Fresh off the success of their multi-platinum comeback album Black Ice, debuting at No. 1 in 29 countries, AC/DC embarked on its first concert tour in eight years.

Known for its theatrics as much as its heavy rock tunes, the band wanted to show fans that after 30 years in the business they still have a flair for the spectacular. Designers for the Black Ice World Tour took inspiration from the album’s first single “Rock ’N Roll Train”, and created a full-size train to come crashing through animated video screens in fiery flames to kick off the show. The massive 5000kg locomotive remains on stage as a smoking centerpiece for most of the concert.

To light the train during the group’s performance, Lighting Director Cosmo Wilson chose Elation Professional’s Impression RGB LED moving head. Twenty Impressions are positioned on floor stands around the base of the train and used to uplight the fiberglass locomotive. “The train is an old 1920s-style steam engine, and it becomes the centerpiece of the show until the last four songs,” said Wilson. “It smokes and we use a lot of pyro on it, but for the actual lighting of the train we use Impressions and nothing else.”

Wilson learned about the Impression from another lighting designer, Michael Keller, who made it his mainstay fixture on John Mayer’s most recent tour. “I’m a big parcan guy, so I was looking for a good, bright, par-style LED light, and Michael Keller told me about the Impression,” said Wilson. An extremely compact moving head that can be mounted on a 360mm center, the Impression is powered by 90 Luxeon K2 LEDs that can match or exceed the output of a 575W discharge fixture. “As it turned out, we decided to use the Impression to light the train, because its profile is so small. This allowed it to fit on the backline around the train.”

Performance-wise, Wilson says that he is extremely pleased with the Impression’s brightness and rich color saturation. During a song from the new album, “War Machine,” Wilson wanted to paint the train in a saturated dark green and achieve an edgy, surreal look. “I put saturated green light on the train from below with the Impression. Then from behind I put on this little corona of lavender with one of our other lights. This made the train look unreal, almost like something out of a comic book. I kept getting comments from people on how unreal the train looked. If it hadn’t been for the brightness and color saturation of the Impression, I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish this look.”

Wilson says that in the future, he wouldn’t hesitate to use the Impression in overhead par can-type applications. With a power draw that’s 50% less than a comparable-output 575W discharge lamp and minimal heat generation, the Impression offers the very benefits that prompted him to look for an LED light that could replace par cans to begin with. “The problem with (traditional) par cans is that they use a lot of power and put out an immense amount of heat, especially when you’re talking 200, 300 or 500 par cans. Promoters today don’t want to pay for generators,” Wilson said. “Until now I hadn’t found an LED with a good enough beam that shoots far enough to copy what a par can does. But now that I’ve seen the brightness of the Impression, I can definitely say it would work in par can situations where it’s rigged up in the air.”