, this will be the first “VH1 Rock Honors” that salutes just one band. Tune in Thursday, July 17 at 9pm on VH1 and watch performances from The Who and tribute bands Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters and The Flaming Lips. Additional performances by Incubus, Tenacious D, Adam Sandler, Sean Penn, Rainn Wilson and David Duchovny. Proceeds from ticket sales will benefit the efforts of multiple charities including The Teenage Cancer Trust, the Double O Charity, VH1 Save The Music Foundation and select VHI Classic Rock Autism organizations.

Having a long relationship with The Who, as well as VH1, Kenny lit the UCLA-based Pauley Pavilion set (designed by Keith Raywood) using a massive rig setup. “The Who,” he explains, “are innovators of rock’n’roll lighting and visuals. From the 70’s on, they have always tried to be on the cutting edge.” 120 Infinity Wash XLs and 160 ParLite Leds will be employed to deliver the strong, extremely powerful looks that The Who demands.

“The lights multi-tasked because the show (directed by David Mallet) encompassed lots of different looks,” Kenny says. “They needed to be really versatile and afford lots of options.” The 1400w Infinity Wash XLs, with a CMY-S color mixing system and a myriad of effects, feature full-range dimming, indexable beam shaping in 360 degrees, pan/tilt and a 6-80 degree zoom. The ParLite Leds offer 4 different automatic programs of color changing and fading. They incorporate full-range dimming, synchronized or random strobe effect and infinite colors generated by a convergent RGB color system. The 36 led luxeon (1 W each) lights boast a declared led life of 100,000 hours.

“I chose a lamp that would be very powerful,” declares Kenny, “and a beam that would accommodate the looks needed for this huge rock’n’roll night. And I chose hazebase base hazers because I needed a really nice, thin, water-based system. These hazers are truly fantastic. They are anything but fragile, and work very well. They do it all.”

In speaking of the Coemar Infinity Wash XL and ParLite Led lights and the hazebase base hazers, he concludes: “If I like certain products, I’ll get 100% behind them and use them as much as I can!”

The talk of the town was the stunning lighting and laser show afterwards at all the after show parties. All the stars backstage mentioned how beautiful the set by Keith Raywood and lighting by Tom Kenny added to the occasion.

About Inner Circle Distribution

Located in Sunrise, Florida, Inner Circle Distribution (ICD) is a full-service distributor supplying and servicing professional lighting needs in the U.S. and the Caribbean. ICD stocks multiple types of lighting equipment, including moving lights, LED products, intelligent consoles and much more. For additional information, visit our web site at www.icd-usa.com or call Gary Mass at 954-578-8881.

About hazebase

hazebase, with products manufactured by Ottec GmbH, is a leading supplier for professional fog machines, hazers and fog liquids. With already-strong representation/distribution throughout Europe and Canada, they are now represented/distributed in the U.S. by Inner Circle Distribution (ICD).