nopEda Posted December 6, 2014 Share Posted December 6, 2014 Are any of you old enough to remember when Genesis came out with the first moving light show on their Mama tour, using Vari-Lites which I believe they were investors in? I remember seeing a good article about it in Lighting Dimensions. Later when a VHS of the tour came out I could hardly wait to watch it. Unfortunatley it only showed a very very brief few seconds of the lighting, not doing it any justice at all. Does anyone know if there's any video available from that tour that allows us to see the light show? The best I've found so far is a Vari-Lite promo that looks like it's from that same show, and maybe they're running through most of the main programs used on the tour: That's a pretty good representation and a whole lot better than the Mama VHS, but I'm hoping there's even more available out there somewhere... Thank you for any help!David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Judge Posted December 6, 2014 Share Posted December 6, 2014 Yup, I am old enough I'm afraid. Thats quite a good video although it does not look like they are VL1s used there because at the start it looks as if there are rotating gobos going on, and those units did not have roto. In fact it took Vari*lite years before that was available.They work very well in those big angled arrays like that. It really was the start of something. Funnily, only last week I was over visiting Dik Welland at the Lighting Hospital in Bristol and he had a few of them sitting on the bench, along with two Artisan consoles. Those things were amazing beasts! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gareth Posted December 6, 2014 Share Posted December 6, 2014 Your information is not right, David - the first time that Vari-Lites were out with Genesis was on the Abacab tour in 1981. This was while they were still the "VL Zero" - pretty much still prototype fixtures that had been developed specifically for that tour, funded by Genesis and Tony Smith. Watch the following video, skipping to about 4 minutes for the first VL cue http://www.blue-room.org.uk/public/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m76l1biGQQc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Steve Posted December 6, 2014 Share Posted December 6, 2014 In the OP video, they look like VL1. The gobo 'rotation' is just the head moving on the pan axis, then back the other way, with a fixed gobo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gareth Posted December 6, 2014 Share Posted December 6, 2014 Thinking about it, what I wrote above isn't quite right, either - the 'VL Zero' prototype had a very early incarnation of the twisting dichroic filter system in it, but the units that went out with Genesis had a simpler colour wheel type of design, so I guess they were the first generation of VL1. I remember a rig of VL1s going around on tour with the 'Official tribute to the Blues Brothers' show in the mid 90s - I suppose that was one of the last shows to still be using VL1s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oldradiohand Posted December 6, 2014 Share Posted December 6, 2014 The mid 80s Invisible Touch DVD has some nice lighting effects - I was at Wembley (as a punter) and was well impressed..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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