International rock icon Rod
Stewart is performing his Caesars Palace residency show The Hits under
the powerful reach of Clay Paky’s Alpha Spot QWO 800s and Alpha Wash 1500s –
proving some guys really do have all the luck.
Stewart’s long-time lighting
designer Mark Payne – who has worked with Rod for the past 20 years – specified
the Clay Paky fixtures from the Caesars Palace technical department for star’s Live
the Life tour earlier this year and was so impressed with their capabilities
that he requested them again for the Las Vegas show.
With several large video
screens onstage and one of the largest LED screens in North America taking up
the entire back wall of the stage, Payne’s required a fixture that could
provide a clean, pure, and powerful output to enhance his lighting design
vision.
“I don’t use any smoke,”
explains Payne, “It is a very clean, very sharp stage. There is a lot of white in order to let the
video take centre stage. With the lighting it is all about what is happening on
the ground, not in the air.”
Payne rigged the Clay Paky
Alpha Spot QWO 800 to the feature helix trusses that flew in and out during the
performance, “The QWO 800 is small and light with a lot of inbuilt effects.
They were perfect for the flying truss as they kept weight down and provided me
with all the effects I needed. I used them to focus in on Rod during the more
intimate, acoustic set.”
Providing the stage with
its characteristic clean wash were the Alpha Wash 1500’s, “I specified the
Alpha Wash 1500’s because they are bright and consistent. I used them to create
saturate washes and wide, open whites.”
Rod Stewart, The Hits is
currently showing at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas on selected dates until May next
year. It is a high-energy show with guest performances from a variety of
artists including Rods own daughter, Ruby Stewart.
ACT Lighting is the Clay
Paky distributor for North America.
