Minsk's Prime Hall Turns on Its PR Lighting Rig for J:Mors

	J:Mors at Prime Hall. Photo: Shumaev Andrey

Since the mid-2000s, J:Mors has been one of the most enduring Belarusian rock bands, with a long list of hits, tours, and awards behind it. The band plays melodic rock songs with romantic lyrics in Russian and Belarusian, written mainly by the band's leader Vladimir Pugach.

More recently J:Mors played a concert called Kryly (Wings in Belarusian) -- after the single of the same name -- in the Prime Hall concert hall in Minsk. The program included both new songs and the most popular songs from its archive.

The lighting design was handled by the band's long-time collaborator, Alexander Bobel, director of the GrandLight Studio. Pugach had asked for something unusual and GrandLight Studio developed the entire concept, starting with the ideas, equipment, and implementation, ending with a final flash of blinder. Assisting him were numerous products from the PR Lighting portfolio.

The designer's partnership with PR Lighting equipment began several ago, with equipment provided by a rental company. "At that time the XL 1200 was available, and since then I have implemented many projects at Prime Hall using PR Lighting equipment," he says. "PR Lighting devices perfectly suit the riders of most artists, and there has never been any problem with coordination. Every time I have operated their lights, they have proven themselves in all respects."

The concert hall also invested in its own PR Lighting technology, and so in this instance he used the in-house equipment. "It made no sense to change the types of devices, since the PR Lighting equipment -- namely the XS 1200 Spot, XR300 Beam, and XLED 3109 Zoom -- cope perfectly with their tasks. They deliver excellent colors, excellent brightness and speed of movement. The XLED 3109 is a device legendary in its resilience ... it has been working in the concert hall for four years and as far as I know it has never needed repair."

A total of 10 XLED 3109s were deployed -- four in the booms and six on the back truss. "Those mounted on the cases were used as shooting devices and for spectacular shadows on faces, which we achieved with the help of dimmer and color effects, since we decided to abandon the front light."

"We used 24 XR 300 Beam, which were used to obtain pictures in space and geometric shapes in support of the [aviation theme] content on the screen (as well as a spectacular picture in those moments when the screen was not used)." Bobel also deployed 13 of PR Lighting's XS 1200 Spot. "The gobo, made it possible to make the scene more mysterious and interesting," he explained, "and by changing the angle of the beam, we could enhance the geometric effect." Six XLED 3108 instruments on the back-up truss were used to focus on musicians and for general stage fills, while four separate blinders and four stroboscopes provided the additional punch.

It was another resounding success, both for Bobel, the Prime Hall technical infrastructure, and J:Mors themselves, as the crowd of 3,000 fans went home elated.