Almost 35 years ago
LD 'Chip' Monck hung a bunch of Par 64 aircraft landing lights
above The Fillmore's stage in San Francisco and then turned on
the fogger. From the Monterey mud of '67 and through the bad brown
acid of Woodstock in '69, Chip couldn't have failed to notice
that he had started a revolution. The lights, they were a'changin'.
By the early seventies the Parcan or 'Parabolic Aluminised Reflector'
was seen as the bright new future for rock 'n' roll lighting.
By 1977 James Thomas had produced the lightweight, spun aluminium
Parcan that became so dear to stage crew everywhere, replacing
the heavy, backbreaking steel Parcans of the early 70's. Soon
the only words a lighting designer needed to know were; 'racks
of ACL's' and 'bunch of Par 64's'. Oh, and 'fogger', of course.
The Parcan was robust, low tech. and cheap -
perfect for rock 'n' roll! Just like the army of 'lampies' that
were to do battle with them for the next two decades in arenas
foreign and stages far flung.
Seduced by the promise
of paid travel to exciting places, droves of socially challenged,
dope smoking, college dropouts were drafted to maintain this ever-growing,
mobile arsenal of Parcans throughout the 80's. Crowded onto nightrider
'buses, building 'bongs' out of Coke cans, they plundered the
planet, demanding food, drugs and women from hapless locals and
promoters.
The simplicity of
loading and maintaining that trusted weapon, the six lamp bar,
meant that more Parcans could now be rigged in less time than
ever before. So did we say, "Excellent! More time to smoke
dope on the bus." No. For some chemically charged reason
we shouted, "Excellent! More time to put more lights in."
Thus began two decades of armed conflict between the 'meat rack',
the truck ramp and local crews.
During the early '80's
everyone's rig just had
to be bigger than everyone else's. LDs now bragged not of Kilowatt
but of Megawatt systems. The Parcan was the Colt .45 Magnum, the
preferred weapon with all the subtlety of a drunken rigger on
coke. Point and fire, focus and flee.
That odd French combination of leather and song,
Johnny Halliday, had over 2000 Par64's, courtesy of LSD, hanging
over his head in Paris in the mid '80's, out-Par64ing Meteorlites'
metal mountains used with AC/DC and the Monsters of Rock.
Lampbars now clung
to trussing like huge black barnacle infestations and the ever-increasing
weight and size of these touring rigs produced a variety of exotic
and sphincter tightening ground support and 'flying' systems.
The 'Vermette' wind-up tower, circa 1979/80,
was a particularly worrying and inappropriate piece of ground
support and was prone to falling over at any opportunity when
asked to do anything more than pick up 300 lamps, 5 truss spots,
a back drop and 5 men. A mixture of faith and fear kept lighting
rigs up in the air in those days.
The first tentative trials with the now legendary
'flown 40' truss' often resulted in a black and silver 40' banana
as the new fangled electric hoists, screaming painfully, prised
only the ends of the lamp-laden truss from the stage. It was round
about this time that 'The Rigger' arrived (ultimately responsible
for the industry's dubious affectation with climbing paraphernalia
and getting as high as possible). Sapper 'Rigger' now fought alongside Infantryman
'Lampie'.
This philosophy of
'vast is good' continued throughout the 80's. Ammunition makers
James Thomas continued to spin mountains of aluminium into trucks
full of Par64 shapes. It was a golden age for Avolites too. Sales
directors still wipe a tear from their eye as they wistfully recall
the squadrons of 72 way dimmer racks flown out to their upstage
right positions to hum gently whilst the Marshall cabs buzzed
like a chainsaw and the PA farted every time the LD faded up a
state.
By this time multitudinous
regiments of itinerant electrical mercenaries (as called by production
managers) roamed the planet, lead by a mess of officers known
as LDs. The Parcan rig became omnipotent and its touring maintenance
technicians (as they preferred to be called) fawned to them, fixed
them and focused them.
Freddie Mercury famously
described his gigantic Parcan rig as "Lots and lots of Smarties”
(or M and Ms for our American cousins) Alas, smart they were not.
A PA company in Texas was creating the real smarties.
In Dallas the Showco
boffins were about to show us the projections on the wall. A band
called Genesis had already written the first verse of the New
Revolution in Barcelona in 1981. The Vari*Lite was the new smart
weapon on the block. The intelligent, all singing, all dancing,
moving light was quietly planning a coup d'etat. Both sound and
light was changing as electric was swapped for electronic, filament
for arc and pizzo for chips.
Throughout the 90's
the witty and intelligent moving light outshone the humble, inarticulate
Parcan who had neither the incisive gobos nor the breathtaking
sexual gymnastics of the 'OmniScan 2000' or the 'TurboTron 7'.
The Parcan became Parcan't as more and more mutations of wobbly
mirrors and nodding buckets smarmed and glittered their expensive
way onto the stages of the world. This was high tech. Fast, expensive
and sexy. Just like the drugs.
Long hours and the
need to think quickly brought new preferred chemicals to bear.
The college dropouts no longer dropped out, no longer smoked dope.
They talked to their wives on mobile 'phones and emailed software
from their laptops and talked of 'motherboards' not Mother Earth.
Dope was for Parcans.
The lowly working
class Parcan now tugs its frame holder to the intellectual master
who pirouettes in an erotic display of movement, colour and shapes
whinnying to the Parcan, "Just give me a nice even blue wash,
would you, darling."
The filament is fading
fast for the Parcan. An era is over. If you see one on a rig somewhere
(some young LD may use them for a 'retro feel' for example, or
just for sheer whimsy) do stop and have a chat. He may be old
and bent, he may not be able to move, but he fought a war for
you…
ã Patrick
Marks
