James McKenna Bends Reality on KMFDM Tour With The ChamSys MagicQ MQ500M Stadium Console

NEW YORK – It isn’t simply what you see, but what you feel like you’re seeing that creates the kind of transcendent experience that takes a lighting design to the next level. James McKenna created just such a design for KMFDM on the multi-national industrial rock icons 15-city USA tour.

For starters there was some arresting imagery that evoked the feeling of an automation effect, with dramatic 3D-like movements. McKenna created this magic, not with automations, but by displaying overlapping effects through his strobe-hybrids, controlling them with a ChamSys MagicQ MQ500M Stadium Console, which like his entire rig, was supplied by R90 Lighting.

“Every fixture on this design was pixel mapped in my ChamSys desk,” said McKenna. “The automation effect or glitching that people see in the backdrop is a result of running effects through the Pixel Mapper. Additionally, to make it super glitchy, I’ll add the strobe from the pixel mapper into it. This seems to cause it to wig out in a fun way that looks like malfunctioning video screens in a sci fi flick.”

McKenna extended this mesmerizing sense of motion beyond his backdrop and sprinkled it throughout his entire design, which featured a heavy representation of vertically oriented fixtures. “It’s easier to pixel map with the vertical fixtures,” he explained. “But honestly, the primary reason, is mobility. The entire rig has to break down and pack in a 16-foot trailer along with the backline and merch. Pipe and base is quick and dirty and with everything on wheels, having a couple pipes on wheels meant I only had a single column mount point. So, vertical was the way to go.”

Mobility was not the only priority for McKenna on this tour. He also needed a high degree of flexibility, as he had to adapt to a different set list every night with scant advance notice. He lit 15 shows on the tour, each one drawing on a library of 40 different songs, with no set ever repeated.

“I would learn of the set during sound check around 4pm the night of the show,” he said. “This left me about two hours before doors to touch up programming for the selected tracks of the night. It created for some nail biting on occasion. Additionally, when we left for the tour, I had only programmed 16 of the tracks due to time constraints, so I was having to program the remaining tracks during the drives.”

“It was stressful at times,” continued McKenna. “The biggest challenge was adapting the show to each venue’s house rig on the fly. When I initially programmed the show in Capture, I added a number of “house rig” fixtures to program in as well. This show was the first time I’ve really utilized the Group Cues feature in ChamSys, which made expanding and adapting my show on the fly a breeze for the most part.”

This feature allowed McKenna to make his show larger each night than he would have been able to do had he been required to build the rig and then program in the house rig each night. Instead of working through this time-consuming process, he was able to clone/morph, and simply set positions and set focuses for gobos and other effects.

About 40-percent of McKenna’s show was of busked. The rest was run cue to cue using his ChamSys console’s Cue Stacks. “I had my upper bank flash keys as well as the 12-key Execute Keys as flash keys, so I could hit a number of effects on the fly,” he said. “I set base looks for the songs (intro, verse, chorus, bridge, etc.). Then I assigned lights to synth lines or other stand-out elements of songs — and then triggered those live as they happened. I get bored easily, so I always need to do something. I refuse to timecode the show. I make it more complicated than it needs to be, but I find it enjoyable to play along with the songs. I think it adds a live element as well. Time code shows are too perfect. The band is playing live, and I feel the show should reflect that as well.”

McKenna found the Group Cues and Group Grids on his MQ500M especially valuable on this tour. He says that The Group Cues made expanding and morphing his show “a breeze.” As for the Group Grids, he notes that they “made pixel mapping even easier. I didn’t have to stop to fine tune my Pixel Mapper FX to try and match the BPM; instead, I could actually assign it a time via the FX engine.”

A self-described “button masher,” McKenna relished working the buttons on his user-friendly console. “I can’t play an instrument,” he acknowledged. “But I can mash buttons in time, so close enough, right? The MQ500M has plenty of buttons for me to assign things to for future mashing purposes.”

Deftly mashing those buttons, McKenna played his “instrument” to perfection. In so doing, he created a lightshow that, like the music of his clients, created a magical experience by defying expectations.